This is it

Last day in California. In 22 and a half hours I will be back in Edinburgh. It's a very strange feeling. I cannot wait to see everyone back at home and I am looking forward to going back to University life, although I'm aprehensive about it. It's going to be very different and will take a lot of adjusting to. At least I will have the guys from Edinburgh from this year around so we can get used to things together. And I expect a few of my old friends will be about for a while too.

I can't believe it's been a whole year. More than a year. It has been such an incredible time. I've met so many great people and had a lot of amazing experiences. I've really made some friends for life and it's very difficult having to say farewell to them. I foresee much travelling in the future to keep in touch with all these people.

Declan, Alex and I found ourselves watching the very worst comedy we'd ever seen in New York when we realized it was the anniversary of our arrival (July 11th). So we had a toast to the fact got up and walked out, in hysterics about just how bad it was. That was the lowlight of the trip though (or maybe has 2nd place to getting interrogated by homeland security). The rest of the time was very much fun - chilling out in Portland, eating good food at the market in Seattle and going out a lot in NYC, finishing up seeing Audra and her family in Massachussets.

Alex, Kenneth and I did Portland and Seattle, oh where I also met up with Westley, a friend from school in Hawaii who I hadn't seen for ten years! Then we headed over to New York and met up with Marco and Declan there for a week of big city life and sleeping on subways. Not all the time of course - we were staying in Kenneth's apartment in Jersey City, just a short ride away (or expensive taxi as Kenneth now knows). I know I've said it a lot, but I really do like New York. It's just non-stop that place. So much going on, so much to do and see and it's just so alive all the time. If I ever manage to get in to the country again I'll definitely be giving it a shot living there.

Had a really nice last day and night anyway. Well, up until a point but I'll get to that. First of all pissed off Helen (it's not that hard) by being in the shower when she got back from class, when I said I'd be at the Laundrette with her house keys. But after she'd stopped sulking we went to this really cool little place for lunch (in Berkeley) called the "Brazil Cafe". It's just this little shack by the side of the street covered in Brazillian flags with latin music blaring out and the best Tri-tip steak sandwiches in the bay area. Then had a little nap instead of doing my packing, finally did my laundry and headed out into San Francisco for the evening. Helen and I went for a really nice meal at this little Italian place called "Sociale". It's in the middle of nowhere and it just looks like an alleyway but it leads to this quaint little courtyard/patio. The food was very good, some quite unique dishes like deep fried stuffed olives and gelato with tarragon in it. Couldn't have asked for a better last meal in the city.

Then went for a few drinks with some of the new trainees (Drew and I have been imparting valuable knowledge on to them so hopefully they can attain to living up to us!) and some other people to say goodbye to. Eventually we ended up trying to get back to Berkeley on the BART (where I'm staying with Helen at the moment). But we kind of missed the last train (which is stupidly early like 11.30) so we were stuck in West Oakland (a "high crime area" according to the guy in the station). So Helen didn't like that much and we had to wait about half an hour for a taxi, which then ran out of gas. Oh dear! What a way to end things. It's all good fun.

Time to look for a device to somehow compact two 35kg bags into 32kg bags...

See you all soon!!!