Monday May 16th

It was an early start this morning, trying to get ready without disturbing my dorm-mates at 6:30am. I’d packed the night before though, so by 7am I had checked out and was waiting for the SuperShuttle to take me to the airport.

Surprisingly, the van was on time (full of movie people, on their way to shoot in Chicago), and as I was the last pick-up we arrived at the airport in half an hour. The traffic on the freeway was horrendous, as were the queues at the airport. Los Angeles – well, America in general – operates their airports and airlines so differently to those in the rest of the world. To begin with, there is curb-side check-in. All this does is clutters the footpath outside the terminals, adding to the congestion. There is no personal greeting or even personal service – everything needs to be done through a kiosk or online (i.e. check-in). Unlike Australia and Asia, the flight attendants and other airline personnel aren’t sexy, skinny, young women or hot gay males (sorry to stereotype, but you know what I mean!) – rather, they’re middle-age, overweight women with large bouffants who chew gum whilst ignoring you on the flight.

Another interesting concept is volunteering to give up your seat. Here, every flight is over-sold, so when you check-in to your flight you are asked if you’d be willing to give up your seat on the flight. If so, you nominate an amount that you’d be willing to accept (re-imbursed in travel vouchers) to be bumped to the next flight. I wasn’t in a hurry – I only had to be in San Francisco by 6pm for my Alcatraz tour – so I volunteered to be bumped if required, for a fee of $85. (I don’t t know if this is too little or too much – but this would pay for a flight between Buffalo and Boston, and so was an amount I was happy to accept).

Security at US airports is the strictest in the world. Everything needs to come out of your bag and off your person , including shoes and jumpers. They also have the much-debated x-ray scanners that can see right through to your body, for which you need to position your body like a criminal (legs spread, hands above your head) in order to be screened. Not fun at all!

Once I’d actually made it into the terminal, my first port of call was McDonalds for breakfast, as I’d left the hostel before the free breakfast had started, and an ATM to withdraw cash for the tour, which started Wednesday. When I made my way to the gate, the TV screen showed that the flight had moved gates, and had also been delayed an hour. The earlier flight to San Francisco had also been cancelled, so they now had to condense two flights into one. An announcement was made asking if anyone would give up their seat on this flight for a first class seat on the 4:30pm flight and $400 in travel vouchers – I was considering doing it, but someone snapped it up before the announcement was even finished. Imagine that, a first class seat and a $400 voucher – that would pay for all of my remaining flights on this trip!

Ten minutes later, they repeated the call, and no one else jumped up - so I did! Five minutes later, I'd been re-booked onto a flight at 4:30pm in a first class seat, and had a $400 voucher for Delta. This meant I would miss the Alcatraz tour that night, but I didn't care - I had $400, which would pay for all of my remaining flights in the US!!


That also meant that I now had about 6 hours to kill. I considered hopping on a bus and going into LA city, but instead headed to the international terminal, which is always good for some shopping and eating. There, I found a lounge which cost $15 an hour, so I paid the fee, pulled out my laptop and headed to the Delta website, to use my voucher.

Within the hour, all $400 was gone and I had three new flights booked - Buffalo - Boston, Boston - Washington, and New York - Sacramento. Not a bad deal for a few hours of my time!  I still had quite a few hours to kill though, so I shopped, ate, read, and people watched ... for another five hours ... until the flight was called. As I was a 'Priority' member (meaning, I had a first-class seat), I got to skip the queues at security, and board at my leisure onto the flight.

'First-class' seats on a domestic flight are a bit of a waste. Yes, I got extra leg room, a dedicated flight attendant, and extra snacks - even before we departed - but on an hour long flight, it's not worth paying for out of your own pocket. (Of course, if someone else is paying, I'll always say yes!). We actually sat at the gate for another, and by the time we started taxiing it was 5:45pm.

The flight was smooth and my bag was already waiting for me at the carousel, as it had flown on my original flight to San Francisco. The weather was terrible, but I persevered with my option of taking public transport to the hostel, which worked  out smoothly. After a half hour train ride, a quick walk, and a half hour queue to check-in at the hostel, I was finally in the room - 13.5 hours after I'd left my LA hostel!

The hostel is really cool, and there's only 4 of us in the dorm - we even have our own bathroom. The beds don't creak either, and the doonas are so comfy. There are actually two older ladies on one bunk, and I'm sharing the other with a girl from Korea - everyone is very friendly, so I'm happy with my choice!

Sunday May 15th

I woke up in a bit of a ‘blah’ mood, not wanting to do a lot. I forced myself to shower and eat breakfast before the free breakfast ended in the kitchen, then played on the internet whilst I decided on my move for the day.

