We made it!

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Frank Sinatra's famous lyrics "if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere!" takes on a different meaning to travelers from down under. I have no idea how many hours we were in transit, but I'm going to estimate 30. It's all a bit foggy.

I know we left Brisbane on the 1st of April around10pm and we in Newark at around 8 am on the 2nd of April. The longest 12 hours ever!

It's been a long haul between long hauls and we were nervously excited all day. Saturday already felt long while we waited for our late night flight time, but it had only just begun.

Apart from the additional post pandemic administration requirements at check-in, the airport wait was the best wait ever! Jules (the points whisperer) had weaved her Qantas Point magic and maneuvered us access to the Qantas lounge. It's a different world in there! We enjoyed potato and leek soup, Mongolian Lamb, Mexican Bean Curry and rice. Dinner rolls, cookies, carrot cake and complimentary bar. More Everything!

Back outside the cloistered halls of the Qantas lounge we mingled (at a distance) with the huddled masses cautiously awaiting our boarding. Boys and girls split between two rows we settle in for the flight to L.A. and watch a few hours of White Lotus, for the older Sharpes, a Marvel movie for Milla.

The next 10-12 hours of uncomfortable half sleep were brutal. Brutal like I don't remember experiencing. 12 hours of a dazed half sleeping consciousness that felt like it would never end. But it did! And we're in L.A.! L.A. Baby!

But not for long. We have enough time to collect our bags, check them back in and catch a half hour Uber to Venice Beach. Just need to find the ride-share pick-up point. Arrows out of the airport point left but it doesn't feel right. One-way traffic is heading left-to-right and there's signs for a green shuttle bus to LAX-it - the ride share and taxi pick up point. Must be that way (right) but we aren't shuttle bus people when it's only a 10 minute walk. Our baggage is checked in for NYC and we leg it from terminal 2 to terminal 7. It's a decent 10 minute walk and a walk of constant doubt and confusion. The green LAX-it signage increases in size and frequency. We must be getting close. A "short" pedestrian detour and we can see the LAX-it parking lot. It resembles a festival or school fair with dozens of temporary white gazebos and security guards directing traffic to various Gates / pick up points.

We should have gone left at the arrival lounge exit. LAX-it was just left of Terminal 1 and we'd walked around a ring road to find our 'quick' Uber to Venice Beach. It turned out to be a quick Uber. Mainly because our driver was hitting 70-80 mph on the wide streets of L.A. I don't know the speed limit on these roads but he didn't seem too concerned with speed limits. A sprawl of shop lined freeways and even bigger interstate freeways beneath the odd overpass, leads us to Venice Beach. It's Saturday night and Venice Beach is morphing from day to night. The sea breeze is chilly and we briefly explore a pier. Not "beach weather" but a nice looking beach. Absolute beachfront houses among Bars and restaurants. A beachside gym and a massive skatepark. The sun has already set and Saturday night is emerging. The family friendly markets are being packed away and a park rave is starting beside the skatepark - doof music and glowsticks.

By this point, the smell of marijuana is common place. It was the first smell that hits you after the stink of traffic outside LAX. Venice Beach has a Nimbin meets Sandgate kinda vibe. We weave amongst skaters, homeless trolley pushes, cheap t-shirt shops and weed dispensaries before finding the Beachside Cafe & Bar for dinner. We share three oversized starters between four and enjoy the Saturday night frivolity behind the clear plastic dropdown awning.

Our waitress warns us to head left to catch our Uber to the airport. Maybe don't head right, best to head left for our safety at this time of night. The Beachside Cafe & Bar has emptied significantly and the pumping bars and clubs have queues forming for a rowdy Saturday night. Every second passerby at this time of night, has a sweet whiff of pot. California Christopher picks us up in a brand new Santa Fe and gives us the rundown on legalised marijuana and the pros and cons of various types and forms of dispensing it. He has a bag of gummies in his glovebox to show us - 5mg lasts him 45 minutes. 10 mg also lasts him 45 minutes but is just more intense. Is he high now? We don't know. He drives more calmly to the airport than the last guy and somehow gets us there quicker. Maybe it was the chat that made it feel shorter. Maybe we were a bit high from all of the second hand smoke.

The 5 hour flight to NYC was a walk in the park compared to BNE-LAX, but still not much sleep across all four of us.

Khursid our Uzbekistani Uber driver rocked up in a sweeeet Lexus SUV and smooth pick-up matched the Sunday drive into Manhattan. The NYC skyline across the Hudson River looks so familiar that it fakes fake. We emerge from the Lincholn Tunnel and we are in NEW YORK CITY! The Sunday arrival has apparently halved the usual hour and a half trip to the City and we are parking outside the Shelburne Hotel before we know it.

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