Hello hello hello! So.....I've now finished my first week of travels, and what a busy week it's been! The trip started off with a flight from heathrow to new york, all went well (apart from being taken to one side as my passport looked suspicious!), and we arrived in New York a bit jet lagged but excited! In the 3 days we spent in new york we did most things touristy, visting the empire state at night, taking the staten island ferry (which was free) to 'float' past the statue of liberty, and eating lots of new-york-esque food. We also bought tickets to a broadway show, wanting to experience the class and culture that new york has to offer by buying tickets to........The Little Mermaid on Boadway (no sniggers please). Nothing like a carribean crab singing 'under the sea' on stage to get you in the party spirit! We also spent an afternoon in central park and visited the guggenheim museum. Met some cool German people in the hostel, (taking every opportunity to explain/brag about where we were from and how we won the fa cup!). From new york we flew into San Francisco, to be greeted by claire's friend Maureen from uni who lives here. She drove us to a place called 'Manteca' where her parents live who coooked us an amazing feast (including home-made cheesecake), and stuffed us up good! The next day we drove to 'sacramento' (the capital of California), and prepared to 'float the Sac' (Claire and I had no idea of what this combination of words meant, but we were soon to find out)! We drove to a 'target' store with the hope of buying rubber ring type things, but they didn't have any so we opted for air matresses instead! So we then met up with some of maureens friends and drove one car to the start of this huge river, and one car to the end. We then inflated the air matresses and various floating devices we had assembled (claire and I still quite confused about what we were about to do), and set about 'floating the sac' where basically you just float from one end of this huge river to the other and drink beer! It was so so funny trying to get stabalize ourselves on these airbeds intitially, I was so so bad, and also wasn't out far enough to catch the current so was floating on the spot at first while every one drifted away, 'bud light' in one hand, clinging onto my air-bed with the other! Soon I got the hang of it (after having been rescued a few times by Maureens friends), and it was so nice just floating along in the bright sunshine down this river! All was well, until suddenly out of nowhere we hit some 'rapids' (they were very small rapids but rapids all the same as there were people in kayaks and helmets practising their turns!). Anyways, all of a sudden we were caught up, and before i knew it i was underwater and actually quite fearful for my life! Claire said she looked back and just saw my air matress floating away and thought where the hell had I gone! I emerged from the water a bit shocked, and my legs a bit bashed up, but all was well, and my favourite part was that my sunglasses stayed on the whole time, emerging from the water with me shades still on! So for the rest of the river I stayed in this raft thing and gave up on the air matress! It was so much fun, we floated down this river for about 4 hours. We arrived at what we thought was where we had parked so got off our flotation devices, but soon realised we didn't 100% know where we were! So we were wondering round in this forest, and it was so like a teen horror movie as there were 4 girls, in a forest, in bikinis, with no shoes on trying to find their way out ! We started to get a bit cold so deflated our air matresses and had them wrapped round us like blankets! Anywyas, after a bit of confusion we soon found the car, headed to dennys (an american diner), and had a milkshake (just for you dad!). So all in all, it was a very eventful and enjoyable day! We then drove to maureens apartment in san fran, taking in the amazing views of the golden gate bridge. We visited alcatraz the next day (the island prison), and fishermans wharf where claire and I ate 'clam chowder' (which was lush, like a creamy fish soup thing served in a massive roll). In the evening we went to a restaurant called 'the stinking rose' which is a 'garlic-based' restaurant, so everything is loaded with the stuff. We shared this dish which was bread dipped in this garlic-paste thing made up of like 30 cloves of garlic, needless to say, we smelt good when we left! Today we walked along the golden gate bridge, and are going to the 'San Francisco Giants' baseball game tonight which we're both so excited about (if only for the beer and corn-dogs!). Flying to LA tomorrow, and then onto vegas, so should have another eventful week ahead! I've added a few photos on here from the first week if anyone wants to take a look! Hope everyone is good (and you didn't get too bored reading this!), keep me updated with everything going on, and send me your current/new/uni addresses!

Lots of Love, Carly xxx

Oh and Claire snores so badly! Also, there is no development on the tan front, my face has just turned into one giant freckle! xxx