The Getty museum was described as one of the best museums in L.A., if not the US, and had been highly recommended to me by Vineet. Using the instructions provided to me by the hostel, I set out to the corner of Ocean and Colorado Avenues to find the bus stop. Only problem – the Santa Monica Fun Run was on, and the streets were all closed to traffic! I did manage to get to the street corner, but the bus stop didn’t even exist, so I didn’t know where to head next.

I decided to do a loop of Santa Monica, looking at all of the bus stops to see if I can find an alternative departure point for this particular bus. Failing that, I also tried to find an alternative bus that would take me where I wanted to go. However nothing seemed to match what I wanted, and growing extremely frustrated I walked to the Visitor’s Centre.

The lady there gave me directions to the Getty Villa (different to the Getty Museum), using a direct bus that left nearby, as well as handing me an admission ticket. Frustrated at the delays already this morning, I decided to follow her instructions to the Villa and forgo the museum experience. Of course, the bus took forever to come (forever meaning 45 minutes, which is forever when the sun is burning and the wind is blowing!)

I must have looked poor because the bus driver waved me on, refusing to let me pay the $1.50 bus fare. Finally, something good for the day! (This of course backfired later ….) I knew the street address of the villa, so kept a look out at the addresses on the side of the road. As we passed a sign that said ‘Getty Villa, 1 mile’, I rang the bell and alighted at the next stop. Another mistake … we were still ages away from the Villa, and I was now in the middle of residential Malibu, left to walk along the shoulder of the highway.


After a 15 minute walk, I finally found the entrance to the Getty Villa, and crossed the road to the pedestrian entrance, where a worker came to meet me. “How did you get here?” he asked. I replied that I’d caught a bus part of the way and then walked the remainder. “Where is your bus ticket?” he asked. I explained that the bus driver had waved me on for free, so I didn’t have a ticket to show. “You can’t enter the museum if you don’t have a bus ticket then.” What!??? “Why?” I asked. He explained it was because people parked their car in the residential area, so you needed to either pay and park in their carpark or show a taxi/bus receipt to enter. How dumb! He’d obviously seen me walk across the street – that is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard! This is a museum which is outside the LA limits, and when I was there I hadn’t seen one person enter – and it was a free museum, wouldn’t they want to encourage people to visit!

I was too mad to want to stay, so I stormed off to the bus stop. Luckily this bus didn’t take too long to come, and I went straight back into Santa Monica. Having wasted a full morning by now, I couldn’t be bothered doing anything else for the day, instead having lunch at the English tea-room across from the hostel and playing on my laptop again, checking all of my reservations for the next days.


I couldn’t spend all afternoon on the internet though, so I decided to see another movie – “Something Borrowed”, with Kate Hudson and Ginnifer Goodwin. It was quite good for a chick-flick (romantic comedy) - I'll need to read the book on which it's based now.

The night consisted of packing up my bags, readying myself for my journey to San Francisco tomorrow - I'm being picked up at 7:25am so it's an early start!

Saturday May 14^th

After a few long days of hardcore sightseeing (don't you feel sorry for me?), it was time for a quiet one. After a lie-in and breakfast, I spent a few hours on the internet. With a quality signal for once, I cheered the Crows onto victory against the Gold Coast - good game, boys! Ready for Collingwood next week ...

I decided I shouldn't really spend all day watching football - as tempting as it was - and headed out for the walk to Venice Beach. It was a good 45 minute walk - hiring a bike was a popular option to cover the distance, but walking allows for more sightseeing and people watching. And there was definitely plenty to see - being a Saturday morning, the beach was packed. Every volleyball net was taken, with buff guys and girls in bikinis playing friendly matches. People were rollerblading/'scootering'/playing roller hockey/walking dogs - any activity you could imagine!


As I approached Venice Beach, market stalls started to line the pedestrian path. Venice Beach was actually a bit sketchy, and I didn't feel comfortable taking out my camera for photos. There were heaps of 'medical marijuana' doctors here - something you see advertised all the time; and lots of 'rasta' guys. There were a lot of freedom of speech signs along the strip as well, with anti-government or, conversely, pro-USA messages. There were even cat-ladies - homeless ladies covered in garbage bags and cats all around their necks!


The infamous Muscle Beach - the gym where Arnold Schwarzenegger used to work out (as I write this, news has just broken about his love child) – was a disappointment – a partly covered, empty gym, that looked decades old. In all, Venice Beach was a disappointment to me – even the food stalls looked like they belonged at a funfair, selling churros and hotdogs.


