Finny's World Tour: LA, San Diego and Minneapolis!

So i figured that since I'm travelling for a while it would be good for me to start to write a bit of a blog while I'm travelling. Hopefully will make a new post for each place that I go to, or just as often as I possibly can. Guess we will see how well I do with that!

Anyways, I first set foot in America on Saturday the 19th of April in Los Angeles. After sitting on a plane for 14 hours and not being able to fall asleep for a second of it I was exhausted. I walked along Venice Beach for about an hour before heading back to the hostel to pass out for the next 12 hours. I spent the Sunday wandering around Venice Beach with some Italian backpackers. It seems the 20th of April, or 420 as it known in American is a special day for Americans. Venice beach seemed to be one of the best places to celebrate this exciting day! Unfortunately for me and my new friends we were unaware of the festivities.

The next day I checked out Hollywood with Seth Larson, I watched him almost get into a fight with an aspiring artist for interesting reasons then went back to San Diego to stay with him for the next 2 weeks.

San Diego is a beautiful place! So many fantastic places to go and things to do. Not to mention the amazing company I got to keep whole I was there. Seeing a whole group of past JCU exchange students while I was there really blew my mind as well.

I started off my time there with a trip to Laguna Beach with Kelly Eldridge. I was reintroduced to the American culture of having wayyyyy too many shots very quickly. Seems like Fireball Whiskey can really mess you up quickly! Had my first experience of In and Out and finished the night off with some quality toilet hugging time :) seemed like the perfect way to start out my trip!

Some of the things I did with different people while I was there included

Exploring the farmers markets at Pacific Beach (might have been a different beach) with Megan 'Sneaky' Stransky.

Seeing heaps of amazing beaches with Seth, Elisha and Xena. Skim boarding, throwing the disc and lots of layout practice as per the beach norm.

Pick up at Xena's uni. It seems when you don't play ultimate for a little while your throws and catches get a little worse. Guess I'm gunna have to train a lot more for the rest of this trip!

Cinco de mayo with Seth and Elisha as well as many other Mexican nights. Mexican food in California is kind of amazing.

Three days of crazy good times with Alex Fisher. Was just like old times!!!

Paint balling with Seth and all of his buddies.

Crazy night out with Quint and Alex at a house party at his college.

All in all it was a fantastic couple of weeks in California and I had an absolute blast!!! Thanks again to everyone who I got to hang out with and made my time there so much more enjoyable! Huge shout outs to Seth and Elisha who put up with my shit for over 2 weeks. Hugely appreciated and you can expect an Australian flag to be coming your way through the mail soon!!

After a great couple of weeks in San Diego I made the trip from there to Minneapolis in Minnesota, where I stayed with Christina Miller. The main purpose of the trip there was to play in a Magic the Gathering tournament with some friends that I had met in San Diego. But that was for later in the week!

Christina took me to the Mall of America, which is supposedly the biggest mall in all of America. It was gigantic... It even had an amusement park inside. Very cool!

Later that night Christina and I went and tried out swing dancing. Haha that sure was an interesting experience!!! Still is something fun that I recommend everyone to try out at least once!

For my magic buddies reading this I didn't do too well. Scrubbed out in grinders then went 2-3 in the 1700 player main event then dropped. As the Townsville boys would know normally that means it's time to get wasted. Unfortunately I made a rookie mistake and signed on for another event that went on til well after midnight. But all in all it was a great day and I had an absolute blast!

Thanks Christina for letting me stay with you!

Guess a quick mind blown point to finish this off. Alcohol... It just doesn't seem right how cheap it is here compared to Australia. I feel like I am going to turn into a massive alcoholic while I am here. Handles of rum for less the $15 and 700ml bottles of American Honey for $10. It's just plain dangerous. So hopefully I don't die from alcohol poisoning while I am here!!!

I'm writing this while I'm at St Mary's in Maryland. So much fun! Stories for this part will come later! I'm off to cheer / heckle the beer Olympics! (Delayed post)

Couple of photos from my adventures so far! Enjoy!