US Holiday - Day 4 - Los Angeles to New York

Day 4

Today was a very early start. Didn't want to miss the plane nor did I want to take a chance on the traffic in Los Angeles. On arriving in LA, the cab driver took me via an express way but thankfully this driver took me a different way. He arrived bang on 6am which meant I was just up before that and pretty much throughout the night clock watching. Next time I will look to do a flight during the middle of the day and thankfully the remaining flights on this trip are during that time frame.

The journey from the hotel to the airport was pretty quick. I was surprised by the amount of traffic on the roads or the lack there of. Arrived at the airport in around 30 minutes via the back roads of Santa Monica. Headed into the terminal and proceeded to do the auto check in. I had the option of either scanning the passport, scanning the credit card or putting in my electronic ticket number. The first two options didn't work so thankfully it accepted the electronic ticket number.

Next port of call was to check in with the bags. This involves going to a counter where they allocate you a baggage ticket but you then have to take it to another section of the airport for scanning. As the bag had padlocks on it I had to wait whilst it went through the xray machine and given the OK. Unfortunately it was not given the OK and I was asked for the keys. At this point I knew it was the two jars of vegemite that I had in the bag for Pete. The proceeded to open the luggage and then swab the jars and put it into the scanner. I was concerned when the screen went red but they swapped the latex gloves and tried again and all was good.

So the bag was scanned and given the all clear, now it was my turn. I had to go through a full body scanner. The thought my double handkerchief in right jeans pocket was suspect but once I showed them they said all was good and I was cleared.

Waited for around 30 minutes for the plane to start boarding. It looked like the gate was undergoing some work so we went down the aero bridge onto the tarmac and onto a bus for a 5 minute ride to the arse end of the airport where we boarded the plane. Did have to wait about 30-40 minutes for the second pilot to turn up and once he did and the flight checks were done we were off.

The flight to Newark was uneventful apart from the odd bit of turbulence. Coming into Newark we had great views of Manhattan as we travelled north to south. On landing it was a quick journey to the gate before departing and meeting up with Pete at the baggage claim.

Pete then drove me back to his place but not before I tried to get into the drivers seat. Rookie mistake. Didn't encounter too much traffic along the way and was back at his complex in no time. We were greeted by Tyson Beckford polishing his new Nissan GTR out the front of this place. He only lives a couple of doors up from Pete and Maggie.

Greeted Maggie and handed over the Vegemite. Am glad not to be carrying the extra weight around now. Had a glass or two of champagne and a quick bit to eat before dinner and a walk along the board walk with fantastic views of the Manhattan skyline.

Tomorrow will be venturing into New York to see the sights. No idea what I want to see. Maybe look in a few shops I think.

US Holiday - Day 3 - Santa Monica and Venice Beach

Day 3

Woke up a little bit later than normal. The body was feeling a bit average. I think a combination of sitting on the plane and all the walking over the past couple days. Started out with a ridiculous breakfast. Should have looked at the menu a little bit better than what I did. Tried to get through as best as I could but there was a certain amount of wastage.

Packed the cameras and then headed up to Wilshire Boulevard as I thought that the buses from there were going to take me down to Venice Beach. But on looking at the timetable and route it appeared to be different to what I had read on the Big Blue Bus website. So I started to walk down again to Santa Monica which took about 20-30 minutes. Popped into a chemist to get some nail clippers as the feet were getting sore from the walking. On asking one of the people for where I should look for the clippers there is a moments hesitation as they realise "this honky is not from around here".

Kept on walking down towards the sea side and took some video of a fire truck with sirens blaring. I will burn this onto a DVD and give it to my brother Damian. Certainly the quality is there for it to cover all birthday and XMAS presents out to 2015.

Got down to the pier at Santa Monica and started the walk towards Venice Beach. The day was absolute perfect for it. Whilst overcast at first, by about 11.30 the day cloud had burned off and was replaced with blue skies. The walk along the beach was pleasant with a lot of white and latino "culo" to look at. The beach along side the path was full of volley ball games and even caught sight of a strange game of "touch footy" being played. Looks like it must have been some expats.