I took a different route back to Santa Monica, walking through an area of Venice similar to the Venice of Italy, with canals and gondolas. All this just one street up from the beach!


After another hour back in the hostel, I decided to hit up a movie, Bridesmaids. It had just come out and was written by (and starred) the girls from Saturday Night Live, and was billed as a female version of the Hangover. It truly was a fantastic movie, laugh out loud funny (albeit a bit crude at times), and well worth the $11.75 entry fee (seriously, everything is much cheaper in America than Australia!)

Thursday May 12th

For my third full day in Los Angeles, I decided to purchase a ticket on the `hop-on, hop-off` tourist bus to explore the city. At $50 for a 2-day ticket, it seemed like a good deal, showing me the highlights of LA without having the pay for an actual tour.

The bus system was actually made up of four different loops, with the first starting in Santa Monica. This bus loop stretched through the exclusive community of Brentwood, including the homes of Shirley Temple and Marilyn Monroe; the prestigious area where Aaron`s Spelling 123 room mansion is located; and the University of California, home to 35,000 students (surprisingly, this is not the biggest campus in the US!)


Once we reached Rodeo Drive, I changed buses to the red line, the Hollywood line, and alighted at `The Grove`. This is a famous outdoor shopping mall and a well-known celebrity hang-out. It was definitely packed with celebrities today! My first celeb-sighting was of Mario Lopez, perhaps known to most people from his Saved by the Bell days. He is now the host of the show `Extra` which films at the Grove every week-day. He was joined by his Aussie off-sider Renee, who used to host the Top 30 alongside the `Big Kahuna` in Australia.


Tiring of Mario, I continued deeper into the mall when a promotional model handed me a flyer. The Victoria Secret Angels were appearing at the mall that day to promote the new Victoria Secret fragrance! In fact, they were already at the mall, giving interviews and just generally looking pretty for the 100s of TV crews and cameras present. Most exciting for me was the presence of Miranda Kerr, who is as beautiful and friendly as the media make her out to be. At one point, some of the crowd near me called out to her, `Miranda! Over here!` She stopped talking to the TV crew and replied, `I`m just doing an interview at the moment. I`ll be over when I`m finished!` Unfortunately there was no Orlando Bloom in sight, but Candice, Adriana, Erin and Alexandra, four of the other angels, provided entertainment for the large crowd who had gathered.


After two hours in the scorching sun watching the angels, it was time to get back on the bus. My next stop was downtown Hollywood – Mann`s Chinese Theatre. It was now 3pm and I hadn’t eaten since 8:30, so I called into the Hard Rock Café for lunch (hey, when in Rome … !) for a fantastic milkshake (but pretty ordinary burger).


I spent the next two hours strolling Hollywood Boulevard. Unfortunately the Kodak Theatre, home to the Oscars, wasn`t running tours as Cirque du Soleil were rehearsing inside. The tour was something I`d missed on my first trip to LA, and I had been keen to do it this time around. Oh well, I guess I`ll just have to come back again!


I found Britney Spears` star on the walk of fame and then had a cheesy photograph taken, comparing my hands to those of Tom Hanks` as immortalised on the footpath outside the Chinese Theatre. At the start of the day, I`d intended on doing a tour of the stars` homes from here, but decided not to (for several reasons – a), it was late in the day; b) I`d done it before; and c) I could do it during my 11 hour LA stopover on the way back to Australia in June). I also found a Napoleon Perdis store, where the make-up artist inside told me the lip lacquers I used are going out of production! (I snapped up one more, at an extremely cheap price in comparison to Australian prices).


Back on the bus, I made one final pitstop before returning to Santa Monica: Millions of Milkshakes. This was something I`d heard about on Perez – celebrities were always making their own milkshakes here. Much like Cold Rock, the premise was simple – choose a size; choose a flavour; and choose your mix-ins (mine was medium chocolate fudge with Kit-Kat). I need to remember to always order small in the US – my medium was massive!


I didn`t get back to the hostel until 7:30pm, meaning I`d spent 10 hours touring the city. The bus had been great – giving me a great perspective of the city – but the loops were really long and the buses infrequent, which was quite frustrating. Oh well – I had a 48 hour pass, I`d be back on it again tomorrow!

Wednesday May 11th

No run to start this morning off – I was off to Disneyland! After another free breakfast, supplemented by a `Red Velvet` yoghurt I`d purchased the previous day – I was picked up at 9:25 for the close to one hour ride to Disneyland. Los Angeles is known as a car place, and for good reason – everything is so far away!


