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Day 1 - Today we flew out from Brisbane at 11.30am and landed in LA AT 6am the same day. We didn't get much sleep on the plane as it was too noisy and excitement levels were high! Once we landed the line for customs was huge and Emma got grilled by the customs guy about how much money she had! We went from there to the rental car shuttles to go pick up the car, got a nice wee 4 door ford fiesta, VERY strange driving on left side of car and right side of the road! Was soo strange flying in as was thick dense fog/mist/smog so couldnt see b***** all but burnt off round lunch time and was a hot 28deg! Got used to driving quickly and made it to the strip at Hollywood boulevard and Hotel Roosevelt. We were lucky and were allowed to check in early at 9am thank god as straight to bed for 2 hours sleep, bloody parking at hotel is $30 a day though so may find somewhere else to park. We then went for a wander round the strip, initial thoughts, people here are bloody strange and its very much like a busier Gold Coast! Had a nice lunch then went on a 2 hour roofless bus tour of Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Went right up to the Hollywood sign and all round the celebrities houses, big hits were the playboy mansion, the house Michael Jackson died in, and the school grease was filmed at (Rydell high)! Met up with sword (Simon Patton) tonight for a few drinks and went to Hooters Hollywood for dinner haha, classy. In bed now (10pm) so hopefully get full nights sleep. We are off to Malibu for breakfast in morning then straight to Santa Monica and Venice beach for the day tomorrow so looking forward to that! Mr and Mrs McPhee xo
Day 2- What a day! Sword trained in this morn and we hit the road to Malibu for breakfast. Hot as day again but didnt get burnt at all despite no sunscreen? Impossible to find a cafe so stopped at a place called Dukes. had a real fishy smell and not open so they recommended a place in Santa Monica called Blue something.. Nailed it! Was unbelievably huge meals though, me and sword got the brekfast quesadilla (pronounced kes-a-dee-ya), and a chocolate and peanut butter smoothie ... Soo sickening. Emm got the French toast and got 4 huuuge pieces of toast with strawbs and syrup, she ate 1 piece haha. We had planned to go from there to an Irish pub to have lunch and watch the all black Wales game but after a few phone calls to different pubs we finally got a legit Irishman only to be informed there was 2mins left til full time and f***ed up the times.. Devo. But we won so all is well. From there we hit Santa Monica pier, $12 all day parking so cheap as, pier was unreal with rides and stalls, bubba gump shrimp was awesome. Walked from there to Venice beach about 1 our walk full of the weirdest freaks and geeks EVER! Watched some street ball and muscle beach.. Very funny. Anyways stopped for a few beers at the end then walked back, beautiful sunset pics but the sun goes down super early like 4.30pm! Went to a Walmart on way home and that was full or more weirdos and creepos than Venice beach. But seriously had 3 levels of anything in the world you can name, from groceries to TVs to car batteries ?? Crazy, also had escalators you could put ya trolleys on haha, classic. Got home then went out for dinner to "In and Out" burger, was unreal, the 4x4 had 4 patties and 4 slices of cheese, with cheesey fries etc soo good! Feeling fat so exercise tomorrow!! Went to the willy wonka sweet shop everything massive over here, but didnt buy anything. found out that Tues night the world premiere with all the stars of The Hobbit is on over the road from us at the Chinese theatre, think we're going to lakers game though. Tomorrow up early and off to San Diego zoo for day! V excited .. Mr and Mrs McPhee xo
Day 3- What a nightmare. Today started pretty average round 2am when the f***er next door neighbours.. Possibly Mexicans.. Came home from sat night out and continued their party in their room .. Til 6am. So both very tired and grumpy hitting the road to the zoo. The fog/smog was soo thick and cold that we couldn't even see any of the coast on the drive down to San Diego. Got to the zoo and had brekky there, bought emm a san diego zoo jumper because despite my advice to take a warm top she knew better! We then hit the skyfari, gondola over the zoo, pretty awesome views! Finally started to clear and warm up and walked round the zoo, big hits were the elephants, polar bears and the ice age 4D show, lows were the pandas, no one likes pandas, even pandas don't like themselves. From the zoo we hit the road home and our good luck continues when we got stuck in a bloody huge traffic jam on a 6 lane highway, after a good hour or so and not a breakdown or road work in sight the jam cleared up and we were on our way again. Stopped at the Citadel Outlet store and for the first time gave the credit cards a bloody good thrashing. Emm and myself both got awesome winter coats from Columbia for cheap as chips, I picked up a couple pairs of Levi's for peanuts , soo good there! Had dinner at awesome old school restaurant called Ruby's but food was s***house. Anyways as our day had started improving it was time for some more bad luck. Today happened to be the annual Hollywood Christmas parade which they block off the whole of the strip and all the surrounding streets, which coincidentally happens to lock the Hotel Roosevelt right in the middle of! Yippee! They actually closed all the Hollywood exits off the freeway so we couldn't even get close, drove all which ways around to get within a few blocks so parked the car and walked through parade to get to the hotel. Waited a few hours then I went down and sat in another grid locked traffic jam to get the car back to the safety of the hotel! Anyways back in the room now and tucked up in bed! Off to Knotts Berry Farm theme park in the morning with sword so here's to a new day! Emma has bet me she will go on every ride.. We'll see... Mr and Mrs McPhee xo
