Things I have learnt in LA/Socal - Part two

Things I have learnt this week:

• It still gets up to 87 degrees in October.
• Dolphins are an exceedingly common sight in the Pacific, but it never grows tiresome seeing them.
• 'Kettles' are only available on the gas stove. I haven't seen an electric kettle since I arrived. They take approx 6 minutes to boil and the plastic handle gets so hot you have to pick it up with an oven mitt or tea towel - rubbish.
• Washing and drying machines are absolutely enormous and can do a load for a family of approximately 10 people.
• Rock music is on the radio ALOT! This is the necessary music to listen to in California, particularly down the PCH.
• You can only park on the side of the road that the traffic is travelling in.
• Great Danes only need about 10 minutes exercise per day.
• Gas is no longer cheap - $4.45 per gallon is the cheapest I have seen in HB.
• American football is fun to watch, and in my amateur eyes more entertaining than baseball.
• The restaurants here are plentiful and always seem to be busy, but all the natives are pretty slim making me think that no one eats, or they spend hours at the gym every day working everything off.
• They have unlimited champagne brunches on a Sunday at the Waterfront Hilton.
• Surfers will sit out on their boards for literally hours with very little wave action taking place.
• Despite the two political parties being far further apart on the left and right than anything we have seen in the UK for 40 odd years, there are still people who don't know who they are going to vote for in November. Crazy!
• They put sugar in everything. The only bread I can find without sugar is pumperknickel. I bought some crackers yesterday without looking at the label - 2nd ingredient? Sugar! In a savoury cracker!!! They must have an incredibly powerful sugar lobby here!
• Americans can talk. I mean really talk! I struggle to get a word in edgeways sometimes (very hard to believe I know!!!)