I wasn`t going to the normal Disneyland today – rather, I was heading to `California Disney`, located right next door. I figured I`d already been to Disneyland in France and Japan, so I might as well check out a different Disney world instead (unfortunately, backpacker budgets don’t allow for many expensive outings like theme parks).


California Disney consists of four different lands, each modelled after a different area of California. It lacks the bigger rides of Disneyland but there was one in particular I enjoyed, based on `The Twilight Zone`. Strapped into a giant drop-esque cart, the ride was continually taken up (providing views of the surrounding park), and then suddenly dropped into the abyss. I lost my stomach on many occasions!


A great feature of Disneyland, as at Universal Studios, is the `single rider line`. Take this as an example: a log ride consists of two rows of four seats. If there is a family of four and a family of three, then one seat will remain vacant on the ride, as most likely the next group in the queue will consist or two or more people. The single rider, who is based in a separate queue, can therefore fill that spot, without any impact to the queued guests. For the single rider, this generally means no queues at any rides!


As we`d been dropped at the park at approximately 10:50, and pick-up was at 8pm, I had 9 hours in which to explore the park. I`d well and truly had my fill of the park before 8pm, so I started doing laps of the surrounding `Downtown Disney`. By 6:45pm, I was already at the pick-up point, waiting for the bus to arrive. Lucky for me, it turned up at 7:15pm – and the other three guests were also at the pick-up point, so we were able to head home early.

Tuesday May 10th

My first full day in Los Angeles, the city of sunshine and health, so how did I start my morningÉ With a run along the famous Santa Monica beach of course! I joined all of the health conscious Angelenos on the strip stretching north from the Santa Monica Pier, basking in the sunshine hitting my bare white limbs for the first time in over six months! My running wasn`t that great – again, six months in snow will do that to you – but I returned to the hostel feeling refreshed for the day ahead.

Harriet, my English dorm mate, joined me in the kitchen for a free breakfast of toast and yoghurt and then we decided to hit up Santa Monica beach together. She was meeting a friend at midday, whilst I wanted to spend the day exploring the local area and planning my itinerary for the rest of the week. Before hitting the beach though, we made a very important pit-stop: the two English shops close to the hostel. I`d seen them the previous night on my walk, and they supposedly sold Australian chocolate!!

The first store was a disappointment – good English souvenirs, but no Aussie chocolate except for Violet Crumbles, which didn`t get my heart racing. But the second store had … Top Deck!! And Tim Tams! I was most impressed with my conservativeness though, only purchasing one block of Top Deck. Harriet also indulged a little, happy to see UK chocolate after 12 months working in Australia.


We walked along the beach for an hour or so, checking out the gymnastic area with rings and balance beams; marvelled at the Route 66 End sign on Santa Monica Pier; and checked out some hot English boys riding go-cart like bikes, for whom we happily obliged when they asked us to take their photo.


As it was nearing midday, I left Harriet and walked to the Third Street Promenade, the main tourist and shopping street of Santa Monica. I started at Kitson, a well-known celebrity shop, and then treated myself to a `PinkBerry` yoghurt (see, I`m fitting in well with the health-conscious Angelenos!) The street was lined with all of my favourite stores – Zara, H&M, Forever 21 – but I was all shopped out from Edmonton!

Next I made my way to the local organic grocery store and then the normal grocery store to pick up a few items – the hostel had a massive kitchen which I wanted to take advantage of. From there, I returned to the hostel for respite from the heat, but only for an hour. Montana Avenue called – the so-called `Rodeo Drive` of Santa Monica. `Rodeo Drive` was overkill – there was no Gucci or Prada here – rather, it was lined with independent stores and cafes, and the 34 block return walk was a disappointment. Back on Third Street, I finally located Lululemon and purchased the shorts I`d seen in Edmonton whilst with Amanda.

On my way back to the hostel, I booked into a `tour` of Disneyland the next day. I`d done some research at lunch and found that public transport to Disneyland took about two hours using multiple buses and trains. It was much simpler, and almost as cheap, to arrange for a local tour company to transport me out there on a combined transport and ticket package.

Harriet was in the dorm room when I returned, and after a quick touch-up we headed out to the English pub around the corner. (Can you tell there`s a large British ex-pat community here) It was very much an authentic English pub, with English staff and traditional English meals like bangers and mash and butter chicken. When we ordered our drinks, both of us were asked for our ids. I had my passport on me, but Harriet didn`t have anything. The waitress told us to ensure we always had our passports on us for proof of id – this was crucial to getting served in any establishment in the US. Lesson learnt!

