Beverly Hills, LA

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Beverly Hills

After our 13 hour flight we land in Los Angeles. Surprisingly we were too tired, we had slept reasonably well on the flight and had a shuttle already booked to take us to our hotel L'Ermitage, Beverly Hills.

We arrived at L'Ermitage and .... WOW. What a fantastic hotel with fantastic service. It was stunning. However ... very quickly we hit our first hurdle ... how much to tip the shuttle driver .... then the second hurdle, do you tip the doorman?? Then the third ... do we tip the bag man??? Then the fourth - do we tip the guy that comes up to your room and shows you around and shows you how everything works? Do we then tip the guy that delivered the complimentry fresh ice cold lemonade??? We had NO idea when to tip or how much to tip ... it was rather awkward! Duane was allocated the job of learning the master of tipping .... lets just say throughout our trip it got easier ... but i'm not sure we 'mastered' it.

The next hurdle .... we got to our absolutely stunning room after our long-haul flight and realised that --- ooooops ... I had left the camera in the back seat of the shuttle!! Tiredness combined with excitement = lost items .... a few calls were made to the shuttle company and we quickly realised the camera was long gone. Luckily we had been in the country less than 5 hours so there were on 2 photos on it - beats losing it at the end of the holiday so we decided it was a lucky escape.

That evening we were exhausted so asked the hotel to book us in at the local italian place which we were told was 'casual but nice'. I'm not sure how casual we were expecting but lets just say Beverly Hills idea of 'Casual' was extremely different to ours ... we felt extremely under-dressed but it was an amazing meal with fantastic service - even if it did cost an arm and a leg ...

The next day we were off sight seeing - we got a 2 day hop-on hop off bus pass and it was AWESOME! So easy to use and got us all around the city of Los Angeles. We went to the farmers markets and purchased so much fruit and it was all so cheap. Then to Hollywood where lets just say - its not our kind of place! We were so shocked to realise that Hollywood is not very nice at all!! We went for a beer at 'Hooters' which Duane enjoyed and then it was back on the bus ... I couldn’t wait to leave Hollywood ... it just felt like everyone was out to scam the tourists there!

Next Stop - Santa Monica ..... and we LOVED it!! Was a fantastic place with the beach, shops and carnival feel. We went to Bubba Gumps for lunch and learnt just how greasy Americans like their food - whoa!! But the beer was good and the food filled the spot and was super cheap. Then it was off shopping at the Santa Monica mall .... and we shopped, shopped and shopped some more! We couldn’t believe the prices and with the Australian dollar above the green-back we were saving even more!!

That evening we went to 'The Farm' for dinner in Beverly Hills and I would highly recommend this place to anyone!! Home-style food in Beverly Hills at very reasonable prices with extremely good service! I had the Chicken-pot-pie and it was so damn good!! mmMMMmmm

The next day was our last in LA so we walked down Rodeo Drive - window shopping of course. Our flight to New York wasn’t until 11pm so then debated if we should go back to The Farm for our last dinner and have their AMAZINGLY YUMMY Chicken Pot Pie again or if we should try something new and go to the Cheesecake Factory. We decided we would go to The Cheesecake Factory and have a few drinks and get a feel for the place and if we liked it we'd stay for dinner and if we didnt we'd head up the road to The Farm ... lets just say we nearly missed our flight! A couple of drinks turned into wayyyy too many. The barman was fantastic at The Cheesecake factory and gave Duane lots of 'tips' on tipping, and also explained their coins to us which had confused us to no end! We then met the couple sitting next to us who were holidaying from further south - hours later in full discussion with our new friends, a platter of nibbles and many of the best ever tasting Sour Apple Martinis later I looked at my watch and realised we had to get back to the hotel, collect our bags and get to the Airport - pronto!!

We made it to the airport, checked in and found the bar for a few more drinks - we decided in our intoxicated state that if we kept drinking then we would sleep so well on the overnight flight to New York .... lets just say we were WRONG!!!! And will never be so stupid to try that one again ... To be continued ...

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