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Published: March 3rd 2009
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Santa Monica
Santa monica beach and fair visible in the distance We arrived at London Heathrow at 6:30 after a 5am start, courtesy of Bob, Hannah's dad. The Virgin check in area was sleek and modern, like a 1950s spaceport. You scan your ticket and passport at one of many automated machines then weigh your bags after printing out passes, you still have to go to the desk so the whole process feels a bit redundant. The 10hr flight was pretty bad, seatbelt lights were on the vast majority of the time due to turbulence - happily, this coincided with the serving of food. It felt like an eternitiy before we started our decsent into LAX - this too was rather epic, we were flying below cloud cover for about 30mins - I was a nice shade of grey when we finally landed. Our plan to use the airport shuttle (cheaper) was hastily abandoned - we were both shattered (it was early afternoon in LA) and just wanted to get to our hotel asap. I would have paid double the $60 we spent on the taxi. Luckily the hours of research had paid off - our room was spacious, breakfast was free and a metro connection was 1min walk down the road,
Santa monica pier
Hannah keeps taking photos of me taking photos.... the hotel was perfect for seeing the various sights of the city.
And see the sights we did! First day we caught a 40min bus ride to Santa monica beach, the weather here was stunning, the beach aint bad either, apparantly the water is rancid and best avoided - the city's storm overflow drains flow directly into the sea there. We walked all the way along the promenade past rollerbladers and cyclists reaching Venice beach, home of the more bohemian section of the citys population, an elcletic mix of street artists, musicians, and bums - it was pretty colourful but getting stopped every 30yards started to get annoying - "wanna listen to my record man?" It was nice to see the famous Venice beach courts (from the film "White men can't jump) and, of course, Muscle beach. Dissapointingly you have to pay just to get in the latter - ah well,. Hollywood was the next days destination. It's a shithole, full of dickhead bus tours and touts with megaphones. Zombified Asian tourists jostle around, cameras held aloft like divining rods. Some free advice: if you want a photo of the fecking chinese theatre then get it off the net. Muppets...We
strolled down miracle mile and saw all the stars on the pavementts, the Hollywood sign and the chinese theatre (with all the stars palm prints in the cement). Jetlag was bad that day and probably influenced both of our opinions on the area so we returned fairly early on for a siesta. The following day was spent subathing at Santa monica beach, the day after a visit to a riduclously sized mall then finally Beverly hills, as plush as you expect it to be - where we had gelato by the road and blew our years budget shopping.
We had hired a car for the last day at LAX, after some more tireless research from yours truly I had a rough ideaa of what buses and trains we needed to catch to get close to the depot. Things went quickly awry at the first stop when I ran for the closing train doors and turned round to see Hannahs bag trapped in the door - she was able to pull it out just in time and a tearful goodbye was shared - Hannah running along the platform and me climbing across train seats kissing the window. That may be a
slight exaggeration bur it was a whole 15-20mins before I saw her again - the most time we had been apart in weeks. We finally arrived at the HUGE rental depot after three trains and one bus - a rather epic journey. The Americans sure know how to rent cars...... We were upgraded to the next model and set off for San Diego, rather hesitantly as it was the first time i'd driven in the states. A scary experience
San Diego was such a refreshing change to LA - the zoo was fantastic, like walking through a tropical rainforest (the recent heavy rain certainly helped) with just about every animal under the sun present, it took us a good few hours to walk the whole site. The car was a huge boost to the experience, cost about £15 a day and the fuel is practically free (well, in comparison with the UK) we drove all around the area, seeing the famous coronado hotel. Feck carbon footprints, having a car in the U.S is the way to go. After 5 days we drove the car back to the depot near LAX, arriving at the airport around 13:30 for our 19:30 flight.
Hollywood
Palm and foot prints in the cement outside the chinese theatre Fortuately you can check in straightaway and I even managed to persuade Hannah to check in to a very plush executive lounge - at $50 each it was well worth it, free food and drink and huge armchairs in a quiet hermetic climate-controlled environment. Backpacking is for the plebians darling.
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