Monday May 9th

After six months and four days in Canada, it was finally time to leave. I woke at 6:15am to quickly shower and say good-bye to Amanda and Luke, and then I was on my way to Calgary. I had been a little concerned about driving by myself – more about getting out of the city, as the streets were quite narrow and there were cars parked on the streets – but I made it out fine. Once I hit the highway, I was cruising – until the fog set in, and followed me almost all the way to Calgary. I desperately needed petrol but wasn’t keen on pulling off the highway, not being able to see in the fog.

I ended up getting petrol on ‘Gas Drive’ near Red Deer and also stopped in at McDonalds for breakfast (the very weird McGriddle again). By 10:30, I had made it to the Calgary airport, with the car still in one piece. After dropping it back I made my way into the terminal to check-in for my flight to Vancouver, the first of two flights for the day.

I had expected to pass US customs in Calgary, which is why I had allowed so much spare time at the airport (my flight wasn’t until 2:08pm, and I was checked in by 11am), but I was informed I would need to clear it at Vancouver airport – where I had only an hour before my next flight!

The next few hours passed quickly with the help of a trashy magazine, and before I knew it I was on my way to Vancouver. I rushed off the plane and followed the numerous signs to US Customs. Luckily, there was no queue and I had a nice officer, who didn’t interrogate me like the one arriving into L.A. had. It’s a weird concept, officially entering into a new country before physically arriving into the country (the sign read, “Welcome to the USA!”, when I was actually in Vancouver!), but it meant the flight was treated as a domestic flight in L.A., and I simply had to pick-up my bag once at LAX.

For once, my bag was the first off the flight, and I made my way out to the Super Shuttle waiting area to catch a shared van to the hostel. Some of the areas we went through on the way to the hostel were dodgy – L.A. is a lot like that, extreme wealth in some areas and extreme poverty in others. One thing I was very stoked about was that I saw a celebrity from the car – Paul Walker (of Fast and the Furious fame) was walking along the road just out of Santa Monica.

The hostel was amazing. It had a beautiful courtyard; massive kitchen; and numerous TV and chill-out rooms. The dorm itself consisted of three bunk beds, which with my arrival were now all occupied; and I was stoked to find two good pillows, nice linen and a king size towel waiting for me on my bed.


As it was still relatively early, I headed out to check out the surroundings. I was not disappointed – Santa Monica is beautiful, picture-postcard worthy with palm trees lining the street, cloudless blue skies and wide clean streets. Of course, I was ecstatic to find that the next street over from the hostel was shopping heaven – Zara, Kitson, Forever 21 and H and M all had large stores. There were also several English pubs/shops near the hostel which promised Australian and English sweets – I made a mental note to return the next day to check them out.


I had a quick dinner of Subway and then made my way back to my dorm room, where I met Harriet, one of my dorm mates. She was returning to England after living in Australia for 12 months. Shortly after I also met my other dorm mates, four German girls travelling long-term in the USA. It seems no one holidays for a week anymore – go long or go home!!

Saturday May 7th


It was back to West Edmonton Mall we go – round two. I’d bought clothes the previous day but nothing actually made an outfit, so I’d written a list of items I required to complete the outfits, and was on a mission to find them. My first (and only!) port of call was Forever 21 (again!), where I scored a skirt, sleeveless dress, singlet and t-shirt. The dress turned out to be the bargain of the century – the already cheap price of $23.80 was discounted to $4.80!

Since today was supposed to be a day of fun … and we were quite exhausted from yesterday’s shopping efforts … we made our way to the movies to see ‘Water for Elephants’. It was something we’d been talking about doing in each city we’d visited, and finally made it to a screening. The movie was really good – I’d read the book prior, and it didn’t destroy the original plot much at all!

We’d spoken about playing putt-putt and attending the theme park at the mall, but after another six-hour stay we were kind of over it, and made our way back to the hostel for a rest and some time in the common room, playing on our laptops.

Sunday May 8th

I had decided I’d like to start my last day off with a nice breakfast. The girl at the hostel reception recommended a place called ‘SugarBow’, about a 15 minute walk away, so off we headed. When we arrived, there was a queue of locals waiting for tables – always a good sign! After about twenty minutes we were seated, and then had the hard decision of what to order for breakfast. Everything on the menu looked good (rare for me to find so many options), and we all chose completely different options, myself having French toast on home-made cinnamon toast.


