La La land

LA is one crazy place. We've been staying with a friend of Ad's on Venice Beach - whose apartment looks right out onto the beach. Sweet! The place is writhing with wackos: the beach wakes up at about 6am when the traders set up their stalls and then it's cleared and pretty much silent by 11pm. Needless to say it's quite like waking up at a music festival! But from the comfort of a real (air) bed.

One our first full day, Tuesday, we walked along Venice Beach to Santa Monica for a bit of shopping and some double scoop gelato (Banana Caramel and Almond Avalanche for me and Maple Mudslide and something chocolate for Ad, in case you were wondering).

Then in the afternoon we wandered to the canals of Venice. I've never been to the real thing in Italy, but I'm guessing there are fewer palm trees than this:

Then in the evening we headed to Dodger Stadium to see the LA Dodgers vs Atlanta Braves. I'm not a baseball expert, but the games are pretty long. Especially when no one scores... Luckily, I had a Super Dodger Dog to keep me occupied. It's super because it's 'ALL BEEF'. God knows what the un-supers have in them.

Wednesday was Disney day. Ad burst out laughing when he saw the castle. Apparently, it's about a fifth of the size of the one in Florida. Whatevs. It's the Disney castle!! We went on all the scary rides; Big Thunder Mountain was the best. And Adam has the slo-mo video of me screaming my way round (with my ruddy arms in the air) to prove it. We also encountered the most freakishly nice 'Cast Member' who sold us our caramel apples. Like a fully grown Child Of The Damned. *Shudder*

Today was our last full day. Randomly, some guys from work were in town for a shoot so we met them on Hollywood Boulevard and saw the stars. Only the ones of the pavement, though. Also saw some crazy get lairy with a poor tour seller. Time to leave...

Check out this sight from the car:

This is how they carry bikes on buses in LA, folks.

For lunch, we drove up to Griffith Park Observatory - a welcome respite from the madness at city level. Bloody brilliant. Hollywood sign, view of the sprawling LA County, cheese enchilada, fruit, chill.

We ended the day with two indulgences: a Whole Foods shop and laundry. Excellent.

Next stop: Flagstaff, Arizona for the Grand Canyon. Let the road tripping commence.

From Mid-West to West Coast

Monday morning in Ann Arbor:

Tuesday afternoon in Venice Beach, LA:

Ann Arbor: a food tour

Welcome to our extensive food tour of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Prepare to feel hungry.

First night: falafel. For any Bristolians reading, the Jerusalem Garden beat Magic Roll. Oh yeah, seriously good.



I didn't get a photo of the actual wrap because we were walking and eating, but I did get hummus all over my jeans (which I didn't realise until we came out of the orchestra recital). A worthy souvenir.

The next morning we slept in, so we skipped breakfast and headed out to Zingermans. People, this place is SOMETHING ELSE. It's a Jewish deli-cum-restaurant, and they make pretty much everything inhouse - even the olive oil and cheeses. It was just as well the line was long to get in because we needed about 20 minutes so choose from the massive menu. Eventually, I narrowed it down to the pastrami on toasted rye. Ad and Allie had the fish and Mike went for a wonderful meat combo I think.

When we got to the front of the line, this was waiting for us.

The pimento cheese, made with olives, was incredible. And that was just the beginning of the experience.

Oh, pastrami sandwich. I love you. We also had some mac and cheese. Never again will we be able to eat m&c from a can. This was so tasty.

Unsurprisingly, we were full till dinner (when we went off to explore the musical realms of our MiNDs) so we packed a little picnic to eat in the university union. We're not going to New York on our mini American adventure, but this is one Big Apple.

On Sunday morning, after a hearty breakfast made by Mike...



...we wandered downtown to look in the shops - oh, and to eat even more. Micro breweries are pretty big over here, so Allie and Mike took us to one of their favourites, the Jolly Pumpkin, which has been brewing since 2004.



What you see here are two lots of nine samplers of beer between the four of us. The Siren Amber was a smooth, creamy, yummy beer. The Madruga Obscura was a beast of a poisonous stout. Uck!

It was about 1pm and we (well, me at least) were starting to get a bit tipsy. It was okay, though, 'cause we washed it all down with truffle fries (OMG, so good), a truffle pizza and a delicious margerita with succulent sun-dried tomatoes.




Just a few hours later, after adventures in the awesome record shop and a neverending book store called the Dawn Treader, we went to Blue Nile, an Ethopian restuarant where you use the pancake-like bread to pick up the spiced lentils, cooked cabbage and collard greens and other yummies.



You'd think we'd have collapsed if we so much as looked at any more food... but I couldn't resist dragging us to Cupcake Station on the way home for some treats to have later on.

Here's the Bumpalicious (the chocolate one on the right) and a delish caramel-y little guy whose name I can't remember. Both were hiding a gooey marshmallow filling.



Greedy? Absolutely. But after all...



A sweet end to a super sweet weekend.

Ann Arbor: a musical tour

Tonight is our last night in Ann Arbor, Michigan with our amazing hosts Allie and Mike.

Mike is studying at University Of Michigan so on our first night we headed to the university's Hill Auditorium to see the University Symphony Orchestra. Incredible. And free!

Most of the musicians are in their early 20s. Wowsers. On Saturday night we went a little more leftfield.... and experienced MiND (Music in Neural Dimensions). Yes. Exactly as kooky as it sounds. These people had ECG machines on their heads which read their brain waves and translated them into 'music'. Behold.

