California, Los Angeles: Multiple Drive-by Shootings

Since both of us had been to Los Angeles before, there wasn't any pressure to do much sightseeing there. However, since we know that many people may read this journal entry who are interested much more in the city than in the reunions we had with our good friends, we decided to get involved in quite a few drive-by shootings so we would have something good to post online. Of course, we weren't victims of any drive-by shootings, or we wouldn't be writing this story today. We were, however, instigators of multiple drive-bys, which you will learn about as you continue to read about our final destination in the United States during our year-long around the world trip.

At the start of our three months in the US, we participated in several reunions with family and friends. Dan was really more of the participator because Kyle had planned for us to see as many of his family members and friends in the US as possible when we were there. Having said that, Dan had a reunion of his own with a couple of his good friends, Sally (in Washington DC) and Lee (in Phoenix). The other reunions were okay for Dan because he had met quite a few of the people we caught up with before, either in London or in the US. The first half of our trip to the States had us completing most of the reunions in the South and on the East Coast, and our last stop before leaving the country was a good time to see some of our friends on the West Coast.

Evidence of the drive-bys can be seen when you click through and look at many different Hollywood landmarks spread throughout the photo album

We had planned to stay in Los Angeles for three nights after travelling there from Mojave Desert Nature Preserve and Death Valley National Park, which we had visited after spending a few days in Las Vegas. Those stops marked the last sightseeing stops during a 5-week road trip that we had undertaken, driving from Arkansas to California. We saw many amazing things in the southwest portion of the United States and highly recommend our readers to click back to our previous journal entries to see what we saw and learned about our travels, and antics, along the way.

The last time either of us had been to Los Angeles, we were both there together for Kyle's 30th birthday. Also, that last time, we stayed with a good friend of Kyle's from his university days at the University of Oklahoma (OU) - Shelley. Kyle had a few classes with Shelley but really got to know her well because they worked together for four years at a clothing store inside the mall in Norman, Oklahoma, where OU was located. Shelley took a vacation to London several years ago with a friend of hers and crashed in our flat, so Dan got to know her well during her two-week holiday.

When we were last in Los Angeles, Shelley's mum, Mary, had been in town and we were able to get to know her. This time, Mary came into town soon after we had arrived, and it was great to see her again, as well as Shelley. We definitely want to thank Shelley for letting us stay with her again this time; we really appreciated it and had a lot of fun hanging out!

Brett and Melissa, the next couple of people we had planned to see in Los Angeles, also went to OU, but Kyle didn't know them well from his time there. Instead, he met Brett after graduating, through a recruiting activity for the company he works for; Brett also works for the same company. Kyle got to know Melissa when she and Brett came to visit him in London several years ago, and Dan met Brett and Melissa then, too; we have all been good friends since.

We shouldn't fail to mention that Ryan was in London during the trip Brett and Melissa took, and that we saw him again a couple of years ago in London when he was visiting Brett and Melissa there. Ryan now lives in Los Angeles and Brett and Melissa were staying at his flat for the weekend. By the way, Brett and Melissa moved to Leeds, in England, for 18 months, for a project that Brett worked on there; they both spent many weekends in London on the floor of our flat (on an inflatable bed, though!). A big thanks to Brett and Melissa for flying down from San Francisco to see us for the weekend we were in town; it was great to spend the day together!

Since the last time we visited Los Angeles, we have made a couple of new friends, Mandy and Chris, through our good friend Brady, who we managed to catch up with earlier in the summer in New York City and Austin, where he lived. Mandy came to London during one of Brady's annual visits to the city and we had a couple of fun nights out together, so it was excellent seeing her again. Kyle met Chris in Austin a few summers ago when he and Chris were both visiting Brady and it was great to see him again, and for Dan to meet him. Mandy and Chris - thanks so much for treating us to some meals when we were in town; we will definitely make it up to you both when you come and visit us in London!

There were a couple of people that Kyle didn't end up getting to meet up with when we were in town. Cary, a friend of Kyle's from his days teaching summer cheerleading camps for the National Cheerleaders Association (NCA), had moved to the city a few weeks earlier but the timing didn't work out for us to meet up with him. Also, he missed seeing Poppy, another friend from NCA, but we had a second chance to meet up with her in French Polynesia a few days later. That attempt, unfortunately, also failed.

The next thing we should talk about, now that you know more than you cared for knowing about everyone we visited, is the food that we ate and the restaurants or cafes that served us. We'll take these in sequential order to keep it easy, and if you want to know about the drive-by shootings, keep reading because they will come. The first meal we had was on the evening we arrived in Burbank, where Shelley was living whilst working and going to fashion design school. Granville was a restaurant located in the heart of Burbank and we shared an enormous southwest burger that was served with delicious sweet potato fries, a perfect recommendation from Shelley. Shelley's mum didn't arrive until a couple of mornings later, so it was just the three of us.

