Cool clichés in California

At Universal Studios

Probably the best thing about travelling is the people you meet. When I met Kristin on my Padi scuba diving course in Honduras, the most I was expecting from her was that she would not allow me to drown. This she did most competently, but she really went above and beyond when she invited us to stay with her and her wonderful parents while we were in Los Angeles for a few days between arriving from Mexico and flying onward to Fiji. We are so grateful for their generosity and kindness, and all three are brilliant people and now good friends. Because we were staying with them we had opportunities to do so much more than we would have by sleeping in a hostel, and of course we pulled out all the stops to make it a full-on all-American experience.

Enormous breakfasts - check. Stuffed our faces with blueberry pancakes, bacon, maple syrup, endless coffee and orange juice and various other deliciously unhealthy things at an IHOP. It was amazing. Just the once, mind.

Zipping along the freeway with the top down - check. Borrowing Kristin's cool little Mercedes convertible we felt very Beverly Hills. Except we mostly crawled along the freeway.

Matt Damon, next to Twilight.

Stars on the boulevard - check. From Johnny Depp to the Marx Brothers. The most remarkable thing, however, was the gaggle of excited Japanese teenagers squealing over the Twilight paving slab.

Starbucks - check. Tastes just the same as in England, surprise surprise, but is significantly less pleasing thanks to the law that means the calorie content is displayed next to the price.

Spending hundreds of dollars at the mall - check. Well we have been travelling for seven months. That's more months than articles of clothing not containing holes.

Brown paper bags at the grocery store - check. Kristin, bless her, told the checkout assistant how very excited I was and made sure we got paper rather than plastic. It was just like in the movies.

Starstruck

Possession of tiny dogs - check. Shout-out to the boys, Bentley and Waldo!

Californian wine - check. Probably the best part about this was the revelation that the $3 bottle was just as good as if not better than the $8 bottle. Heaven.

Surfers, muscle-men and teeny weeny bikinis - check. Venice Beach was full of 'em: surfers washing the salt water off their boards by the basketball court, weightlifters pumping iron in the outdoor gym, stick-thin bronze girls in microscopic pieces of fluorescent pink swimwear. It was also full of medical marijuana centres and, less humorously, veterans begging for change.

Meeting celebrities - check. Nobody is going to tell Chris the canine star of Beverly Hills Chihuahua AND Hotel For Dogs is not a celebrity.

SARAH