We enjoyed the café’s ambience for an hour, salivating over the beautiful meals (the French toast is a tie with the French toast served at Gus’ in Canberra as the best ever), and then headed out for a walk along Whyte Avenue. Whyte Avenue was very much a Chapel Street, with trendy shops and cafes. Luke headed back to the hostel for a nap whilst Amanda and I looked in at the stores. I finally scored a pair of stirrup leggings at American Apparel (they are impossible to find!) and found an amazing pair of shorts in Lululemon, but unfortunately they didn’t have my size.

Heading back to the hostel, I needed to start tackling the list of things to do before I left for Calgary the next morning (and a whole new country, USA, in the afternoon!). Whilst Amanda and Luke went for a walk into the city, I tackled the job of packing. Since we’d had the car since leaving Whistler, the three of us had bought additional items with us – for example, snow boots, jackets, and food. The leftover food went in the ‘free food’ cupboard in the hostel kitchen and the boots and jacket were discarded, and I worked my way through the rest of my clothes and make-up, working out what would be coming and what would be staying.

I then retreated to the common room to use the internet. This was a real down-fall of the hostel – internet wasn’t available in the bedrooms. (There were plenty of other downfalls – no free breakfast; only one washing machine and dryer; thin, old towels; etc). I loaded all of my photos onto the laptop; synced my iPhone with my iTunes library; and even booked my flight home to Australia, having spotted a bargain flight on Expedia. (I was starting to get worried as the flights were hovering around $1200, which was much more than I expected to pay!)

When Luke and Amanda returned, we headed out for an early dinner – we’d skipped lunch, as breakfast had been so good (and big). During the past few days, every time we’d walked past a certain Mexican restaurant on Whyte Avenue there had been hoards of people waiting for tables. Since a queue of locals is always the best sign of a good restaurant, we were keen to try it, and at 5:30pm we were granted immediate entry. The food came out amazingly quickly but was a bit hit and miss – Amanda and my burritos were fairly average, but Luke’s enchilada was good.


Back at the hostel, the Monopoly cards came out for one last play before we retreated to our room to entertain ourselves. Let’s just say there could be some video evidence of me and some very crazy dancing!! Then it was time for bed, ready for my early start the next day …

Friday May 6th

The day Amanda and I had been waiting for was here …. West Edmonton Mall day! After weeks (months!) of no shopping and living out of the crappy winter clothes in our bag, it was time to buy new summer wardrobes! We had been refining our shopping lists for weeks whilst on the road, and today was the day to shop, shop, shop!

We wanted to be there for opening (10am – nothing opens early anywhere in the world except Australia!) and we arrived promptly at 9:58am, thanks to some good driving from Luke and good navigating from me (I had become designated navigator).


Walking through the foul smelling Chinese supermarket near where we had parked the car (lot 55C – there are 20,000 car parks at the mall, easy to lose the car!) we arrived in ‘Bourbon Street’, one of the three themed streets in the mall. Knowing Luke wouldn’t be keen on coming clothes shopping with us, we arranged to meet him at 12:30 for lunch, and off Amanda and I went to our first stop – Forever 21! The store was so massive it was almost too intimidating to shop in. We both did a lap of the store first, checking out the scene, and then started again. I had a system to ensure I didn’t miss a rack of clothes, and I knew I had a lot when one of the sales assistants came over with a big shopping bag, saying, “I think you need this!”


Once I’d exhausted the store (or rather, couldn’t hold any more clothes in the bag), I headed for the change room. I needed Amanda’s opinion on one dress – a very figure hugging black dress, which would be great for Vegas but I wasn’t sure if I could pull off. I ultimately ended up with 4 pieces after a solid hour and a half in the store, and Amanda bought a few pieces as well.


With less than an hour until we had to meet Luke, we headed to our next most important stops – Zara and H and M. Zara was extremely disappointing, but we purchased a few more pieces at H and M, ultimately meeting up with Luke 10 minutes late.


With our stomachs full, we were ready for take 2. This consisted of systematically walking every inch of the mall, heading into any stores that took our fancy. I bought some perfume ($15!!) and we both purchased make-up at Clinique, as it was ‘gift time’. A US guidebook for me, a bag for Amanda … before we knew it, it was 4pm and time to meet Luke!

It was 5pm by the time we finally left the mall, all exhausted. We had a fashion show in our room, showing the others what we’d bought; and then had dinner at a nearby pizza place.

Thursday May 5^th

On our first full day in Edmonton, we decided to go for a walk into the CBD and explore. It was about a 40 minute walk, across the river and through a park, before we made it to the city’s core. Of course, we managed to find a cupcake shop, and feasted on a red velvet cupcake.


After that, Amanda and Luke headed back to the hostel, but I remained to check out the CBD more. This mainly consisted of checking out the shops, which I was disappointed with … plus, I really wanted to save myself for West Edmonton Mall the next day.

