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22-09: There's nothing there…
So it was Friday noon and I had arrived in the LA area, more specifically in the beach town of Santa Monica. First of all I went to the beach, waiting for the check-ins to start at my hostel. I was enjoying the sun and the lazy beach business. There were palms everywhere (and bums too), no clouds in the sky and everybody looked relaxed except for this one guy who kept on cursing at the world. I then went back to the hostel, ate the last food left from my trip and had a shower, which was pretty stupid because afterwards I went to the beach again. I did nothing special this day, just lying at the beach, watching the beach life and wondering what LA is all about. I read my travel guide, but nothing seemed to be interesting. Ok, there was Hollywood and the Walk of Fame, but the actual studios had been moved out of Hollywood long ago. There was Malibu and Beverly Hills where all the stars live behind huge fences and paparrazzi-proof walls of green in massive properties which are protected by private security around the clock. There is Compton, Long Beach and the city of LA itself, all known for notorious drive-bys and gang-related violence, not a place for small pale (compared to the african-americans and hispanic community) Germans. So I just lay in the sun and relaxed for the day. The water at Santa Monica beach wasn't very clean, and because of the immense surf the sand got dispersed thoroughly in the water. After the sunset I went back to the hostel and had another shower before going into the yard. Friday evening was BBQ evening and for six bucks I could eat as much burgers, potato salad and crisps as I wanted. In the end I managed to gobble down five burgers the size of a Whopper, two portions of potato salad and a few crumbs of crisps. I would say that this investment had paid out very well. After this orgy I started to stroll around the beach town of Santa Monica again, had a beer in a sports bar where another game of American Football was broadcasted. I found two nice old cinemas, but I wasn't in the mood for a movie. In the end I returned to my room at 11 pm, where I found all of my roommates already preparing for bedtime respectively the next day. Nobody wanted to visit Hollywood, though.
The next morning I got up early as always because even if you don't really know what you would do the whole day it is still your vacation and it would be too sad to waste time by sleeping in. Besides, another free breakfast was waiting for me. It wasn't as "good" as the one in Ocean Beach, but it included an infinite supply of eggs, rolls, cheese, juice, coffee, tea, fruit salad, jam and honey which was very satisfying, too. I prepared a few rolls as snacks for the day and headed out for my bus connection. LA has only four trains, no trams, but lots of buses. To make things confusing there are multiple bus companies serving the LA area, often with overlapping routes. Fortunately, Santa Monica is a good starting point for trips to Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Downtown LA, so I didn't have the problem of finding the right transfer points. First I visited the Walk of Fame in Hollywood. There were lots of tourists all taking pictures of the sidewalks and the frontyard of the Chinese Theatre. It is fun trying to find your favorite stars (literally) for the first few minutes, but in the end you are just looking on the ground. The Hollywood sign was too far away too, and it was impossible to take a crispy picture of me in the foreground AND the sign in the background. The rest of it are a few famous movie theatres which I never heard of (never watched the Oscar's i.e.), lots of tourist shops, lots of lingerie shops (why that?) and some curiosites, which weren't special enough for me to remember them now. After Hollywood I went to a park north of there, but soon I realized that the distances in LA can be quite large, so I just went to the entrance and lay down there for a small nap and my lunch. After that I went to Beverly Hills, which wasn't exciting at all. As I already mentioned, I could see fences and hedgerows of properties, which celebrities used to live in or still live in. And every time it really got interesting, for example when I approached the famous Playboy Mansion of Hugh Hefner, the sidewalks just vanished. They obviously don't want to make it too easy to get there. At least one time I was (impudent?) enough to keep just walking on the road. Nobody arrested me for stalking or whatever, which would probably have been the only exciting thing that day. On the other hand, that definitely would have spoiled my stay in LA, so I am glad that it didn't happen. After that I went back to Santa Monica beach again, watched the sunset, got my dinner at the local supermarket (sushi, can't keep my fingers away from that) and returned to the hostel. It was a pretty slow evening, I just maintained my blog a little bit and spoke to some japanese dudes, who were on vacation in LA (poor guys). I realized that LA could be something like the partner town of Hamilton in NZ. There's nothing there. Ok, LA has a little bit to offer, but it is just not good enough after you have witnessed the beauty of the Grand Canyon, the wilderness of Yosemite, the hills of San Fransisco, the crazyness of Las Vegas and the merciless heat of Death Valley.
Sunday started like the day before: I had my free breakfast and packed some extra rolls for the day before heading off to Downtown LA. It was a typical downtown, nothing special. High and shiny skyscrapers, some big theatres and a few dodgy areas. For a Sunday noon there was a lot of business on the Broadway, but it looked almost like in Tijuana. I then made my way to Little Japan, a small and quiet oasis of the japanese community. I strolled through Chinatown and a hispanic part of Downtown before a Burger King sign got my attention. I had avoided the fast food chains for almost the whole three weeks, but there is no way past it if you want to eat cheap and fast. And the Whopper was still my favourite burger. After that I went back to Santa Monica, from where I started a walk to Venice Beach. Between Santa Monica and Venice Beach is the famous Venice Beach Boardwalk, a gathering spot for all kinds of crazy people and performers. My travel guide said, that nobody would care if aliens landed there, because nobody would notice them. And it was true. Sunday afternoon is the best time to make this experience. I can't describe it, you have to be there. After walking to the end of this boardwalk, the sun was near the horizon already, and on my way back I discovered one of the famous Sunday evening drum circles at the beach. There were approximately 150 people, 30 of them were randomly playing bongos and drums, while the rest was dancing ecstatically in the center or just standing around and watching. Two police SUV's were watching for people's safety. The music and dancers got wilder and wilder while the sun disappeared behind the horizon. That was probably my top experience of the day, although I didn't participate and just gazed.
