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My first post!
Ok, so here we go. I'm currently sitting in New York and have no way of contacting people aside from this blog and Facebook. So let's see if I can actually write a blog and not just end up with a series of small posts with ever increasing time between them...
First off was my stop in LA. The flight took 13 hours, but was really not bad at all. That may have had something to do with the movies on demand I had access to and so I managed to watch Adventureland, Night at the Museum 2, some Russel Crowe movie and a few others as well as get in a 2 hour nap to try and adjust for the time difference I'd be facing. LA is 17 hours behind Melbourne so Ash will be pleased that according to me his birthday actually went for 41 hours...
I got into the airport which is quite a while away from anything else and immediately jumped into the front seat of a shuttle. One of the most bizarre feelings is jumping into the front seat of a car on the right hand side and not having a steering wheel in front of you.
After arriving at the hostel at 8am I was told that I wasn't allowed to check in until 12pm. This meant that I dropped my bags off and wandered the streets for a while.
Recently watching Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson mentioned that one of the great American innovations was the ability to turn right at any time (even during a red light). I actually think one of the great things is the fact that their pedestrian lights have a countdown for how much longer you have to cross before you've got to wait again. Oh yeah, and LA didn't actually have buttons to stop the traffic so you could cross. Everything is just on a cycle and so you just keep wandering and everything just eventually goes your way.
I went to a local farmer's market (basically just like Pipework's) and basically just wandered the streets for a while as the heat slowly rose to about 100 degrees (farenheit of course). Once I'd checked out everything within a reasonable distance it was time to head back and reset my body clock as well as book a full day tour for the following day.
That night I saw a little TV as I read and chatted to other guests at the hostel. I met a gentleman named Ceasar from Spain who was drunk for the first time in his life and a group of English girls who were leaving the next morning. My favourite TV ad has been one for Asthma medication. Apparently this medication is not to be used instead of Ventalin, but will possibly alleviate the "other" symptoms of asthma. "Other" symptoms meaning the ones aside from having asthma attacks. Oh yeah, the side effects for the medication may involve "Death from asthma related symptoms". I wish I was making that up.
Anyways, on with the story. The next day I spent an hour waiting in front of the hostel waiting for my tour bus worrying that it wasn't going to pick me up. Luckily it arrived and as I boarded I met Ali and Anna whom I ended up spending most of my remaining time in LA with. The tour took us as close to the Hollywood sign as you can get, to Michael Jackson's house, past Tom Cruise's house, Jennifer Aniston's, Christins Aguilira's, Ringo Starr's and a bunch of other people's. We saw the Playboy mansion, heaps of restaurants owned by celebs, a massive mansion called Greyskull or Greystone (you know how I am with names) that's still used for movies and has been in heaps already (including Ghostbusters). We also went for a stroll down the Sunset Strip and Rodeo Drive and had a stop at Venice Beach. For lunch I had "Chicken Cheese Fries" which is exacty what it sounds like. Lumps of "chicken" on top of fries covered in "cheese". It "tasted" like you'd "imagine".
Once we got back the girls went to have a nana nap and dinner while I floated around for a bit before we decided to head out to a bar.
We ended up going to Saddle Bar which had incredibly poor table service, but made up for it by sitting us next to the mechanical bull ride (leading me to wonder why we don't have more of these automatic breast-flashing machines in Melbourne). And by having Quentin Tarantino sitting at the table next to us. Suprisingly though, the lights all came on at 2am and the bar staff literally went around taking drinks out of people's hands if they hadn't finished them as their licence stopped at 2 on the dot... I can't imagine what would happen if they tried those tricks back home. Even worse though, was the fact that *nothing* was open after that. Literally nothing. You couldn't even buy a bottle at a supermarket. Which meant it was time to go home. And loudly wake up my retarded roommates who'd decided that the best place to put all their bags was directly in front of the door...
After a few hours sleep I jumped on another shuttle and made my way here to NY. I know there's bits and pieces I'm forgetting, but I'll put them in a later post.
Fun Fact: Apparently the French are stronger than anyone first thought. One of them grabbed a lock and physically ripped it in half after a mobile phone in a locker woke him up and the owner was not around to open said locker to turn off the phone. I suspect that this may be the start of a super-soldier project.
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