Changing... one thousand!

Hi all,

Welcome to my first travel spam of my journey to the UK.

It all started on Monday 14th March when I boarded my United Airlines
flight to LAX. Thanks to mum, Tan, Reuben, Stef, Holly and JP for
coming to the airport to make sure I got on the plane... I mean see me
off. Just before I went through customs I realised I hadn't changed my
socks in about 3 days (long story) and it was pointed out I had
forgotten to use deodorant too. Too late to fix either problem, so
away I went. The guy sitting next to me must have been loving it...
13.5 hours of several day old Dan sweat. The flight was pretty
uneventful and the in-flight movies were terrible (Princess Diaries 2,
Taxi, Bridget Jones' Diary 2, on a colour faded projector). I dumped
half of a Stilnox which sorted me out with sleep for a few hours.

I arrived to a beautiful, crystal clear, tshirt-and-shorts day in LA
to absolutely no security check coming through US customs... and I
arrived 6 hours before I left Australia. What the? I jumped into a
shuttle to my hostel in Hollywood. I met two other travellers in the
shuttle - Paul, an Aussie bloke who works for Bonds in Sydney, over
here for a friend's wedding in San Diego, and Carrie, a Scottish chick
who works as a Nanny in Geneiva, over here for a friend's wedding in
Las Vegas (yes, an Elvis wedding!). She hadn't figured out how she was
getting to Vegas yet so I offered her a lift. After an interesting
drive through LA, passing oil drills on the side of the road and about
5000 fast food shops I arrived at the hostel, checked in, showered
then started feeling human again so headed out on the town with Paul.
We did a (really long) walk down Hollywood Blvd (with all the stars on
the footpath) and Sunset Blvd to Rodeo Drv in Beverly Hills.
Everywhere in LA was really dirty, until we got to Beverly Hills.


Hollywood Sign


Beverly Hills sign

I have never seen such a beautiful suburb. I couldn't believe the number
of homeless people along the way, especially as we started to get into
Beverly Hills where they set up camp on sculptured park benches on the
magnificently kept pathways fronting the million dollar houses with
Mercs, Beamers and Hummers in the driveways. What a contrast! That
night we went to Hooters Hollywood for dinner. Food was ordinary, but
the service was great :)


Hoooooooosters!!!!


On day two, another fantastic day weather-wise, I went to Universal
Studios. It was fun to do once, but I wouldn't rush
back to do it again.


Universal Studios

Everything is bigger in the LA. The cars are like armoured tanks -
most "family cars" are 4-WDs (SUVs) the size of a tow truck. The
petrol is about AU80c/litre, and they complain about how expensive it
is. I guess the fuel efficency of their petrol guzzlers might give it
the impression they aren't getting value for money! The food servings
are massive, and they call entrees 'appetizers' and main courses are
'entrees'. Drinks are massive too. The smallest post-mix soft drinks
you can get are 600mL and the largest are 1.25L. Caronas come in
long-necks. Even the sea-gulls are bigger - about twice the size of
Australia's.

The food here is horrible. Everything is deep fried and/or showered in
sugar. The bread is mainly sour dough. Butter is whipped, like with
Macca's hotcakes but not as good. Tasty Cheese is dyed orange (like
fluro orange) and it costs you more if you want to get it un-dyed!
Fruit salad means a few pieces of rockmelon and honeydew with two
grapes on top. I would literally miss meals because you generally had
choices like burrittos or deep fried chicken for breakfast!

Although I couldn't get the convertible I wanted, on day three Carrie
and I drove to Vegas... the long way. Because I hadn't adjusted my
sense of direction for being on the West Coast instead of the East
Coast, I headed the wrong way and ended up in Santa Monica. After
turning around and heading back the right way we got stuck in an
almost stationary traffic jam for about 2.5 hours following an
accident that cut a 5 lane highway down to 1 lane. We finally made it
through "Bat Country" to Barstow, the half way point and an absolute
dump made up exclusively of greasy diners and dirty motels. We stopped
in at Denny's, a roadside diner chain, where the waitress with less
teeth than fingers (of which I think she had 11 anyway) was
celebrating her 10th year working. They served us something called
Grittle on the side of breakfast, which is a wheat based porridge-like
dish that tastes just like it sounds. I was just waiting for Carrie to
break out in "That's noooo how you make porridge" in her thick
Scottish accent. In attempt to get out of there as quickly as possible
we once again ended up going the wrong way, taking ages to find
somewhere to turn around and delaying us further. Take 3. We ended out
getting into Vegas just after dark, some 5 hours behind schedule.
Great timing for the lights though!


*Beavis* he he he ... loose slots ... he he slots

When in Vegas... On the drive from LA Carrie and I agreed that -
assuming we could find somwhere to annull it reasonably easily and
cheaply - we would get married while we were in Vegas. So first stop
was to a wedding chappel to find out what to do. Being 9pm was no
hurdle. The State of Nevada offers 24-hour wedding licencing (required
for the wedding), and there was no shortage of 24-hour wedding
chappels in town (including a few drive-thru's). The actual service is
only about US$39, however it looked like it was going to cost around
US$700 to get the annulment so the wedding never happened.

We checked in, showered, returned the car (a drama in itself) and went
to meet her friends at the Stratosphere Hotel. What I found out next
was my big downfall. If you are gambling in Vegas, you get free booze.
Even a 1 cent pokie. They have pokies on the bar, so you can sit and
pretend to play while you're ordering your free drink! I got stuck
into the trusty old Caronas and thought it would be a good idea to bet
on black on roulette until I won... big mistake. There were 6 reds
before I stopped betting, then another 2 reds, 2 greens (0/00) then 2
more reds in a row before I stopped watching because it was too
painful. I won't say how much I lost, but I will say there was another
guy doing the same and lost a lot more than me. Made me feel a bit
better.

