Last day in L A

What to do on the last day in LA, when the weather is so-so, you haven't seen much really of this hu-uge city and you have to be back at the hotel by 6.15 pm? You take the Metro and then hop on a bus to Santa Monica of course. Have to have a look at the beach and Santa Monica (since Tessan told me that you really can't miss it).

The busride took 50 minutes, but the amazing thing about LA is that the fare on buses and trains are the same no matter how far you go (1,25 dollars, so basically nothing). Copy that Sweden!

Anyway, the closer we got to Santa Monica the more blue sky we saw. I like! When we got there we got some sun, but it was very windy. No swimmers nor surfers. But it was pretty. Went out on the pier, Henke found some pinball machines, but they were too dirty to play. Had a go at The Addams Family but didn't go well. Couldn't take the right ramp at all, and Thing wasn't working. Boo-hoo!

Walked up one of the promenade streets, looked in the shops and listened to some good singers, guitarists and breakdancers on the way. Then the bus back home in time for the taxi to pick us up. Now we're at LAX waiting for the plane which will hopefully get us to Rarotonga. Saw that it's raining there as well, so woohoo for that :P

Last minute reflections. Los Angeles is huge, definately need more than five days here... The water smells of chloride, the food portions are huge and fatty (isn't LA supposed to be a bit healthy?), people are nice and one weird comment from Henke was "Wonder what IHOP stands for?" right after he read out loud "International House Of Pancakes"... ;)

Better steal Jason's subject on Facebook right now, as it suits very well: "If women with large breasts work at Hooter's, then why doesn't one-legged women work at IHOP". Good one Jason!

OK, time for departure. OaO

Hollywood

Well one can't go to L A and not visit Hollywood Walk of Fame, right? I didn't think so, so off we went today. And yes, it's still raining, and yes, I still look fashionably hot in my one-size-fit-all-fat-Americans-and-me-rain coat with the NBC-logo on the back... Well spent 3 bucks nevertheless, it kept me dry.

Took the underground train once again to Hollywood-Vine station. It's funny to see that the people designing the stations built it for Cali weather, not this kind of weather we're having now. Rain came in through the roof, buckets were placed all over to take care of the water...

L A is strange... I mean, the varieties of the houses in the street is enormous. Haven't seen downtown L A yet (don't know if we will), but just going on Hollywood Blvd was an experience. Some houses looking as if we were walking in the slum, block after block, and then suddenly came Guinness World of Records, Ripley's Believe It Or Not and the Kodak Theatre. Also a fashionable open mall with huge elephant statues in it... And some blocks later we were back in the slum... Strange.

But it was fun looking at the stars in the street, and then seeing the hand- and footprints from some stars. Cool! :)

We have noticed that L A is a city where you take the car everywhere. They even have drive-in pharmacies for f*** sake! And it's hard to find somewhere to eat, if you don't want pizzas or hamburgers... Guess it's easier in Santa Monica or downtown. We'll see!

Found a big shoe store today as well... I got myself a nice pair of Anne Klein's, in a nice blue colour, and Henke bought himself a pair of Puma's.

Oh and there's something fishy with our Mastercards... We can't use them! Glad they have ATM's otherwise we'd be in trouble. Some shops are OK to pay things with the cards, other says "Have you told your bank that you were coming here? It doesn't work, are you out of State visitors?"... D-oh! Why???

Yesterday's "I-will-never-get-out-of-your-head-song" was this one. Today's was a much better one (ironic), look here. Hope it sticks on you! ;)

Oh, and we also stopped at Starbuck's today. I got myself a crispy marshmallow bar (I thought a bar was a quite small thing, but no...) together with tall non-fat, non-sugar Vanilla latte while Henke went for a tall black tea and a choc chip cookie. Yum!

Today's pic include the Chihuahua's doo-doo, my drinks on Starbuck, Henke with his favourite star (ironic again) and some comparision when it comes to shoe sizes between my own size 7½ (5 UK, 38 Swedish) and Will Smith's... :)

OK, have fun and be good everyone! I have a cold and will crawl under the duvet now... That's what happens when you are wet an entire day... :P

oAo

Sunny L A?

Well yesterday was nice. Henke was in the need of shopping shoes and I could do with some shopping myself, so why not visit an American mall? So we took off for Glendale Shopping Mall. Found a bus to take us there and I must say that U S busdrivers are so-o nice. Since it was our first time riding a bus here we had no idea that you have to have the exact money, so when I was waving a 20 dollar bill he just told us to hop on anyway. And going back we didn't have exact again, so the bus driver said nevermind and let us go anyway. Nice! :)

Anyway, in the mall I was the one ended up shopping... Stuff I really need... Or maybe not... I know that some of you girls are curious to know more, so I'd better tell that I bought a pair of black high heel shoes, two gorgeous dresses (don't know when to wear them, but...), a bag from Roxy (Quicksilver's girl brand), scrapbooking stuff and such...
Henke bought... Nothing.

Thought of eating something that's good for you at breakfast and lunch, but it didn't go so well... :P I went for some bran flakes with raisin in milk, but they'd sugared the raisins... Henke took the omelette and what we believe was small sausages (looked a lot like a Chihuahua's doo-doo). Fruit served was served in its own juice, so it wasn't fresh fruit... Oh well!
For lunch we ended at some interesting food place with a big yellow M... I tried a Big Mac, and it tasted a lot like at home, besides more dressing in it, medium fries are bigger than home, and so was the medium coke. Henke was happy, he tried a Angus burger with red onion, bacon and cheese and all other stuff that makes your heart pump slower. :)

Anyway, yesterday was lovely. Sunny and warm. Cali weather! Lovely watching the palm trees and I don't know if they've got the birds here, but I could swear it was a humming bird we saw!