The next day, Shelley joined us for lunch at Farmers Market in The Grove, near Hollywood. We met Brett, Melissa and Ryan there, too, as well as a couple of friends of Melissa's from her work. Farmers Market was a large area with several food stalls and outdoor cafes, so everyone explored the different options on offer before choosing our lunch. Both of us chose to purchase food from a barbecue food stall; Dan ordered a beef brisket sandwich and Kyle ordered a chopped beef sandwich. The two sandwiches were served with sides and we shared everything to give our taste buds a wide range of sensations.

We had seated ourselves upstairs at Farmers Market because we couldn't find a large enough table for everyone downstairs. When we went down to get our food, Shelley also went with us. She bought something from a Brazilian food stand, but we can't remember what Brett, Melissa and Ryan ate because they went down after us to get their food, and we were too busy stuffing our faces to look over at their plates when they came back upstairs. We do remember, however, that Melissa had her fill of Pinkberry yoghurt after lunch, one of the latest trends in Los Angeles. After eating, we sat and chatted with everyone for a while before parting ways for the afternoon. Brett, Melissa and Ryan had some shopping to do and we had arranged to see a film with Shelley.

That evening, we met up again with Brett, Melissa and Ryan at Roscoe's Chicken 'N Waffles. We tried to convince Shelley to take us to dinner somewhere in East LA or Compton, so we could experience a night in the hood. She suggested the restaurant, which was located in a semi-hood area, on the outskirts of an area where we would have trouble surviving. Just like in the movies!

We weren't let down; the experience at Roscoe's was brilliant, the decor was as minimalistic as we expected, and the food was superb! We both ordered a large plate with fried chicken and a waffle on it, and we shared some macaroni and cheese and corn bread, too. Pretty much all around the table, everyone had some form of fried chicken on their plates, and a few of the lucky ones got a waffle, too. It was a great meal with Shelley, Brett, Melissa and Ryan and we were sad that it was our last time to see the latter three, since they had an early flight the next day.

The next morning was Sunday and we thought it appropriate when Mandy suggested that we meet for brunch. Shelley didn't join us for that meal because she had to pick up Mary from the airport. It was a nightmare for us trying to get to Mandy's house because the route we had planned on taking, along Sunset Boulevard, was closed for many blocks due to, no doubt, the next Hollywood blockbuster being filmed. Luckily, we had a mobile phone with us and were able to ring Mandy, several times. Every alternative route she proposed took us back to Sunset, which was still blocked a mile or so down from where we first tried to drive on the road.

We finally made it to Mandy's to pick her up and take her to brunch. She had hurt her eye the previous day in a tragic shopping incident. A Macy's tag had brutally attacked her and put her in the hospital. She was on the mend when we saw her, but looked somewhat like a pirate with her eye patch, and couldn't drive. It was just as well that we had to go to her house because we were initially supposed to meet her on Sunset Boulevard, which was clearly out of the question. Before going to brunch, which was then lunch because of the time of day when we arrived at her house, we got a grand tour of the place and even saw the garden that a friend of ours from London (Pete) had designed for her.

Mandy decided upon Edendale Grill and, to make things easy for our waiter, who knew Mandy, we all ordered the same thing: a Firehouse Scramble. Edendale Grill was an old fire station that was converted into a restaurant and bar, hence the name of the dish we all ate. After eating, we took Mandy back to her place and hung out for a little while, playing with her two dogs and chatting with a couple of her friends who had come over just as we returned to her house.

The last time we went to Los Angeles, Shelley introduced us to fish tacos, something that neither of us had ever eaten. They were delicious and she took us back to the same place we had visited before, which was also a favourite of Mary's, Don Cucos. The Mexican restaurant had great tortilla chips and salsa, and yummy margaritas. Mary didn't like margaritas, so she just drank water, but she loved fish tacos and really enjoyed her meal. All four of us found the fish tacos to be good and there was nothing remaining on our plates after we finished eating.

On our final day in Los Angeles, we met up for brunch again with Mandy; that time, Chris also was able to meet up with us. He couldn't come the previous day because he was working, but it was fortunate that he was able to come on our last day. The four of us met at Lulu's Cafe near Hollywood and had a great time eating and chatting, catching up. Dan had a large breakfast burrito, the same thing that Chris ordered, and Kyle had a breakfast pasta dish. Mandy went for a slightly healthier route and ordered a salad; she had a hard time making a decision because the cafe had over 20 salads to choose from!

To go along with our meals, we each ordered an iced mocha. The drinks were huge, at least 32 ounces. When we each ordered a second iced mocha, we could see that Mandy and Chris thought we were a bit insane, but the drinks were too delicious to worry about that. After a good time catching up with the two of them, we bid our goodbyes and made sure to invite them to London to see us sometime soon. Mandy's eye patch was gone then, as her eye had healed quite rapidly overnight; she could even drive. We wished that Chris could have seen it, as it was quite a humorous sight; we might just have to dig up a photo and send it to him.

