Off to LA tomorrow

Well change of plans, I was originally going to be in New Zealand until 15th February. But now I'm flying to LA tomorrow. As I've always said, I wanted to be totally flexible with how long I stayed in a place. I stayed in Australia longer than I wanted to because I booked everything from the start because of it being such a busy period. I knew fairly early on that Austalia wasn't offering what I was looking for on this trip, and New Zealand is the same. They are both lovely places but are both just culturally similar to England.

One of the main things I was looking for on this trip was to experience new cultures, meet people from whom I can learn from and expand my horizons. Cliche I know, but I can't think of a better way of putting it.

What I have seen of New Zealand has been beautiful and I know that I am missing out on the most spectacular areas of New Zealand, but I don't regret my decision to move on and not see those places. There will be plenty of other spectacular places on the way and this trip isn't just about visiting all the spectacular places around the world. If it was I probably would have finished my trip by now. Hopping from one place to another, not made anywhere near as many good friends, and not had anywhere as much good fun.

So for my last to nights in New Zealand I've gone and splashed out. I'm staying in this lovely B&B in Auckland. I'm paying about the same for two nights here as it would cost for 2 or 3 weeks in a hostel. But hey you've got to treat yourself once in a while. Plus I did get a very good deal and the breakfast is very good.

So as I said I fly into LA tomorrow and actually arrive 8 hours before I left! A very strange feeling. Not sure quite how long I'm going to stay in LA yet, but probably not too long and then I'll head off down to Mexico. I need to start learning some Spanish though. I am thinking of doing the next stage in my diver education on LA before I head down though. Which is the rescue diver course. This is the last course I need to do before I can do the dive master course. I'm thinking of doing the dive master training in Mexico or Belize. This is the first step in the professional training. It would allow me to get paid to lead dives, I don't want to do it to necessarily find work but to help make me a better diver. But it won't hurt to be able to earn a bit of money if the opportunity arrises. The course would probably last three or four weeks and it would also be quite nice to spend a while in the same place as I've been constantly moving around for nearly five months now.

Well that's it for now, I'll give you my opinion on LA in a couple of days, and who knows I may have firmer plans on where I'm going by then. Then again maybe not. I do like not knowing from one day to the next exactly where I'll be.