I made it back to the hostel at about 3:30pm and had a bit of a nothing afternoon – playing on the internet; going for a run; etc. A very slow news day indeed!

Wednesday May 4th


We could sleep in a little today, as our first stop for the morning – the Royal Tyrrell Museum – didn’t open until 10. We again had breakfast at McDonalds, where I sampled a ‘McGriddle’. It looked like an English Muffin with egg and cheese in it, but it was definitely not an English Muffin – it tasted like a maple flavoured pancake encompassing the egg and cheese!


On the way to the Museum we stopped in at the Visitor’s Information Centre. Unfortunately it wasn’t open yet, but we were still able to take photos with the world’s largest dinosaur, which stood guard outside its door. We also took photos with the hire car, both pretending to drive it and milling about outside.


The Museum was only a short drive away, and we were one of the first to enter. What an absolutely magnificent museum – the best I’ve ever been to. The scale of the dinosaur bones on display was incredible, and it was obvious that a lot of hard work and money had gone into the museum. One of the coolest things was knowing that most of the bones and fossils had been found in the surrounding national park, the most dinosaur rich area in the world. Reading the stories about how the bones had been found was also interesting – most about been found by normal citizens doing everyday activities, like hiking or rock-climbing. Imagine going on a hike and finding a Tyrannosaurus Rex skull staring out at you! Every day, more and more bones come to the surface due to erosion.


Next we decided to check out the ghost town of Wayne, which was just south of Drumheller. ‘Ghost town’ is a bit misleading, as it is still called home by 27 residents. We called in at the local saloon to look at the memorabilia on the wall – Amanda wasn’t keen to stay due to all of the taxidermy on the wall!


After lunch at Subway (we thought we better eat in town as if the drive north was anything like yesterday’s, it could be many hours before we saw another town), we commenced the drive north to Edmonton. Again, the drive through the prairies was extremely boring, but luckily we kept things interested with impersonations (all of mind sounded like a cat) and questions (what would you do if you won one million dollars?)


We knew we’d hit Edmonton once we saw all of the traffic – we’d arrived just in time for peak hour. Luckily Luke had the shift of driving into town, with Amanda and I helping navigate through the tight and busy streets. Parking at the hostel was in short supply but we were lucky to find one out the back and checked into our room. What a disappointment – the room was old and small with squeaky bunkframes and not even the TV we’d been promised! HI’s normally have a reputation for nice and clean hostels – we’re not particularly looking forward to staying here for the next 5 days!

Safeway was only a few blocks away, so we walked down popular Whyte Street (kind of like a Lygon Street or Glenferrie Road, littered with cafes and funky shops) and bought some supplies for breakfast for the next few days. We also stopped in at a Noodle Box for dinner – I didn’t even get through half of my noodles!

We’ve now retired to our rooms for a quiet one watching movies and generally catching up on things. I have the top bunk and Amanda and Luke are sharing the double bunk below – there’s not much room to manoeuvre at all in here!

Tuesday May 3rd

We woke at 6:30 this morning – amazing! We were all showered and breakfasted (McDonalds – we were sick of Tim’s) and on our way by 8am.

We had planned a big day, thus the early start. We wanted to explore the Dinosaur Provincial Park about two hours north of Medicine Hat; wander the Royal Tyrrell Dinosaur Museum in Drumheller; get lost in the Lacombe Corn Maze; and then make our way to Edmonton. It was a big ask, but with the three of us taking it in turns driving, we were confident we could do it.


We made it to Dinosaur Provincial Park a bit after 10am. It was really fascinating – all these amazing hills and mounds that looked straight out of Jurassic Park. There was also an outshoot of the Royal Tyrrell Museum – a field post – which we wandered through for half an hour, apparently the only ones to have visited that day.


As we all hopped back in the car and discussed whose turn it was to play music, Amanda realised she’d left her iPhone at the hotel in Medicine Hat. She was happy to leave it behind, but Luke and I both thought it was crazy – a $900 phone! First thing we needed to do was ensure it was actually at the hotel though, for which we required the hotel’s phone number. I stopped in at the nearest hotel, about 20km from the park, and Luke ran in to ask if they could look up the hotel’s number. Amanda then called and received confirmation that the phone was indeed where she had left it – under the pillow in the room. So began a 1.5 hour journey back to the hotel – back to the one city which we had really hated in our trip. So much for our plans to make it to Edmonton that night!