Yes, there was more food consumed in Los Angeles. We hadn't had much sushi at all during our travels, and sushi is one of our favourite foods. Shelley and her mum really liked the Japanese style of preparing fish, so we decided upon sushi for our last dinner together before we got on a plane to French Polynesia to start the "Pacific Paradise" portion of our 2007 trip. The Japanese restaurant where we ate, Fuji, was in Burbank close to Shelley's house, so it was quick and easy to find our way there when we all decided it was time to eat. They had a happy hour special when we arrived and many of the sushi dishes we ordered were 50% off, which was superb for our travel budget!

Besides food, we wanted to include some information about sights in this journal entry and the best way to learn about them is to look at the photo album for this journal entry. With either Shelley or Kyle driving, Dan was the guilty one of us executing several drive-by "shootings" out of our vehicle, with a digital camera. Evidence of the drive-bys can be seen when you click through and look at many different Hollywood landmarks spread throughout the photo album.

A couple of movies were watched when we were in Los Angeles; Shelley joined us for both of them and we really liked the choices we made. We spent an afternoon at The Grove with Shelley, after having lunch at Farmers Market, walking around the outdoor shopping area, eating Haagen Dazs ice cream, drinking Coffee Bean iced coffees, and seeing one of the aforementioned movies. Shelley was our leader during the drive-bys, taking us to many parts of Los Angeles, including Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive and downtown.

The MTV Music Awards were showing one evening and we watched the show with Shelley at her house. It was a horribly produced show and we laughed pretty much all the way through it. While we were there, Shelley had some homework that she needed to work on, so we suggested going to Starbucks with our laptops, where she could work and we could check emails and catch up on more trip planning for the South Pacific islands that we were soon going to visit.

There were a few things that we needed to take care of before leaving the United States. We had to package up and send all of our camping gear to Kyle's mum's house in Arkansas, so he could pick it up and bring everything back to London the next time he visited his family. There was also the issue of being able to back everything up on the laptop that we had bought earlier in the year in Hong Kong, so we wouldn't lose our photos and videos in case something happened to the computer. To date, we had been backing everything up onto DVDs, which was a major hassle and time consuming, and Best Buy was having a good sale on small, travel-sized external hard drives, so we agreed to purchase one to back up all of our files. You can't blame us, with over 15,000 photos and over 200 videos captured since 4th January, when we started our trip in Southeast Asia!

Our flight from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) didn't leave until 11:00pm and we didn't have to drive to the airport until well after rush hour was over. Burbank was almost an hour from the airport and we really saw how large the sprawling metropolis was during our drive there. We had to turn in the Ford Edge SUV that we had rented for our road trip, so our first stop was at Avis Car Rental. The person responsible for handing out good luck to people must have felt bad for our losses in Las Vegas a few days earlier, as well as the extra money we had to spend in the US since we budgeted a much too low amount there; when we turned in the car, the woman at the rental counter said that something looked wrong with our reservation, and she ended up cancelling the additional payment required for the extra miles we drove.

The original car rental reservation included 3000 free miles and every mile after that was supposed to be charged at 28 cents per mile, which was around 14 pence per mile, at the time. Our final tally equated to almost 6000 miles, and the extra 3000 miles should have cost us an extra $840, but, as a result of the friendly rental counter woman's mistake, we didn't pay any of that. Before she could realise her mistake, we made a quick getaway to the Avis shuttle bus that would take us to the terminal to check in for our flight. We couldn't believe our good fortune at that point in our trip!

Inside the airport, we checked in and had trouble going through security because of a brand new jar of peanut butter that we wanted to carry on the plane. Apparently, peanut butter is classified as a "liquid" or "gel" and passengers were only allowed 100ml of it. Kyle made up some story on the fly that he was diabetic and had to have it for the sugar; Dan remained quiet and embarrassed that Kyle was making such a fuss over the jar, but secretly wanted the peanut butter to travel to the South Pacific with us, because American-style peanut butter was pretty tasty. To make this long story short, the TSA security guard - with a major attitude - opened the brand new jar and tested it, with some litmus paper. Needless to say, Peter Pan peanut butter passed the test and made it onto our flight.

We almost missed our flight to French Polynesia by waiting at the wrong gate for ages. When we finally realised our mistake, we had to sprint to the correct gate to ensure that they wouldn't leave without us. We finally arrived at the gate when everyone was boarding, and we heard Dan's name announced over the loudspeaker. The first thing we thought was that he, or we, were going to be upgraded, since we both held Platinum status on American Airlines, which was part of the OneWorld Alliance, of which Air Tahiti Nui was a member airline. Sadly, the only thing that they needed Dan for was to collect his airline ticket; the woman who checked us in had taken the wrong ticket voucher from him!

For those of you who have followed our stories, antics, photographs and interesting run-ins across the United States for the past three months, we hope that you have enjoyed them. The next set of stories that we will be sharing with everyone will allow us to recount our time on several islands in the South Pacific, including Moorea, Bora Bora and Tahiti in French Polynesia; Rarotonga and Aitutaki in Cook Islands; and Naviti and Nanuya Lai Lai in the Yasawas Islands in Fiji. Hopefully, you will be wowed with our adventures there and we thank you for continuing the journey with us.