Eventually got down to Venice Beach with lots of stalls along either side. One of the first stalls was for a pet psychic and that pretty much set the town for the rest. Heaps of homeless and the odd performer plying their trade. If I can offer a comparison it is a combination of Paddy's markets a dash of Byron Bay and a sprinkle of Centrelink. Ventured past the Muscle Beach Gym and then turned around and headed back towards Santa Monica. Dropped into a Starbucks and had an Ice Mocha recharge before catching he bus back to the hotel.


Caught up on a few emails and then got changed and headed back into Santa Monica shopping district in the early evening. Had a look at a couple of shops and made some purchases. Went for a bit of a walk and found a couple of people holding up signs saying that 9/11 was a government conspiracy. There were also a few unhappy campers giving them a mouthful and to be honest I think it is a low act to host this type of event on such an important anniversary.


Caught the bus back to the hotel. Had the pleasure of a drunk NFL supporter sit next to me for the length of my journey. To finish the evening I had a steak at the restaurant next to the hotel before booking a cab in the morning. It will be an early start to the day as I fly onto Newark airport to stay with Pete and Maggie.

US Holiday - Day 2 - Beverly Hills, Hollywood and Santa Monica

Day 2 - September 10, 2011

Had a good nights sleep. Woke up a couple of times but then back to sleep with minimal effort. Got up around 7.30, had a shower and then headed down to the restaurant below the hotel. The restaurant is called IHOP (http://www.ihop.com/) and servers all food good and bad. I decided on the apple pancake and bacon/egg combination. It came out pretty quickly along with a Coke chaser it dealt with the hunger I had been experiencing.

I backed my bag ready to get picked up by Karen, Lawrence and Trevor. I only had to wait a couple of minutes before I saw their car pulled up and jumped in. First port of call was Beverly Hills. Certainly a nice part of town, very clean and pretty to look at. We walked down Rodeo Drive first and saw some amazing shops and cars. The most notable car was the Bugati Veyron. Lots of people taking photos of the car and we were among the masses. Moving on we did a full lap of Rodeo Drive before getting back into the car. Next stop was going to be the Hollywood Walk but along the way we drove up some famous streets lined with the tall palm trees. Lots of stunning houses, all gated and with semi circle drive ways.

We finally got to the Hollywood walk and parked the car and started to walk the length of the Hollywood Boulevard. At first there wasn’t a huge number of people but then the numbers started to grow. Along with the other tourists were the touters for tours of the stars. We kept on walking and eventually got up to the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. This was completely packed and just looked like a huge tourist trap. We did however have a iced mocha at Starbucks before walking back to the car.

From there we drove back along the Sunset Strip passing places like Whisky a Go Go and The Viper Room before doing a loop round passing suburbs such as Bel Air before getting back onto the Pacific Coast Highway and back to the hotel.

I chilled there for a while before getting ready to catch up with Lawrence, Karen and Trevor again for dinner. Prior to leaving I did some reading on the local bus routes and found out some interesting facts. The classic Doors song “The End” makes reference to the big blue bus. So as I came out of the hotel I saw the # 1 coming down the street. I was fortunate enough for the lights to turn green to allow me to cross the street and get to the bus stop before the bus went pass. Got on and paid the $1 journey cost. The bus ride was quick down Santa Monica Boulevard and got off and made the short journey to the Loews hotel where the guys were staying.

We had a drink out on the balcony of the stunning hotel. Lots of lounge beds and for the evening chairs around fire pits. The sunset was fantastic and it signalled time for us to grab some food. The guys made the suggestion of going back to a sports styled bar. The bar was certainly amazing with the wall behind the bar complete full of projector screens and plasmas. On each screen was a different college NFL game or baseball match. One of the games was a University of Southern California so there was a lot of local support. We were in the bar for about 15 minutes before being seated for dinner. I had a steak and certainly hit the spot. After dinner we went out for a walk and the place was still a buzz late in the evening. Then as I walked down I passed someone I thought I recognised. It was a couple that I had worked with back in UK and had not seen for over 10 years. He is Irish and she is Australian and had moved back to Australia at the same time that I did but now reside in Brisbane. Such a strange encounter.

