California

At Monterey we dined at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Restaurant. Barbara & Brent shouted me fish & chips with a milkshake - Alabama something... It had chocolate and peanut butter in it from what I remember.

Monterey Bay is beautiful. The Pacific Ocean, a few surfers & seals, classic cars, cyclists, Mexican weddings...


Saturday afternoon, driving back up the highway to Mountain View California, we wondered how the All Blacks had done against France. Brent, sitting in the back, pulled out his iPhone and checked the World Cup website as we were driving along. He read the results to our dismay, though we felt better hearing about the Aussies' loss to England.

Brent took me to the Palo Alto Apple store - near the Silicon Valley HQ. I bought an iPod nano. It came in a tiny little box, with the simplest instructions I have ever seen. After years of hulking a discman around, this was pure bliss.