Day 1 - 26.7.14 - Melbourne to LA

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After getting home after 11:00pm from the USA V Canada International Ice Hockey Series at Rod Laver Arena, I decided that I was so tired that I’d hit the hay and get a few hours sleep before getting up a bit earlier to finish packing and shower etc. I probably only got about 3 hours sleep before I woke at 3:20am and decided just to get up and get ready. The shower was longer then normal, trying to wake myself up. I finished packing, locked up the house and made my way to Alan and Maries to collect Nick at 5:50am.
We got a brilliant run to the airport, got parked and ready to catch the bus in the long term carpark by 6:40am. We met Marnee at the Air New Zealand Check-in area. Nick made his way to the QANTAs check-in as he was on a different flight over. We checked-in, dropped our bags and made out way to McDonalds to meet back up with Nick. Then it was time to go through the doors, and through security and border control; no delays there. It wasn’t long before we said out goodbyes to Nick and we were boarding Flight NZ 722 to Auckland. We were happy to learn that it was a shorter trip then normal, only 3hours and 6mins. After a short nap, a magazine and some music we arrived in Auckland. We had only 2hours to fill here so we had a go on the massage chairs and got a snack at Burger King before it was then time to board our 12hours 15mins flight to Los Angeles.
We boarded our B777 200 late but turned out, again, it was going to be a bit quicker flight only 11hours 45mins. While waiting for our dinner we filled out the USA Customs Form to hopefull save some time when we arrived in Los Angeles.
I started watching the second Captain America movie but lost interest about 15mins in and moved on to some music videos instead. I watched those for about an hour before giving The Lego Movie a go but fell asleep in that and was woken by dinner being served.
Our dinner was really nice; chicken pasta with capsicums. After dinner I watched some of The Awkward Moment but fell asleep again then kept drifting in and out of sleep. I woke at some stage and read some of my book but that was about it. Then it was breakfast time and we had just over 2hours of flight time left. That flight was nowhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be. I believe I slept most of it so that was good.
We got off the plane, waited for 30-40mins at Customs, collected our bags, went through security and found Nick who had arrived almost 4hours earlier because his was a direct flight.
We waited outside Terminal 2 for about 20mins before our bus to Union Station got there. It was only $8 for that which was much cheaper than the Skybus at home, or catching a cab. Then once at Union Station we paid only $2.50 for the tap on/tap off card and our train trip to Hollywood/Highland Station. This stop was conveniently directly opposite the Holly youth Hostel, our home for just one night.
We got there about 1:15pm, but check-in wasn’t until 2:00pm so we dropped our bags in the storage room and walked across the road to show Nick the Hollywood Sign and went in to Victoria’s Secret. We then walked down to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, to check out the hand prints then along th Hollywood Walk of Fame following the stars where we came across DSW (Direct Shoes Warehouse). Two pairs of shoes later we left and crossed the road to the Roosevelt Hotel to check that out. By that time it was late enough for us to head back to the hostel to check-in.
Well, this was a cockup and a half, first we had to wait about 15mins to actually check-in and then when we finally did, we went to the room that they assigned us and there was people already in there. So, we had to go back to the counter where they then gave us keys to another room. Finally we got changed and headed to McDonald’s to work out what we were going to do from there. We had a late lunch and used their wifi to work out a few things then decided to go back down and have a better look at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre,
By this point we felt gross from the flight and the heat so decided to head back to the hostel to get showered and dressed and ready to head to McDonalds again, but this time to use it as a meeting point to meet up with a friend of nick’s that was in LA as well. When we got there though, we got a message saying that they would just meet us later so we headed up to the Hard Rock Café for some dinner and drinks.
The cocktails here were amazing and the food was pretty good too. After dinner, we met up with Nick’s friends and made our way on foot down Hollywood Blvd to a club called Lure. It was such a rip off, $30 entry and $12 just for a vodka/lemonade, well that was the end of my drinking there. We made the most of the atmosphere though, dancing the night away. The music wasn’t bad but the crowd was quite pretentious. One guy came up to me while I was waiting for Marnee outside the toilets and said “You are the most beautiful librarian in the whole country”. I’m not quite sure where the librarian bit came from nor how much of a compliment it was but meh, move along buddy. There was a few other funny one liners throughout the night like “I like you, you swaggin”, before Marnee and I decided to call it a night at 2:00am. It took us about 20-25mins to walk back to the hostel having some chit chat and hi-fives long the way. We got changed into our pjs and we got into bed by about 3:00am. Long day.

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