It's all about the food...

I'm astonished by the beautiful scenery around here: big, jagged, ridgy hills, mostly covered in trees. The trees are green, but most of the grass is yellow, parched by the sun. It's warm, but not too warm (apparently it's unseasonably cool) and the sky is mostly blue, with occasional wisps of beautiful white cloud. I haven't taken as many photos as I'd like, but I'll try and get some more today.

Yesterday (Tuesday) we visited a nearby town called Calistoga. It's fairly small, with some interesting buildings, and an entire street full of murals, which I liked. I had my first trip to an American bookshop (very like an English bookshop, but, you know, in America). It was fun to look around, particularly a little art-gallery-shop-place with some impressive tree sculptures. On the way home we stopped at a place called Havy's to have some Mexican food for lunch. I had the most massive burrito I have ever seen (seriously, it was nearly as big as my face!) and enjoyed it very much (although Noah had to help me finish it). The owners seem to know Noah's mum (sorry, mom) quite well. He told them we'd come all the way from England, and they brought us free dessert (also delicious). In the afternoon we stayed at the house, reading, chatting and playing on the Wii. Noah is way better than I am at everything. We had some delicious potato soup for tea, and in the evening we played Scrabble, at which Noah was also victorious (apparently he's made this fact very apparent on Facebook). Oh, and we went for a walk around the subdivision (I think that's what it's called - like an estate but bigger and greener and further away from anywhere). It was beautiful - a pleasantly warm evening, with crickets chirping in the background. We strolled around the golf course and I found a tree to climb.

Today (Wednesday) we've already been out for breakfast (I had true American pancakes - to be totally honest I didn't like them especially - they were nice, but not as good as English pancakes, and not as good as the ones Noah made for me at his house - and they came with this white stuff that looked like cream but tasted salty, and Noah insisted was butter). And we've played Wii games again (Noah once more soundly defeating me). I think we might be going for a swim in the lake soon. And probably lunch...