June 24th Santa Barbara -> Los Angeles

June 24th Santa Barbara -> Los Angeles

There were few things that could have voluntarily dragged me away from Devon's parents place. Brenna's promise of a Kappa Kappa Gamma soriety girl fuelled evening featuring a mechanical bull turned out to be one of them. After some general pottering around in Santa Barbara we cruised onto our final stretch of road :( and, with a seemingly endless array of songs about California, cast off for LA.

We arrived in LA and met up with Brenna's friends one of whom would be graciously supplying couch, bed and floor. They all looked exactly like the Californians on TV. It was a bit freaky, had all the ugly girls been culled under some secret Gattaca-esque eugenics program? Perhaps it's just that most people at UCLA come from pretty darn rich backgrounds.

We began the evening with a visit to 'In n Out', an apparantly famous fast food burger joint. I was initially sceptical but won over by the brilliant menu. The menu has 5 things on it! Burger, Cheese Burger, Double Cheese Burger, Fries, Coke. Somehow in an age of ever increasing consumer choice, fancy meals and anal nitpicking about exactly how ones sandwich should be constructed an 'optimised' menu had managed to remain! It's so easy, you basically decide whether you want cheese! Long live 'In n Out' I say.

Post burger (with cheese) we loaded up on a raft of our old friend 'Deux Eques' and Corona. We proceeded back to to the flat and begin drinking with Brenna and Co and await the arrival of the remainder of the Kappa Kappa Gamma gaggle. A few degenerative beers later we were ready to hit the town. However, it turns out getting a cab on a saturday night in LA is really, really, really hard. Multiple attempts and summon a Cab and some more beers later we decided to blow morality and pinch a Cab that had turned up looking for someone else. Hey-ho, lets hope the mechanical bull doesn't attempt to recalim some karma by throwing me through a wall.

Disgorging from our ill gotten Cab we entered 'Saddle Ranch', a bar with a mechanical bull and OC stylee crowd. A quick round of drinks later the Bull looked fun, and reckoning that any more beers would impair my ability to get on the Bull never mind stay on it I began reading the lengthy legal documentation I would have to sign to approach the Bull. The Bull itself is a human controlled mechanical beast that bucks and rolls around. Whilst on the Bull your only allowed to hold on with one hand, the other must apparantly be thrown around in a cowboy like fashion. Mounting the Bull I managed to stay on for a respectable period and longer than I expected, Keith slid off like his trousers were made of a some sort of super frictionless teflon and Josh with a vice like grip with his soon to be bruised thighs managed to stay on for the full run of the Bull. There were also numerous female attempts on the Bull which I mention only to note they're a bit rude to detail. One I will however mention was from a lassie who was quite clearly, well there's no other word for it (gulp), fucking the Bull. Bizarre. I mention it as I have never, ever, seen so many camera phones produced so quickly, a new danger of our times indeed :) Other than that the evening passed acceptably in an odd world of californian style chat with mexican liquor induced haze.

Tomorrow we bum around LA before catching flight back home.