Blogs from California, United States, North America - page 1161

"You never get things when you want them... only when you need them the most." -- After battling with the Australian Embassy for my visa to come in on time, Erin and I ended up staying in Los Angeles a littler longer than expected... I changed my flight to Fiji for 2 days later, had my visa overnighted to L.A. once approved, and toured L.A. in the meantime. Having never been there before, we rode the bus everywhere trying to get around the massive city. I never realized how huge L.A. was before we ended up lost in the heart of the "ghetto." An Oprah-look alike became our saving grace, offering to give us a ride to Hollywood and Beverly Hills ... "Anything to get out of here," we thought. So, Kelly took us around the ... read more

This peak was named after the founder of the Boy Scouts of America.... read more

Stan, Gary and I arrived in L.A. Airport late on Sunday night after an 11 hour flight. Sharon and Scott were waiting for us at the airport and soon whisked us off to their 'cave-like' appartment in Goleta, just outside Santa Barbara. We spent a couple of days recovering from jet lag, exploring locally and visiting Tom and Wanda, Scott's parents. On Thursday Sharon took time off work and we hired a car to see what else California had to offer. It felt like old times with the 4 of us together again at last. First we visited Saddleback Butt National Park, it was drab, dry and windswept. Nothing much to write home about. We quickly moved on arriving in the town of Mojave, slap bang in the middle of the Mojave desert, as the desert ... read more

After a weekend in the mountains visiting Adrian and then Clay I headed to San Francisco for a few nights visiting Elizabeth and Kristen went back to Arizona. I had gone to San Francisco on the way to a meditation course in North Fork California (http:///www.dhamma.org). I had met many people in India that had dont this course and I decided that I should give it a try. It was 10 days of silence with 11 hours of meditation each day and was very hard work. It was apparently the same technique that Buddha used to gain enlightenment and the focus is all on giving the technique 10 days to see what you think afterwards. After 2 days I was finding it really tough going, and after 6 I was pretty much ready to leave. The ... read more

After the bustle and excitement of Mexico City, I traveled to LA. This time I cheated and bought an Airline ticket. Areo California, a small Mexican Airline. Arriving at Mexico City Airport at 6.30am was one of the most confusing experiences yet. despite speaking some Spanish I could understand very little, as with all public places the public announcements were completely muffled, unintelligible and spoken in the bored tones of someone who doesn't really care anyway. Eventually I made it to the one monitor that actually had my flight details on it, and caught the flight. On the flight, no meal, no movie, not many other passengers, but I was given a small bag of pretzels. I decided that this time I would stay at Venice Beach, hopefully meet someone or some people that would want ... read more