Day 4- What a day! Polar opposite of yesterday! Soo we got up bright and early again and met sword at the hotel then hit the road for Knotts Berry farm theme park. After a quick stop at Starbucks for a Mocha (pronounced Mow-ka, not mock-a, as I found out) we merged into the early LA work traffic, it almost appeared today was going to repeat yesterday however I'm starting to get the hang of driving over here... Ya just have to be super aggressive and drive like an a******. We were thinking about purchasing the "jump the cue" tickets to Knotts Berry however on arrival we realised we massively didn't need this as there was no one there. We hit the first few rides without cueing at all! The silver bullet, the Jaguar and the claw like ride. Emm came on all 3 and took it like a champ... Right up til the claw. Then she felt sick and had to sit out the next few poor thing. We then hit a couple more rides then went and watched the Wild West show, before hitting the ride of the day.. The Ghost Rider. Now to describe the epic-ness of this ride this is what happened on the ride, Emm lost both contact lenses, one down her top, had one boob pop out of her top, sword lost his phone out of his jeans pocket, and I cried, a little. After that I bought a hat, then we went and got some lunch. Tried a funnel cake for the first time, kinda like a doughnutty like texture made into a cake, delicious. Straight after that we hit the ghost rider again, big mistake after food but did get swords phone back. We then went on all the remaining rides, seen a saloon show, played some basketball games, and hit the ghost rider one last time! No boob action this time unfort. On the way home we ht the Citadel outlet stores again as sword wanted some jeans, I got a couple t-shirts and a sweater, Emm got a coach handbag cheap as. After Chinatown for dinner home to the hotel. We're supposed to hit Universal Studios tomorrow and Lakers game tomorrow night but gonna have a cruisy day instead before the lakers. Checking out in the morn and heading to Pasadena near swords to stay tomorrow night! Mr and Mrs McPhee xo
Day 5- Today started off very cruisy with a nice sleep in and a midday check out. We got up early and went for a walk round some shops, tried to get a US SIM card for the phones but America is bent. After checking out went to a big mall and I never thought I'd say it but the Target there was unreal, way bigger and better than those in Straya, also managed to sort the SIM cards! Unfort couldnt buy beers there that they had for sale as our Nz/strayan IDs werent enough, needed passports! Had nice healthy Greek salads and wraps for lunch then hit the road for Pasadena. Hotel was nice enough big rooms, did some washing finally too. After a few quiet beers and some Seinfeld went to swords place up the road and caught the train into Downtown LA for the game. Beautiful big Xmas decorations and awesome pics outside the Staples centre. One downfall was that sword got his new big camera taken off him at security as was "too big a lens and too professional" so wasn't allowed to get any pics of the game which sux, also the lakers lost too #whataletdown. So now back to the hotel for some quick zzzzz as we're off early to hit the road to the Grand Canyon which is an 8 hour drive, I give Emm 20mins before she's asleep beside me. Mr and Mrs McPhee xo
Day 6- Had a fantastic day today! Got up super early and hit the road for the long journey ahead to the real G.C (grand canyon), checked out of our wonderful stay over in pasadena nursing a sli bit of tiredness from the 1am bed time after the lakers game. We hit the road in the all too familiar fog/smog that we were becoming quite accustomed too, and against all predictions Emm lasted 45mins before falling asleep beside me. We had a quick stop in the big hustle and bustle of a town called Needles (and no, despite what Emm thought it wasn't named after its heroin population), Needles sits right at the border of the states of California and Arizona, sli south of Las Vegas. Had a strange brekfast at a random place with a big golden M out front, strange place mcdavisons or something? We continued on to our destination of Tusayan which is a little village about 4miles south of the southern rim of the Grand Canyon! Beautiful little western themed hotel with an old ranch type feel, stag heads on the wall and everything! So we checked in then went up to the Grand Canyon visitors centre and market for a look and sorted our activities for tomorrow, plan is to be there at 6.45am to catch a bus to one of the look outs for the sunrise at 7.20am (at a balmy forecasted -6deg Celsius) then walk 4miles to another lookout to catch a shuttle to go the rest of the way along the south rim and back again, hopefully be gone by just after lunch to make our way to Vegas! We finished up with a delicious meal at the western hotel of ribs and buffalo plus half a dozen glasses of red wine, awesome performer playing banjo/harmonica/singing country music on his own too! Emm loved that part of it! Mr and Mrs McPhee xo
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Hannah Mason Loving these updates guys! Joel you're a natural... change of career on the cards perhaps? Then you could continue with the lazy sleep ins and work at your own pace! Glad you're having a fab time, keep the blogs coming xx