It was the last evening of my world tour, and I still had one thing to do. I had a whole list of things which I wanted to do while I was in America, for example watch a movie in a Drive-In cinema in a rural area, have a meal at one of these fifties drive-in restaurants where the waitresses use roller-skates to serve the meals, attending a typically american sports event like Nascar or American Football and so on. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time to do all that. One thing on my list was have a meal at a Hooters, a typical american burger restaurant/sports bar, with the only difference that they attract their customers with hand-selected waitress beauties. I had found one of these restaurants not far away from the hostel and was determined to test it on its reputation. From all that I experienced in this restaurant I can say that the most beautiful girl is at the reception (what a surprise). The place has some style and the food is good (burgers are definitely better than at most fast food chains) but a little bit pricey. If there wouldn't be the extraordinary waitresses, it would be a completely normal restaurant.
On the next day I packed my things and drove to LAX by bus. I didn't have exceptional hard feelings. There was something in my stomach that indicated that my great tour is almost over, but I knew that I had almost no money left even if there would have been an option to extend the vacation. Plus, I was looking forward to see my family and friends again.
The airport of LA (LAX) is huge. They have lots of shuttle busses, which I didn't know. I knew that my ticket was issued by Air New Zealand but operated by Lufthansa. I got out of the shuttle bus at the Air New Zealand terminal, which was the wrong choice of course. They told me that I had to take THE shuttle bus to terminal blablabla. So I got on the next bus until they told me, that I am on number three, and I had to take number six. I had already missed my point of exit by three terminals. Shuttles only operate one-way and the only option to get to the right terminal by bus was to take number three back to the transit center, transfer to number six and get out at the right terminal. Screw that, I thought, I am walking now. It took me twenty minutes to finally arrive where I wanted to be. I still had three hours left until departure, but the employers of Lufthansa made their lifes easy by opening only a few counters for all flights. There was a long queue and I had to wait for 45 minutes. Finally I arrived at the check-ins, handed over my passport and tickets and waited for confirmation. My luggage exceeded the 50 pounds limit, but that was no problem. A problem was that the employer just disappeared without a word but with my passport and ticket. She didn't return for 10 minutes, and I got a little bit nervous. You always hear stories about tight security, random interviews and rude investigators on american airports. Fortunately the employer returned without the police squad and handcuffs. She remarked driely that there was a problem with my ticket but it has been solved now. Have a nice flight! Gladly I took my boarding pass and disappeared into the vastness of the Los Angeles Airport before she would change her mind. I should have looked at my ticket thorougly though. When I was on the plane, I recognized that I only got the boarding pass for the flight to Frankfurt, but not the one for my connecting flight. That would have been no problem, but my luggage had been routed to Frankfurt too. I would never make it to my connecting flight in an hour if had to collect my luggage and check in again. I tried to get information from the stewards and stewardesses, but they couldn't help me. All they told me were Option A and B. Option A: Collect the luggage and run! Option B: Forget the luggage, check in for the connecting flight and have the luggage sent to Berlin with another flight. I never even considered B. After all I have been through I wouldn't fly without my luggage, not even on the last flight. Basically, all of this wasn't really a problem for me. I had no problem with waiting another hour on the Frankfurt Airport. The problem was that my father and my friends were waiting in Berlin for me. I couldn't contact them because neither my mobile phone nor my laptop were charged, and the charging device was in my luggage. In times where numbers are saved on your mobile phone, you don't remember them, even if its the number of your father. Damn.
I couldn't do anything on the plane so I first followed my plan of jetlag evasion: Do not sleep at all. I watched all three movies which Lufthansa showed but none of them was very exciting. I enjoyed the flight meals for the last time and talked to my neighbour. It was an old lady who had visited her daughter in Las Vegas and she was now flying back to Montenegro. A coffee helped me stay awake during the last hours.
When I arrived in Frankfurt, I tried Option A and it took me only ten minutes to get through the passport control and to luggage reception. But the lazy dudes on the airport didn't start the distribution for half an hour. By the time I got my bag my connecting flight had already departed. And I couldn't even contact anybody.
Now I had all the time in the world to get a ticket for the next flight and check in again. Lufthansa made no problems at all. I arrived two hours too late in Berlin. And I was really surprised when I saw that everybody had kept waiting for me. That was really nice and I was really happy. I couldn't thank my friends and my father enough for that because I didn't expect anybody to wait for two additional hours. Now my great adventure was over, but seeing my friends and family made it easy.
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