So after 2 weeks in Mexico City I had my fill of Mexico. Mexico City is super cool but it is a really exhausting city, especially when you’re working. There is way too much traffic, it’s impossible to go anywhere sometimes without spending 2 hours in a traffic jam, and if you’re going to multiple meetings you end up spending 6-8 hours in jams each day. Luckily, after my first weekend with the putas in Monterrey, we spent the second weekend in Puebla, with my friend Hugo. The highlight of that trip was trying to teach Juan cumbia or Mexican cowboy dancing. If you’ve ever seen Juan attempt dancing of any genre you will understand why. My night meanwhile was spent drinking mestizo and dancing with Hugo (a seasoned pro) until the end of the night when I captured the interest of a young señor who had clearly come in after a wedding or some kind of celebration where multiple bottles of tequila had been drunk (hiccup). He was a biiiiig boy but man did he move. Certainly not in an organised fashion that was recognisable as any genre of dance- it was more like creative modern dance meets mild epileptic shock but it was wild and energetic nonetheless.

So after that crazy weekend and a tough week of work, I was on my way to California for a long weekend. Koki, the best man of one of my best friends had recently moved to San Diego and was eager to explore so had invited me over for a long weekend.

Before heading off with him I had a brunch planned with my friend Marian. Marian wanted to welcome me with an all American affair and we headed to the Cheesecake Factory. The breakfast selection was to die for. I mean fried chicken and waffles?! Who invented that combo?! Get that person a medal please. Anyway, I opted for the French toast option which was amazingly delicious. After ordering I continued to glance at the menu and noticed that they include the number of calories next to each dish. I went back to mine. 2,500 calories. Yes, you did read that right. Two thousand, five hundred calories. Now I don’t know much about calories but I do know that that is about 1,000 calories more than my recommended daily intake. Thats like eating a whole day’s worth of food and then eating two Big Macs on top and it’s only 11am. I promise you, it didn’t even appear that bad- it didn’t come with whipped cream and peanut butter- just your average French toast with maple syrup and a couple of pieces of bacon. In the end I only managed half, as I got full, but I also wondered whether that was my body subconsciously reminding me of the hereditary heart problems running in our family.

After breakfast the next stop was a mini Californian road trip 🙂 Koki had heard that Palm Springs is a good spot so we decided to spend the weekend there relaxing in the middle of the desert. I didn’t expect there would be much to do except drink, eat and relax. I still had to get better at the relaxing part but I am certainly a seasoned pro at the first two so this sounded like the right kinda place for me!

Halfway through our roadtrip Koki was getting peckish and we decided to stop for lunch. After my 2,500 calorie breakfast I was now borrowing off the next day’s daily allowance, although I’m pretty sure that after two and a half weeks in the Americas I had already used up my yearly allowance about halfway through the trip. People who don’t know me would assume there was no lunch for me, or potentially a salad or something light. People who know me know better than that. And people who know me and have been to California with me will know my favourite burger joint in the world is In n’ Out burger (found mainly in Cali and not many other places in the world). So our ‘light’ lunch consisted of burgers and animal fries (yes they’re named animal fries for a reason). And to finish off that chapter, in case you were wondering, I of course had dinner later in the evening as well.

So we arrived in Palm Springs and the first thing we did was to get into even more summery clothes (its autumn going into winter by the way so lows of 34 degrees celsius). By this point it was getting late so we jumped in an uber and told the uber driver to take us to the area where all the main bars are. “You’re going to the festival, right?” Festival?! In this tiny little city in the middle of the desert?! “Yes”, the uber driver replied, “it’s Palm Springs Pride weekend, one of the most important Prides in California”. We were later to find out this meant that over 100,000 people (most of which were middle-aged, extremely muscly, and always sun-kissed homosexual men) had filled up this tiny little place for the weekend, and only two of these tourists hadn’t packed any leather or rainbow attire (I’ll let you make your own mind up if I’m talking about myself and Koki).

What happens in Palm Springs, stays in Palm Springs, but I can tell you this weekend just got a helluva lot more fun. Drag shows, pride parties and my personal favourite entertainment of the weekend – California’s professional LGBT cheerleaders (see performance below).

On the way back to San Diego we made the obligatory shopping stop in the outlet malls where I seemed to randomly remember things that I’ve “really really needed to buy” from the last 10 years and somehow managed to spend over $100 on super super cheap stuff (the Primark syndrome).

The next day in San Diego’s Fashion Valley mall the shopping fever hadn’t died down but this time everything was full cost. Let’s just say the credit card took a beating but I felt like an all American princess. Jebiga, when in Rome…

The most beautiful thing we saw however was the absolutely amazing sunset that we caught in the middle of the Californian desert. I’ll be California dreamin’ that one on many a cold and wet London day I’m sure.

So my four days in glamorous California were over and sadly it was time to ship me back to normality. 15 hours later I was already on the London Underground sausaged between a bunch of fellow commuters with nothing but my memories (including an extra 4 kilos of memory in the belly area)…oh…and a shit ton of shopping 🙂 And imagine how depressing it was to have my porridge for breakfast- a mere 150 calories- now my belly needs 17 of those to fill me up. It was definitely time to start planning my next trip 🙂