Sunny Sacramento

I arrived in Sacramento at 7am after spending a day and a night on the train from Portland. I had a great day there. The sun was out and the skies were cloudless. I was in Sacramento on a Saturday and the downtown area was very quiet, the number of streets I walked alone on was surprising. However, this did not detract from my stay. There is an Old Town section of Sacramento which has been preserved from the 1860s, very touristy but lovely to walk around. I also went on a steam train ride there (a little bit pointless but cheap). I also had a look around the State Capitol building (very impressive) and stood outside the Governator's office. I wandered through the streets down to Sutter's Fort, which was the original settlement back in the 1830s. They had volunteers there who 'work' over the weekend as people would have done, kind of like Kentwell Hall but American and set in the early 19th century.

I stayed in HI Sacramento which was a great hostel. The staff were very friendly and helpful. The hostel is in an old mansion and because of that the rooms are huge. There were big lockers in my room. It is right in the heart of town aswell.

I am now in LA staying with a friend of mine, Matt from Oxford, who is starting a new job here. He is currently living in Santa Monica in a great apartment complex with a swimming pool and tennis courts. I got the Greyhound down here from Sacramento. On the journey you really get an impression of the Hispanic influence on California. A number of the small towns you stop in enroute look Mexican. A large proportion of the people on the coach were speaking Spanish and some couldn't speak English.