Having already driven the road towards Drumheller twice that morning, I looked at the map and noticed an alternative road. It was a slightly longer route, but it would take us close to the Saskatchewan border – we could make a quick border run, snap a photo with a ‘Welcome to Saskatchewan sign’, and add Saskatchewan as a place we had visited. A few nights ago, we had been seriously considering going to Saskatchewan for a night or two (we’d decided not to when we found out there was absolutely nothing to do in Saskatchewan.

That road was possibly the most boring road in history. The prairies are deathly boring – straight roads surrounded by plain paddocks. We cheered whenever there was a slight bend in the road or a hill! We did eventually detour into Saskatchewan – funnily there wasn’t a sign saying ‘Welcome to Saskatchewan’ at the actual border, but we could tell we’d changed provinces as the bitumen road suddenly stopped and a gravel road began!


Near 7pm we made it into Drumheller. What a cool little place – there were Dinosaurs everywhere! There is the world’s largest dinosaur; there’s a dinosaur on every street corner; even the waste disposal company has a dinosaur logo! After obtaining our three quotes we decided on a local family run motel, which was conveniently located near O’Shea’s Irish Pub. I enjoyed dinner of soup and spinach salad whilst watching the first two periods of the Canucks match; before we retired to our room to watch the end of the match. It had been a long day of driving – about 12 hours!

Monday May 2nd

After a dream-filled night, I woke up at about 8:30am, showered, and headed for the breakfast buffet by the indoor pool. Breakfast was great – there was even a chef making waffles! We loaded up on waffles and bagels and then jumped in the car – me in the driver’s seat – for our first destination of the day, ‘Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo-Jump’.


I’d had a brief drive the previous evening, but this was my first real attempt at driving on the right hand side of the road. It’s really odd – it takes you back to when you were learning to drive, having to concentrate on each little thing. At first I kept turning the windscreen wipers on instead of the indicators, since they’re on the opposite side to Australia. It would probably help to be left-handed when driving here, since everything is reversed. The one thing we all had a problem with was the positioning of the car in the road – we kept veering dangerously close to the cars parked on the side of the road. That’s why we had agreed that the person in the passenger’s seat had to be the navigator – one less thing for the driver to worry about – and also give comments on where the car was positioned.


The driving became easier after a while, and after 45 minutes we had arrived at Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo-Jump, a UNESCO listed site 16km from Fort MacLeod. Thousands of years ago, the First Nation people used to trick buffalo herds into running over cliffs. The dead bodies would provide food, shelter and clothing through the coming winter.

We watched a fascinating movie about the hunt, and then walked along the trail to the cliff where the buffalos had died. As we walked through the indoor exhibits, one of the First Nations’ employees approached us and spoke at length about the story and the First Nations culture, even teaching us some of the language. He was quite confused about Australia though – he asked if we went skiing in Austria!


We filled up the car with gas and Amanda and Luke had lunch at the A&W, which has horrific American style service. Luke got the iPods working in the car via Bluetooth – the stereo is amazing, as it’s voice controlled – and we sang tunes whilst we made our way back through Lethbridge and onto Medicine Hat. We were in prairie country, with nothing but flat fields lining the road for 100s of kms.

We arrived into Medicine Hat at about 4:30pm, and then searched for a hotel. We got a few quotes on the outside of town, but decided to move into the city centre, following the signs for the ‘Historic Medicine Hat Downtown’. We paid for a room at a central hotel, although perhaps we should have looked closer – there was a sign on one of the windows saying, ‘Henry doesn’t live here anymore. Please stop throwing rocks at the window’ and the tyre on one of the cars in the parking lot was slashed.

Almost every shop in the downtown area was closed, with only a few tattoo parlours remaining and a $1 store which offered layaway (doesn’t that tell you something about the quality of town?) We quickly decided this was a dodgy town and we’d escape first thing tomorrow morning, trying to make Edmonton whilst also seeing the Dinosaur Museum at Drumheller.

Amanda was the only one of us with experience driving on the wrong side of the road, so she took the first turn in driving. We had to first stop off at the hotel to pick-up our bags, and then the road-trip was on! We drove for about an hour (after getting slightly lost in the city), eventually pulling in at a small town off the highway for lunch. We drove around the town for 15 minute without finding the city centre or anywhere to eat, so we gave up and went to find the highway again. Of course, that was when we found all the restaurants – Subway for lunch!


Our pit-stop for the night was Lethbridge, a town of about 80,000 people know for its amazing railway bridge. We pulled in at Days Inn for the night after having a spin around town, and spent a few hours settling in and playing on the net before having dinner at Earls. The three of us then returned to the hotel to watch the sunset whilst having a drink – although the weather was quite cold, so we didn`t spent too long outside!