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Published: December 5th 2002
Left for Mammoth on the 5th of December 2002
First stop was LA for a few days where i visited Santa Monica & Venice Beach: Santa Monica was pretty cool - the boardwalk made me feel like I was in a movie somewhere. The beach has towers that look exactly like they're right out of the set of baywatch!!
Venice was a real eye-opener - really cool. It had buskers - crazy crazy buskers - lining the sidewalk. My favorite one was this guy singing a song called "put some fukcing money in my hat". I made the mistake of taking a photo of this crazy looking guy on roller blades with an electric guitar & a turban.. he saw me take it and serenaded me for about 5 minutes - i was soo embarresed. Then he asked for a tip - i couldnt believe it!!
Day two I had to head over to the Forama for CCUSA Orientation. I met some really cool people at orientation - my roomies were polly and a guy who's name i cant remember (sorry). So after signing in and what not i headed back
out and off to see more of LA. I caught the subway out to Hollywood where i drastically misjudged how far apart everything was!! i thought i could walk & see Rodeo Drive, the walk of fame & all the sights in one afternoon. WRONG!! it took me nearly the whole arvo to do the walk of fame - and when i suddenly realised it was starting to get dark - around 4pm and i was ages from the subways station i started to get a little more than nervous. by the time i got on the subway it was dark - and i had to change stations 4 times in bad areas in LA. I swear i was the only young white girl on the train sometimes. Welcome to LA Aanika!! I did my best to look tough and scary! Finally i made it back to the Forama safely - just when my roomies where starting to get a bit worried!! They had waited for me before having dinner too!! how sweet! :D
We then had to go to Orientation - After orientation as u do we all got really drunk and ended up stayin up
till about 3am.. it was fun though - singing kareoke in the hotel bar - a bunch of aussies busting out 'land down under' - as we do.. i think i may have kissed a random peruvian - oops. Heres a pic of us playing in the hotel corridoors taking pictures and stuff - right before a security guard came and asked us to quiten down .. oops again.
Next day was off to the Greyhound Station - Me & Tim - a really cool guy from OZ - shared a taxi there. That was another scary sitch.. people were coming up and asking us for money and were eyeing off our food.. I got metal-detected b4 getting on the bus - i didnt know whether that was a good or bad thing. So by now its dark but theres no chance in hell of me sleeping! And we headed to Mojave.
I stayed at the Best Western (i think) in Mojave - nice to have my own room. Awoke to find another young guy carting a snowboard bag down to the busstop. Turned out to be Scott - another aussie off
to Mammoth for the season!! So i had a new buddy!
We arrived in Mammoth that night and stayed at the Motel 6. We decided to go out to La Sierra's - the apparent local dive - to try and meet some new ppls. I met Jeremy, the crazy american guy who offered me a place to stay - which after all else failed, seemed to be a good idea! It ended up being a pretty cool - i had some really nice roomy's: Jeremy, Callen, Eric, Ella & Marcus.
The only trouble with that house was the first time i tried to find it on my own after moving in.. i wandered around the nearest blocks for about 20 minutes before a guy came out of a shop to help me!!!
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AndrewsWHERE
Andrew Wharton
Same place, same time
Hey Aanika I was in pretty much the same place at the same time. I went with Council Exchanges, arrived on the 5th, we stayed at the Santa Monica YHA (I think). We also got attacked by the crazy guitar/turban dude, bought a CD off him. (terrible music, I think I felt sorry for him!)Best ever sunsets over Sunset Boulevard!! Anyway, I had a great season at Bear Valley Ski Resort, CA. (just south of Tahoe). I would have liked to make it down to Mammoth but didn't get to, heard a lot about it though.