Claire's big America trip - day twelve

What I learned:

- It does, in fact, sometimes rain in Southern California. Sometimes the sky is grey and you shiver your way through the Hollywood tour bus experience and try to picture how beautiful it would all look against the backdrop of the blue sky you have been promised.

- I am incredibly rubbish at making decisions. I had a whole day scheduled for tomorrow (Sunday), but once Brianna asked me if I wanted to go home with her instead and spend the day in Riverside, it threw me into complete confusion and disarray.

Where I ate:

Breakfast was partly hotel, partly Starbucks. Lunch was at the Cheesecake Factory in Pasadena - their white chicken curry was yum, but unfortunately a little too fillling so that even between us we couldn't finish a piece of cookie dough cheesecake. But wow - what a menu!

In the evening, we stopped off on the way to Riverside at an In and Out drive-thru. As fast food goes, it was really quite okay - at any rate miles ahead of anything we have in Belgium!

Tourist experiences of the day:

Yes, yes, go ahead and judge me - I did the Hollywod bus tour. It was interesting, and our guide was fun, but he did repeat himself a bit and it would have been better in the daytime. (Also, when I asked him if he'd ever met Bradley Whitford, he said, "who?", which never bodes well.) Better still would have been the option to hop on and off which is falsely advertised - having been told there was a bus every half hour, we turned up in good time for the 4 o'clock, only to be told there were only two more buses - at 4.30 and 5.30 - which severely reduced hopping potential. Also, the rate advertised online is $20, but they opened the bidding at $45 and tried to make out they were giving us an amazing deal at the original price.

Beverley Hills was amazing, though, and if I ever come back, I know where to go for star spotting. And I enjoyed feeling cool and trendy sipping a cocktail at the Hard Rock Cafe.

Standing where George Clooney has stood was also quite fun, as was spotting the various stars' names on the Walk of Fame. (Kermit the Frog being my personal favourite).

More exciting than standing where George Clooney has stood, though, was standing where Bradley Whitford has stood - and will stand in a few months' time. I'm not entirely sure why I didn't wait till January to come, so I could see him in ART at the Pasadena Playhouse. I think it had something to do with wanting to network in DC in time to come back to volunteer early in the campaign. I think it was the right decision. But what with my rubbishness at decisions, who knows?