Here we go again, Los Angeles.
Have I mentioned how much I love this place? Because I do. And it's not just the food stalls which have a normal price and then the deepfried price for their foods like pizza and oreos. Coming into the middle of winter and and we were walking around in t-shirts for most of our stay, although the last day got a bit windy and we got to put on our coats and walk through the fairy light lit trees down the main shopping street in Santa Monica. If you know me, you know there is nothing I love more than fairy lights in trees.
The stigma around catching buses definitely comes from the US. No where else does a man carrying a bag bigger than me full of used cans get on a bus. My favourite character though was the guy who gets on the bus in a wheelchair, a process that takes 2 minutes for the driver to lower the ramp etc, and then stands up, folds his wheelchair up and walks to a seat. When he wants to get off again he pushes his wheelchair to the front of the bus and sits back down in it. Yep, that's America.
The first full day we had we went to Hollywood (an hour and a half on the bus with some different characters and interesting smells). We thought it would take us a whole day to explore there but turns out there really isn't anything to do. We walked down Hollywood blvd and looked at all the stars, I dont think you have to do a whole lot to get one, there are hundreds. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have to share one, ha. We stepped on Godzilla's star a few times too; you're welcome, Tokyo. That was pretty much all there was to do in Hollywood. Well that and go to Hooters. Don't worry, we didn't go more than once a day. This time we shared the chicken burgers and the entree called 'lots of tots'. Chelley (pronounced 'Shelley'), our Hooters girl (they dont call themselves waitresses- although to be fair, that's a pretty hard word, I'll explain my theory soon) looked stunned we didn't order more food. We couldn't finish either. Now, 'lots of tots' in case you're wondering is potato gems/ tater tots (the deep fried hardly counts as potato bits of deliciousness) which they then liberally applied salt, melted cheese (the orange kind that comes out of a pump bottle), bacon and sour cream. It is truly even more disgusting than it sounds. We had a pretty good go at it and only gave up when our arteries begged us to.
I've been to Hooters enough to figure out the trend. My theory is that if you name your daughter something ridiculous like Chevy, Carthy or Elnetta or spell a usual name Britianny, Chelsy, Ericka, you can be nothing other than proud when she features in the Hooters calendar. These are your actual 2012 Hooters calendar girls. Yes, I got the calendar. It was out of order. Not kidding, it went August, December, July, March etc. Sorry boys, I left it in the bin in the hostel.
So after our 2nd Hooters experience, we went back to Santa Monica and did a bit of shopping. Jeff went out with Neil that night, a guy from Toowoomba who is mates with someone doing Dentistry with Jeff in Cairns. This is where he had his first taco from a van. I stayed in and slept for 15 hours.
The next day we hung out with Neil and went to the Getty museum. It was pretty spectacular. The irony of the no camera signs in the photography exhibit and our own wittiness of like a Bauhaus jokes kept us entertained enough to not groan audibly at the plain white canvasses in the modern art sections.
That took pretty much all day, a few stops for breakfast, lunch, second lunch, and snacks of course.
What better to do for dinner than introduce another Australian to the wonderful place that is Hooters? Don't judge me, it's hard to stay away, the girls there have such big hearts. We stopped for a beer while waiting for the bus, we all handed in our IDs and ordered. About a minute later they come and check my ID again and ask if I'm 21. According to my birth date: no. But next time I'm pulling the 'yes, in Australia we put the year you turn one' and see what happens.
Neil lost his wallet on the bus. He has now lost his iphone, ipad, about 5 bank cards and now wallet. Unlucky. Unlike us though, he had a spare card hidden away so it was not a complete disaster.
The power had gone out all over the neighbourhood while we were at dinner so the stop lights were out and the bottle-o wouldn't let us in or sell beer through the gates. The whole dont stay out at dark is actually applicable in LA too. When we got back to the hostel a bit upset about the lack of beer we had, the girl that worked there was to the rescue. She handed us a 3 litre flaggen of wine (for free that is) and told us to join in on the game of kings that the other guests had started. Don't worry, it didn't end as disastrously as it could have, Jeff and I headed to bed pretty soon after we started as we had to get up at 3:30am to get to the airport for our flight to Mexico. We were awake well before then though as the new guy in the room woke us all up with his incredible snoring. To be fair, it must be pretty hard to sleep quietly when you have a steam train trying to escape from your nose. In the haste of our 3:30am packing, I left my laptop charger there. This may be the last update I write for a few days until they post it here (hoping that it arrives before we leave in the next few days that is).
That was LA.
We plan to go back to the US for our last two weeks and hire a nice muscle car and go for a roadtrip to Vegas (if we can get me an ID), the Grand Canyon and Seattle. Look at us, making plans, mum would be proud (maybe not about the driving a big car and the Vegas idea but still, plans!)