Another thing we've reflected over that so far there are more hispanics and thai people, than Americans. All is written in English and Spanish. Interesting!

Today we went by underground train to Universal Studios. Wow. W-O-W! With a big grin on my face I walked around taking pics. My new camera seem to eat batteries, but besides that it worked fine.
We started by seeing Shrek 4D. I remember hearing about it from Stefan & Andrew and it was just as they'd said. It was fun! 3D doesn't work fully on me, but Henke had fun. I had too :)
After that we went on Studio Tour, where seated in a bus, was shown all the studios, saw the crash scene from War Of The Worlds, visited Wisteria Lane (Desperate Housewives),was attacked by the shark from Jaws, almost stabbed by Norman Bates and much, much more. So cool!!
Then we went on the Simpson's Ride. A rollercoaster standing still, but not quite... Impressive!
When we got out of that it rained. And rained. It was pouring down! Sunny L A, my ass... :P Like they said in the morning show - good for the farmers...
So we went and to The Mummy Ride, which was awesome too.
Off to Backdraft-show where we were shown how they made the movie and stuff (too bad William Baldwin wasn't there...).
We also went to see the Special Effects show and the guys hosting it were absolutely hilarious! We loved them! So much fun!!

All in all Universal Studios was great fun. We were surprised that there weren't so many visitors, not that we were complaining...

Now we're back (after quesadillas and burritos at some Mexican place)at the hotel and won't go out. Need to get the warmth back. It seems as we're lucky with the weather as usual, since the rain will be here until Sunday (when we leave...). Oh, and Henke bought a T-shirt and a cup today - yay!

And off we are!

We were both pretty sure this morning when we left at 4am that the flight would be cancelled, but no :) Plane took off at 07.50 and we arrived happily at Heathrow on time.

The plane to Los Angeles departed almost on time too. We were kept on the plane for some time by the customs, since someone or some people were trying to get illegal into the States. But off we went.
Plane ride took over 11 hours... But as last time I flew that far I didn't have any problems with it since I was watching three movies and two TV-shows. Henke watched one movie and then he was snoring. Well he played some games and read too.
We both agreed on that the plane food was the best of all so far. Go Air New Zealand!

Now we're in the hotel room, quite nice. It's 9.30 pm (6.30 am at home) and we're watching Scrubs and say "Say what??" to each other all the time, since both having problems hearing after the flight...
Haven't seen much of LA yet. So far my feeling is that I wouldn't like to live here for a long time... Too big! Oh well, sightseeing and maybe the gym tomorrow :)

oAo

PS Stefan, tell Andrew that we did get some snicke snacke on the plane ;)

Only two days left...

Can't believe how fast time passes... We're leaving on Tuesday morning at a very early time, spending far too many precious hours at Heathrow, and then, hopefully safe and sound, lands in Los Angeles, still on a Tuesday. So this is how time travels work... :)

Today's adventure is washing and packing - woohoo! But better be done today then running around tomorrow after work.

I'm nervous. Very. Oh well, latest report from Jason in LA is that the temperature's been over 20 degrees Celsius every day so that's fine by me :) Tuesday's forecast shows 26 degrees. :)

Booked the stay on Waiheke too. We'll stay at Waiheke Lodge, in a B&B.

Oh well, be sure to follow this blog and comment, comment, comment :)

Mwah!!! oAo

Finally booked Los Angeles as well

This night I've been a good girl and booked the last hotel on our trip. Well almost last anyway, still one B&B left to book on Waiheke Island, but that's no rush (I hope!).

We decided to go for a hotel near Santa Monica Blvd, and near to Universal Studios. It's called Ramada, and I'm sure we'll survive five days there. I'm absolute terrified about going to L A and The States... It's so big!! Anyway, you can check out the hotel here: Ramada Hotel. Not at all close to the beach, but since it's February it's probably warmer in the pool anyway... We're obviously have to rent a car, so we can always get to the beach anyway. Tessan - this is not too bad is it?

Alida has booked flight tickets, so we'll all meet in Auckland on February 16th. It'll be so much fun! On the 17th we're going over to Waiheke Island, to do a wineyard tour there (check out the tour here) and after that meet up with Alida's brother Malcolm who will take us out fishing on his boat. Yay!

Well, all for now I guess. Henke had his first vaccination shot, but I couldn't since I still have a flu virus in my body. I'll do it on Tuesday (hopefully I'm well by then). Well oAo

Our trip is taking shape...

This time I've decided to write the blog in English, so that our beloved friends out in the wide world can follow us too. Nice, eh?! :)

One thing we'll really appreciate is your comments, so please - don't hesitate to write! :)

Our route (if you want to say hi on the journey ;)):

Feb
3rd - leaving Stockholm
- via London Heathrow
- to Los Angeles

8th - Rarotonga, Cook Islands

15th - Auckland, New Zealand

March
1st - Hong Kong

6th - leaving Hong Kong
- via London Heathrow
- to Stockholm

We're so behind in planning for several reasons. Only one hotel booked, and that was booked by our lovely friend Stefan (hugs). We're staying at Muri Beachcomber on Rarotonga and hopefully that will be lovely... Check out their web site for more info and pics: Muri Beachcomber.

Next things to do will be booking some more hotels and getting a shot in my bum tomorrow (against hepatitus)... And maybe start thinking of what to pack... Oh dear... Think I'll return to my wine instead...

Bye for now... O a O