Wow. Our MiNDs were a little blown by this hour of meditative brain wave weirdness but as we were walking through the uni buildings to stay out of the wind and get back to the car, we came across a little party in a foyer and they let us eat their cupcakes!

The frosting was like whipped marshmallow. Very yummy and musically themed to boot. This would never have happened at Cardiff Uni... We'd had a late night the night before so we decided to go back to Allie and Mike's apartment and chill out. The car had other ideas when it died at an intersection. Luckily the very very nice AAA man came to our rescue (he was pretty buff too, FYI).

To conclude our musical tour of Ann Arbor, we went downtown on Sunday (today) and hit Encore record store. Oh, and it was National Record Store Day over here yesterday so our visit to Encore was double the fun. I bought Dolly Dolly Dolly for $6.

There ends our musical tour of Ann Arbor. Our food tour was even more epic. But that's another blog post.

Hello Chicago...

And we're done in the Windy City. While Chicago didn't earn that title for its weather (that's right, fact fans), it doesn't mean the wind don't blow in Chicago. It blows and it blows cold. So cold, in fact, that you need to go back to your hotel room for more clothes. Not that you'd guess from these pictures.

Yep, we lucked out with the weather. It was freezing on Tuesday, nose-burningly warm on Wednesday, and freezing again on Thursday, but the sun shone for us most of our stay.

On the Tuesday, after getting breakfast in Whole Foods, we shivered our way up to Oak Street Beach where you can look right across Lake Michigan from Lake Shore Drive. A lake by name but it may as well have been the Atlantic Ocean to my eyes - it goes on for miiiiillles. And, as Chicago resident David Schwimmer told us on our multi-media tour of the John Hancock Observatory, Lake Michigan is larger than the states of Delaware and New Jersey combined (well, he didn't say exactly that but I can't quite remember and this is still true). That's big.

Speaking of the John Hancock building, here's the view. 

Pretty special. And my favourite part of our stay in Chicago (apart from the tacos in Lincoln Park, but I'll get to that in a bit). David Schwimmer's audio tour was great. A little Chicago education via headphones. Plus I hadn't watched Friends in approximately three days, so that made up for it...

We also went to Navy Pier (alas the Ferris Wheel was closed, along with a lot of cafe booths, etc, for the season) and Millennium Park to see Cloud Gate aka 'The Bean'.

On Wednesday, we made use of our sporks (yus!) and had a taste of home with Dorset Cereals, rode the El line and saw the station where While You Were Sleeping was filmed (the pic below is a station or two away from Randolph but whatevs), saw the Buckingham Fountain at Grant Park, walked along the lake shore in the sunshine and ate our body weight in tater tots and battered pickles.

On our last full day, Thursday, old man Gasson and old bird Rice had sore hips from all the walking. So we got a Red Line up to Lincoln Park and strolled the zoo and up to Oz Park, which is named after Lyman Park Baum, the writer of The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz and a Chicago resident. Lincoln Park was really nice and chilled, the quiet streets lined with red brick houses and weather-boarded buildings. And it was home to the incredible Taco Joint. Mmmm-hmmm. The tacos were $3! Criminally cheap. Best guacamole I've ever had. If the Mexican food in LA lives up to this then we are onto a winner. (The last picture is a beaut to show just how good that corn was.)

After a quick stop to see Wrigley Field and have a car pull over to tell us, "You do know the Cubs suck? White Sox are down south!!" (first-hand experience of the two Chicago baseball teams' rivalry, awesome), we went to the Art Institute Of Chicago (free from 5-8pm) before having a thin crust pizza at Giordano's - not a patch on Lombardi's in New York, btw.

So that was Chicago. And now to Ann Arbor, Michigan on the Amtrak Wolverine. Choo choo!

Footnote: We're actually in Ann Arbor now. Hi!

We're here! Time for pizza pie....

Greetings from Chicago! We are here. It was a long old journey: left the house in Bristol at 8am and arrived at our hotel at 2am local time. Yawn.... But we didn't hit the sack before getting ourselves some genu-wine Chicago pizza pie. Oh look, Gino's East is right next door to our hotel.

The walls of this place are covered in writing. Check out the board.

The boy was very excited...

And ruddy hungry. So he ordered some garlic bread sticks to start. We thought they'd be like the bread sticks you can buy in Sainsbury's.

WRONG! These babies are least the size of a jumbo weenie from the chippie.

And then came the main event (soundtracked by Bennie & The Jets, awesome). Deep dish cheese and spinach pizza pie. This is a small.

"Phenomenal!" according to a guy outside the place. I'd agree if I'd been able to manage more than about three mouthfuls. It was about 4am UK time at this point...

I'll have another free refill, though.

Gifted

So today was my last day at work for nine weeks. Very strange... in a very good way! The weather was feeling my holiday vibe: the sun had its shiniest hat on, it was a balmy 18 degrees and we left for office at 4pm. Hello, shandy o'clock.

What made the day even nicer was an unexpected gift from my good friend Ed.

Yus! Road Trip USA: Cross-Country Adventures On America's Two-Lane Highways. Most excellent present and a book I've had on my Amazon Wish List for an age but never got around to ordering. So many (full colour!) pages of road trip awesomeness...

So, thanks Edster!