The 43 hour day

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It’s been a long day, 43 hours long in fact, much of which was spent on board QF15 crossing the Pacific. Jackson has beaten his travel sickness PB, managing to vomit 3 times on the plane and once in the taxi. US customs were extremely efficient and amazingly friendly. Maybe being a white family on holidays makes it easier.

Arriving in Los Angeles at 7am – 2 hours before we left Canberra – we decided that Venice Beach sounded an interesting place to stay for our one and only day in the US. It’s indeed an interesting place for people watching – people skating, biking, jogging, busking, smoking dope, pumping iron, talking loudly, and acting loco. Dog watching is also fascinating and in most cases proves that people start to look like their dogs: roly-poly, pudge-nosed boxers, coiffured poodles, chihuahuas in frilly frocks, and even a bulldog wearing sunglasses.

Here on Venice Beach you can get t-shirts, tattoos, botox on the beach, medical marijuana, and psychic readings. The skate park, according to our hotel clerk, is the “biggest in the world”. We can’t testify to this fact but the beach must be one of the widest. Its a grand hike to the water’s edge which we didn’t do as there was fencing and construction signs up preventing entry – maybe winter maintenance? I can’t help feel we are constantly on a film set as we’ve seen this area countless times on American TV and movies.

As we were walking along Venice Beach a Latin American guy kicked a soccer ball at Jackson and they started juggling and passing the ball between them for the next 30 minutes. The guy, Franc, must have marked Jackson as a fellow soccer fanatic; maybe this was because Jackson was wearing Chelsea shorts and a Barcelona shirt. They both became a bit of a tourist attraction for passer-bys. Franc spoke no English and said in Spanish that he was sleeping on the beach here at Venice.

After this fascinating cultural interlude, we continued walking to Santa Monica Beach which is much more up-market. The parks are manicured lawns with bike paths leading to apartments with ocean views. The Santa Monican pier, with its shops, restaurants, ferris wheel and roller coaster, is the end (or presumably the start) of Route 66. The sun set early just after 4.30 pm and we then spent the early evening walked through the shops and mall of Santa Monica. It is amazingly bilingual here. We heard Spanish spoken just as much as English and street signs were in both languages – a wonderful introduction for our travels further south.

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