We had a great flight with QANTAS. we hit what must've been the retirement run for all the hosties and stewards as they were all way older than usual but great characters.
We watched a few movies, ate some pretty good food, had a few drinks and snoozed here and there.
US customs was surprisingly hassle free and before we knew it we were out. There were a number of cop cars there, older cars looking like theyd be more at home at Movie World than the real world lol we asked a couple of cops for directions & they were very helpful. We dropped off our bags at the hotel as the room wasn't ready, not a big surprise really as it was still only 7.30am :-)
It started out a bit of a grey day, warm but very overcast. We caught the bus to Santa Monica Pier for a nosey. The idea was to get the hop on & off bus from there but it was booked out til the 12.30 one. We weren't about to hang around for that long so walked to Venice Beach.
Along the way the sun came out and so did quite a few nutters, more than a few homeless people, a herd of Hari Krishna's, lots of seriously stoned people & a wide variety of god botherers of all sorts of different flavours.
We had young guys try to get us into the ""Dr's"" offices dotted along the way to buy some legally prescribed marijuana. There were heaps of skaters, cyclists & skate boarders. The closer we got to Venice beach the stronger the unmistakable smell of ganja and shop after shop were selling bongs of every imaginable size & shape.
There were a number of TV broadcast cameras at Venice, we had no idea why til we saw the news to find there'd been a car plough into pedestrians there yesterday.
The bus to & from the beaches was $1 each each way, I don't think they'd take you one stop in Oz for that! The coke machine at the hotel dispenses cans of drink & bottles of water for $1 , again unheard of in Oz.
Back at our hotel we lay down for a quick nap before going out for lunch and woke up in time for dinner lol I guess that's what happens when you have 3 or so hours sleep in 48 hours!
We had a quick easy dinner at Burger King, hit a liquor store for some vino & settled in for a relaxing night in front of the telly. We're finding it cooler than we thought it'd be, more like spring in Queensland than we had thought summer in California would be. It's nice to have the longer days, it's still light at 8pm.