Zach, our tourguide, told us that he was planning to do more than a usual tour and, of course, all of us liked this idea. So we went to Venice Beach at first to have a coffee and to take a look at the beach. Some of us might had hoped to meet Pamela Anderson there, but unfortunately they did no Baywatch movie at that time. So we got a little accustomed to each other, did not enjoy the weather (big and fat clouds instead of Californian sun). Some people, anyway, were brave enough to try the water temperature of the pacific ocean (brrrr - a little cold), we saw a fitness club where Arnold Schwarzenegger used to do exercises in former times and finally entered the van again to drive to Beverly Hills.

In Beverly Hills we visited a park which was named after Will Rogers, the singing Cowboy. Zach explained us that this guy was more famous than John Wayne. However, John Wayne is still my favorite as I know him better. Again we entered the van to drive to the Hollywood Boulevard. There we took photographs of the Chinese Theater, of moviestar's stars, finger and footprints, we bought postcards and some souveniers as well. Afterwards we went to a location where we could enjoy a marvellous view on the marvellous smog of LA. We were able to guess the houses' silhouettes. But we could see the famous Hollywood letters and they were not covered by smog. As it was getting around lunchtime, we went towards the centre of the old mexican town to have lunch in a restaurant. Sorry - but I forgot the name. (Zach will not like that, so I hope someone can tell me!)

After a delicious Sandwich Dinner with the famous French dip in Philipp's restaurant we took a look at the former centre of LA at the mexican market. Again we bought some nice souveniers, we watched a performance of Indian Dancers and saw the Mission of Los Angeles. Los Angeles was founded by the Spanish who built lots of missions along the coast to bring christianity to the Indians and to claim the land for the Spanish crown. Anyway, for us it was time to leave and to get on the road. On the way to our camp we passed Ventura, where we took a closer look at the mission there and approached our first camp which was located near Santa Barbara, right at the ocean. Of course some of us went swimming - for some people the water was a little to fresh...

The next day we were driving on the Highway number One to the north, after leaving our night camp, preparing breakfast, washing dishes, loading the Van again (Egbert and I got a lot stronger on that trip I guess)... However, we were on the way North and stopped at some very nice places. We saw elephant seals - they were just lying the beach and sleeping - we saw wonderful Nature in the Big Sur - we stopped in a town with saloons and a sherif's office like in the Wild West - and we finally arrived in San Francisco where we had the check-in in the Hotel and went for a Dinner in one of Zach's favorite restaurants in China Town.

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