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LAX didn't have WiFi so unfortunately we couldn't finish our story last night. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 11.50pm but it was 12.20am before we took off.
Check out time was 11am and we knew from last year that the hotel would mind our bags for us until we went to the airport. As it was so hot, we asked about paying extra to keep the room until 6pm. We were able to pay $99 and keep the room. It was money well spent. We packed our bags before we went out for the day.
First stop was Sherman Oaks. This was an area Robyn was keen to see. We went to the Westfield - it was cool inside!!! I had dropped my Wayfarers and chipped one of the lenses which was annoying me. We stopped at Sunglass Hut to look some new ones. The girl offered me 20% off if I bought that day so I did.
Once we left Westfield we drove around the streets a bit. It seemed to be a Jewish area as there were lots of Jewish men walking around. They were all carrying a long white bag which seemed to have pieces of bamboo in it. I don't know what that was for.
We headed to Bel Air after that. It is such a nice area and always seems cooler because of the big trees. There are some private gated areas which we couldn't drive into so we just looked at the gorgeous houses along the main streets.
We had decided to have lunch at Pink's which is a bit of an LA institution. Their house specialty is chilli dogs. The line was quite long - snaking around in front of the building. It was hot in there - no air con- and the staff looked very hot. I ordered us each a chilli cheese dog. It turned out to be a hot dog with a cheese slice and a huge blob of chilli on top. It tasted ok but is one of those things I won't need to have again.
We had parked across the road from Pink's in La Brea St. A few doors up from Pink's was a place advertising medical marjiuana. Across the road from that was a Dog Agility Training Centre and Canine Social Club. They had a big sign up for a Doggy Disco. Only in LA!!!!!!!!
After lunch we headed off to Hollywood Bvld for Rob to pick up a few things. Once we had all the last minute bits and pieces we went back to the hotel for showers. We checked out just before 6pm and then started the art of getting all the bags in the car. We had to put them on the back seat with the roof down and then put it up again.
It took us about 40mins to drive to the airport. A man with a handheld device checked the car over and then we got the shuttle bus to the terminal.
I had one bag that was overweight by 2kgs and the other one was down by 8kgs. I had to do some reshuffling.
The girl who checked us in told us there weren't many shops or restaurants once we went through security so we stopped and had dinner first.
I got stopped at security and they wanted to look at my Swarovski flutes. When he opened my bag, the Tiffany box fell out so he wanted to look at that and the garden statue I was pulled up for in Chicago. First he swabbed my bag for drugs and then re-xrayed my bits and pieces. Thankfully I was all clear!
We had a while to wait so we sat in the lounge and read our books. We were about 15mins late in boarding and left 30mins late. We had been hoping to get one of the back 4 rows of the plane as there is only 2 seats. That makes it so much easier to get up and down. We logged on 48hrs before flight time as the Qantas man in Sydney had told us but it seemed all seats had been prebooked. You can pay an additional $20 and choose your seat. If only we had known about that earlier!
The plane was completely full. There was a university softball team going to play a few games in Australia. They were dotted all over and I had one girl next to me. They were all very excited. We also had the Today Show crew on - Karl, Lisa, Georgie and Steve - but they were in business class. It looks so comfy up that end! It was a smaller plane than the A380 we had going over and the difference was noticeable. I couldn't wait to get off.
Robyn and I were reflecting on our trip and remembering places we have been and things we have seen. It seems so long ago we were in Jackson Hole and Yellowstone but on the other hand it seems to have gone so quickly. We have seen some great things and learnt about a whole different lifestyle. It has been a fabulous holiday.
Thanks everyone for following our adventure and for your messages. I can't keep my eyes open any longer. Nite!!!
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