LA Relatives
Trip Start
May 07, 2008
1
75
90
Trip End
Jan 06, 2009
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Los Angeles,
California,
United States
Monday, December 8, 2008
Well, we finally made it to Los Angeles and USA as the last leg of our Honeymoon. We were both really excited about coming to LA. For separate reasons.
I was really excited because I had never been to LA before. Only Vegas and Miami. LA, to me, was big hair, 80's music, celebrities, flash cars and cocktails. Woohooo!! However, David was probably more excited because he had already been here before, several times, so was interested to see if it had changed but more importantly, he would be getting to know his new uncle and aunt who had come into his family last year! Long story.
I was looking forward to arriving in LAX airport. I had visions of lights and glamour, shiny floors, tons of shops and LA sunlight streaming in through windows like some angelic ray. Hmmm....what we got was a small, dark, dirty airport not too dissimilar to London City Airport!! Admittedly there was building work going on so some cordoned off areas but it was about as big and glamorous as a scout hut. (David: Second only to Indian airports perhaps. Or maybe the Argentinian one, which was a bit of a shambles. Chinese airports, by comparison, were all sparkling wonders of a future age.)
Secondly, we were suddenly welcomed to life in the USA via the Interrogatative Cross-Examination-Eye-Contact-Analysis Method. (David: After queuing for 40 minutes and then queuing for another 40 minutes because we'd been given the wrong immigration forms to fill out...!) This basically involved handing over passports and documents to the Immigration Officer while being met with icy eye contact and questioned as to how long we planned to stay in the US (6 weeks); where we were staying (with relatives); why we were in the US (honeymoon); and THEN "..and what is the purpose of your honeymoon?" this threw me.
Clouds and LA
I laughed out loud (probably not a good idea) and said "...er...sorry?" and glanced at David in case I had mis-heard the question or perhaps there was some alternative response I was supposed to give. David seemed as confused as me. "Purpose?!" I was dying to respond with sarcasm like "to have sex in every state!" I mean what sort of a stupid flipping question is that??! What's the purpose of any honeymoon?! So, David responded with "to have some fun..well, that's the clean version. Do you want the dirty version too?" which surprisingly managed to crack the Officer's steely face and a smirk appeared as he recorded all our answers onto a computer! Then there were more interrogative questions. What do we do for a living? Are we returning to our jobs after our honeymoon? Of course I had completely forgotten that my maiden name of 'Tariq' was still in my passport. I must get that changed once I return to the UK!! (David: I really do wonder why they do this, because it clearly serves no purpose whatsoever. I suspect that they believe that someone coming in with a guilty conscience will start sweating, shifting their eyes, get all fidgety before making a break for it... whereby, the unfulfilled immigration officer will leap over his desk and tackle the guilty person to the floor, if not inserting several sorts of bottle stopper into the poor souls body - I've seen the size of their guns, I can only assume they fire bottle stoppers, because I can't imagine a bullet being big enough to fit them. Meanwhile, the immigration officer will be a national hero and be licked head to toe by Oprah on one of her shows!) Next, we went off to Thrifty to collect our hire car.
The world according to LA
Thankfully, this was a much more pleasant encounter. After doing all the paperwork, the lovely lady told us to go out to the parking lot and ..... choose our car. Choose it? Yes, any car in a certain section. This was great or so you would think. But it was harder! We had choices! There were convertibles. People carriers. Massive great Starsky & Hutch type affairs, sports cars.....we looked at blue, black, big, small, white, electric windows, manual windows, electric seats, big boots, small boots!! Finally we settled on a Chrysler. It was frigging huge like some rapper-snoop doggy dog type Limo thing but it was the best of a bad bunch quite frankly. We didn't need a people carrier or a range rover. Getting to Derek and June's, David's uncle and aunt, was a piece of piddle. It was only about 40mins away and David (a.k.a the Walking SatNav) found it immediately with the help of some Google Earth research the night before. Seeing Derek and June again was fantastic. Their place is absolutely wonderful. They live in Palos Verdes in a small canyon surrounded by other houses which faces the ocean and surrounding the back of their house they have a veranda the size of Heathrow (with a hot tub!!!) where on a clear day you can see over to the sandy beaches of Malibu and Santa Monica. Just gorgeous.
We had decided to stay in LA for just one night before heading off to Vegas for a few days jaunt, combining that with Hoover Dam and Death Valley and then returning to LA to spend more time with Derek and June and seeing some LA sights. So, after a cup of tea and a catch up, we got down to priorities: I went off to get a manicure, pedicure and my eyebrows waxed and David went off to buy a SatNav for the car (far far cheaper than renting one from Thrifty for $200 per day!!!!!!!) (David: That might be a slight exaggeration, but it was indeed far cheaper to buy one and keep it, than to hire one for the length of time we needed the car. I got a Garmin one, and it plays MP3s through the car radio and tells you where all the traffic jams are: an hour after they've cleared!). I went to a fantastic beauty salon, run by Vietnamese women where one was at my feet, one was doing my hands and one was ripping my hairy eyebrows to bits all while I sat in a massive leather massaging chair which vibrated and rocked me to sleep. Blisssssssssssssssss and it was cheap as chips.
Our first night in LA, Derek unfortunately had to go out for a meeting but June, David and I watched Jeopardy on tv which is a fantastic game show!!! I love it!! It's like a fastest-finger-first game show where when presented with one word you have to shout out what the question may be. Horribly addictive. Sadly, David and I were sooooooo shattered we fell asleep while June was talking to us on the sofa!! And it was only about 8pm!! We had not had a proper night's sleep for over 36 hours due to our 8-hour LA flight. Snuggling up in the guest bed, which was so soft and squishy, was just HEAVEN and we slept like dead people until 9am the next morning.
The next day, we left LA and drove off to Hoover Dam and Vegas for a few days. We will be returning to LA after this so there is much more LA gossip to follow in a further blog!!
Love, us xxx