While we were in Vegas there was a construction industry exhibition
which attracted 140,000 visitors in itself, one of the largest
conferences Vegas has ever hosted. This meant every single hotel room
on the Strip (the main area of the "new" Vegas) was booked out. The
place we stayed at instead, the only backpacker's hostel, was located
in Downtown Las Vegas - the "old" Vegas, now the hiding place of what
seemed like every crack head and low life in the world. It is the
scariest place I have ever been in my entire life. On our first walk
up the road on day four we saw three separate arrests in a stretch of
about 200m. We later found out you shouldn't walk up the street at
all. A few days after leaving Vegas I was watching a "COPS" style
program called "Vegas Heat", which included the arrest of a couple of
junkies, for murder and aggrevated assault, in the motel directly
across the street from the hostel.

Walking around Vegas is a real experience. Multi billion dollar hotel
casinos as far as you can see, one shaped like Egyptian pyramid and
Sphinx, others like the Eiffel Tower, the New York skyline,
Centrepoint Tower (sort of), an ancient Roman
palace, King Arthur's castle... you name it. Out the front of every
one is a line up of limos, stretched hummers and
stretched 4WDs, inside each thousands of people gambling 24 hours a
day. Each casino has a theme or an attraction. Bellagio's water show
was my favourite, the Star Trek Experience at the
Hilton was excellent and the outside of New York New York was
something out of this world. Make sure you leave plenty of time to
check it all out if you ever go - there's never a dull moment. If
you're more up for the gambling, don't fret... they've even got pokies
at the airport and in petrol stations.


It's up to you... New York, New York


Paris Las Vegas


Stretched Hummer on Las Vegas Blvd


Bellagio

On day five, Friday, I had a job interview. He flew out from Maryland,
on the north east coast, to interview me at Ceasar's Palace (the
nicest of the casinos in my opinion). Three hours later, after the
best meal I had had in over a week, he offered me the job. I'll be
working as the UK support engineer for a VoIP switch manufacturer
(Nextone). The office is right near Liverpool St Station in London,
which is apparently very central. I got the money I wanted and there
are other benefits, such as flying back to the USA for training every
now and then. Cause for celebration, I thought. But how? I figured,
being in the USA, shooting a gun or two would be a good way
(yeehaaah!). So off I went to The Gun Store, which - apart from
selling every gun you could imagine - also has an indoor shooting
gallery. Each of the 10 or so staff walk around with a loaded handgun
and two full clips on their belt. Scary stuff. First up, one clip (25
rounds) on an M-16 [see attached]. That killed all of about 2 minutes,
including paying for it and getting briefed, so next up was a Colt
1911 .45 calibre hand gun. I popped off 50 rounds before calling it a
day and heading over to Circus Circus Casino's indoor amusement park
with Carrie for some roller coaster action.


I got the job!

The next morning I arrived at the airport at 5:30am, 2 hours before my
flight back to LA, because I was warned of added security. No suprise
then that I got randomly "selected" to have a full on security check
done - shoes, jackets, bags, etc all torn apart, searched and swabbed
for explosives. I even had to stand in an "Ion Machine", which blew
jets of air on me and then analyzed the air for who knows what. What
an ordeal. They were wearing rubber gloves, but they didn't have any
lubricant visable so I felt a little more comfortable. After all of
that, I'm so glad I got to the airport so early because my plane was
delayed for over an hour because the crew hadn't arrived yet!

On my arrival back to LAX I met up with Anne Pageant (Eburn), who had
just flown back in from Australia for two weeks visiting her family.
We hired a car and drove up to her and Scott's place about half way up
to San Francisco, on Scott's dad's avocado farm in a cute little
sea-side fishing and farming town called Morro Bay. I spent two nights
with them and their gorgeous cat, Tilly, taking in the sights around
Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo, including Chewing Gum Lane and the bay,
which had wild otters and seals, and a dirty big electical power plant.
It was great to have a real bed, a room to myself and vegemite on
toast for breakfast!


Chewing Gum Alley

Monday morning I headed off by myself for the drive from Morro Bay to
San Francisco along Highway 1. It was a beautiful drive, very similar
to the Great Ocean Road. Along the way I got to stop in at Hearst
Castle (google it) - one of the houses of the guy Citizen Cane was
loosely based on. This place was amazing! A few miles up the road was
a beach full of seals, which was pretty cool to see too. Unfortunately
it was raining heavily for most of the drive so I didn't get to take
in too much of it.

San Francisco was a disappointment. Don't get me wrong - it's a really
beautiful, clean city, they've got decent food (for a change), the
people are fantastic, it was just that it was pissing down rain,
freezing cold and I couldn't get on to the Alcatraz tour (booked out a
week in advance). I spent most of time in the hostel, but will
definately make some time to go back there again in the future. I hit
the town one night with a 20-year-old Kiwi I met, Nick. We spent half
the night trying to sneak him into pubs (21's the drinking age) before
ending up at a seedy strip club that didn't even serve alcohol! We
didn't last there long.

USA Summary:
Days there - 9
Coolest thing - Vegas baby, Vegas!
Best thing - Landing a job... from Caesar's Palace!
Wierdest thing - seeing two homeless guys chasing each other around
downtown San Fran, one with pants around his ankles.
Worst thing - Apart from the food, tipping.
The people - really friendly, especially when they heard the Australian accent.
Best beer - Fosters? Anything not American!
Next stop - Vancouver, Canada.

Cheers
Daniel