Los Angeles

Imelda on the Walk Of Fame, Hollywood
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Arrived LAX and navigated our way through US Customs with no problems. Picked up the rental car and was a bit nervous driving a left hand drive Ford Impala along the busy 3 lane roads of LA on the “wrong” side. Soon got the hang of it, very glad we had a GPS included though.

Found the Banana Bungalow Hostel without too much trouble. Great little place, tidy and clean and within a couple of miles of downtown Hollywood. Found it funny that the lounge had 3 other people on laptops as we went through. Looks like most travellers (including us) have them these days. On advice from the lady behind the front desk, we went for a walk down to the Farmers Market for dinner. This was a collection of food stalls, shops, bars and grocers which kind of reminded us of the Borough Markets in London, but without the crowds. Had our first gumbo experience, real tasty! The weather was quite cool, not much warmer than NZ. So no hitting the beaches just yet.

Venice Beach
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Went for a huge walk along Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards, checked out the Walk of Fame, Kodak Theatre and Capitol Records. Got our first glimpse of the Hollywood sign on the distant hills. Considering its midweek and only the shoulder season, there were still lots of tourists and people pushing tours and tickets. Guess we will have to get used to that over the next few weeks. It was cool to see all the tall palms of Hollywood. Everything seems to be very big in America; from the cars to the freeways to the servings of food. Speaking of food, I have never seen so many takeaways, eateries and restaurants in one place. On the TV, every second ad seems to be food related. Gonna have to keep up the big walks or we’ll end up needing 2 seats each on the plane to England.

Imelda, Nicole and Jay at Disneyland
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Imelda's sister Nicole and her boyfriend Jay joined us from Toronto and we hit the theme parks with a vengeance. 2 days at Disneyland and 1 day at Universal Studios and we were all amazed at the scale of the operations here. Both parks are such well oiled machines that they can churn through thousands of tourists an hour. We felt quite overwhelmed by the continuous PA theme music, numerous merchandise stores and fast food outlets, but still had a great time on all the rides (despite the queues). Highlights of the theme parks were the Jurassic Park and The Mummy Returns rides at Universal Studios and the California Screamin' Rollercoaster and the finale fireworks/Fantasmic Show at Disneyland. For pure entertainment you could not beat it.