I then bid the guys a good night as they had an early morning flight to Las Vegas. There were not many buses running at this time so I walked the 20 blocks back to the hotel and crashed.

US Holiday - Day 1 - Sydney to LA

Day 1

All good trips should start with last minute packing and for this trip it was not the exception. Mum and dad arrived just before 9am. Dad was not particularly impressed with the state of the house and wanted to see if he could vacuum. This resulted in a death stare and a vocal affirmation. Well the bag was packed and off we went a little behind time. The rainy weather also appeared to be effecting traffic and we had the joy of travelling along the M4 with the rest of Sydney. Once we got past Granville it appeared to get flowing again and made good progress onto Parramatta Rd and then the back way through through Petersham and Marrackville. We got to the airport and mum and dad dropped me off and a quick goodbye. Checking in was painless with only about a 10 minute wait. Decided to then go straight through immigration and gave Damian a quick call. Grabbed a bite to eat and had a look around the shops before making my way to the departure gate. Waited there a while until the gate opened. There was hardly anyone there and I thought the flight wasn’t going to be that full but slowly the crowd grew. They then opened up the gate and we watched as some dignitaries from the United Nations boarded the plane.

Boarding the plane for the rest of the crowd then begun for the rest of the normal people. The A380 is certainly a nice plane. My seat was in between the aisle and the window and then an older couple turned up. I said that I could move so that they could be together but for some reason the lady said no I’m happy with the aisle and so I ended up being piggy in the middle. The flight left pretty much on time with just some minor delays as other passengers transferred from flights coming in from Perth. There was also a funny announcement saying that people could not congregate around the toilets on the flight due to US regulations.

The A380 is certainly a beast of an aircraft. The seats are good with a fantastic entertainment system. You can pretty much watch any movie you want at any time. After we took off and passed through an initial round of turbulence I started to watch the latest X Men followed up by Thor and Source Code. I thought they were all good films and glad I had a chance to catch up on them.

For dinner there was a choice of a tortellini, beef or salmon. They run out of the beef pretty quickly but I was happy with having the salmon. Tried to sleep throughout the flight and didn’t have a whole lot of luck with that. There were small intervals of sleep but nothing substantial and I could free the body trying to cope with the little sleep that I had had over the previous nights. I was able to catch some more sleep before they served breakfast.

Landing into LA was interesting watching the webcam they had in the tail of the plane. It was a slow ride in and once we landed it was a short journey to the terminal. We then waited for the UN dignitaries to depart before we got the opportunity to depart.

When we got down to the immigration hall I was half expecting it to be completely packed out as I had heard it has taken people up to 3 hours to get through all the new checks that the US border has in place. I would have waited only about 20 minutes to go through and had my finger prints taken followed by a photo.

Then it was off to pick up my bag and had to wait only about 10 minutes for it to arrive. Then it was off to catch a taxi to the hotel. Traffic wasn’t too bad as we travelled along some of the freeways down into Santa Monica. Journey time was probably only around 25-30 minutes and tried to check in but given it was only 11am there was not going to be much chance of getting a room. So I dropped off my main bag and put on some shorts and then started to walk down towards Santa Monica beach.

The 20 block walk started to creep up on the body but was hanging in there. The first stop off was the beach and board walk. Heaps of tourists around and some interesting outfits as well. I then came back through and checked out the shopping mall/promenade. Grabbed a Starbucks coffee and croissant and that recharged the batteries.

Walked the 20 blocks back up to the hotel and was pretty stuffed by that point. Checked in and made my way up to the room. Watched some TV and had a snooze before getting in touch with some other friends who are going to be in LA. Will be heading up to Beverly Hills and Hollywood to check it out tomorrow.

Ah just saw an ad for Colon Flow. I can try it free for 30 days.