LA: final comments

As I'll probably enjoy reading this blog back in the future, I better finish off my write-up of the LA trip. I'll just do a few bullet-points.

-It was only on the second day (Sunday) that Daz and I found out that we could get anywhere in LA on the metro for $1.25. This price is crazily low. In London a day travelcard costs somewhere between five and eight quid. If only we'd found this out the day before, we could have saved ourselves a 20 mile walk to and from Hollywood (twice)!

- Daz desperately wanted to go to the beach on Sunday whereas I wanted to venture Downtown. Being the decent guy I am, I relented and we went to the coast. We went to Santa Monica beach, and it was shit. There was a thick sea fog that engulfed the whole coastline, and you couldn't even see the ocean from the top of the sand. We burnt a bit of time at some little funfair where a big swingy dragon ride (similar to Mr Monkey's Banana Ride at Thorpe Park) was pretty enjoyable but the 'rollercoaster' was a major disappointment.

- Sunday evening we went to hit the bars on Cahuenga, which had been hyped up by three different bartenders. Apparently this road was 'full' of bars and was definitely the place to be seeing as there were some big NFL games on. We walked up it and passed two bars, which both looked empty. We went a bit beyond them up the street but there wasn't anything else interesting in sight. All of a sudden I desperately needed a dump, so we just decided to go in the bar which looked the least exclusive of the two we'd passed.

$10 to get in, and it was absolutely empty inside. I left Daz at the bar whilst I legged it to the toilet. Now I don't know if this is just an LA thing or if it's common across the whole of the US, but all the toilet cubicles I saw on the trip had massive gaps between the door and the doorframe, meaning passers-by could easily see you doing your business. Obviously there must be a big problem with people doing drugs in the toilets or something, but surely the gap could have been a BIT smaller?! Anyway I had no choice, so I shut the door and let rip. I noticed some liquid splashing on the floor in front of me whilst I was sat on the toilet. It was only me and the toilet attendant in there, so my first thought was that this guy was throwing water over the top of the cubicle for some reason. Nothing happened for a few moments before more liquid hit the floor. I felt quite intimidated and unsure what to do before I suddenly realised that the toilet seat had a gap at the very front, and my schlong was hanging out of it and I was urinating all over the floor! I hastily concluded my business and left (without tipping the attendant, poor guy).

Daz and I sat over in the corner where there were a few others sitting down and a couple of girls dancing. After about ten/fifteen minutes the place was beginning to fill up and we then realised that literally every person in there apart from us was Oriental, drinking bottles of water and dancing in a very chemically-induced fashion. I felt a bit guilty because I think Daz wanted to stay, but I made him leave. Further down the road we reached the other bar we'd passed earlier, and there was a huge queue outside it where every single person was black. This was one of the biggest impressions LA left on me, I knew it was ethnically diverse before I went there but honestly we felt a bit out of place as white guys! We then gave up trying to find somewhere new and just headed back to the bar we'd been to the night before, had a few drinks then cabbed it back to the hotel.

- On Monday when we were due to leave, I asked reception to book us a cab for 12 o'clock to the airport. No problem. Daz and I were in the lobby at 12 when our driver came in and called us. He grabbed our bags and took them out the front, where there was a slick black limo waiting for us. Daz and I exchanged confused glances and then just hopped in. We bottled it and missed the opportunity to check how much it was going to cost us and before we knew it we were on the road to LAX. There was no metre in this limo, just us and the driver. The rear windows were all 100% tinted and the interior was pristine leather. There was discreet classical music playing and we were suddenly bricking it that we were going to end up paying an arm and a leg for this service (I was running very low on cash by this point). This nervousness resulted in us sitting in more or less complete silence for the whole journey, to the extent that the driver broke the ice by asking if we didn't like each other! We laughed nervously. When we arrived, he lifted our bags out and there was an awkward pause. "So.... how much do we owe you?" I asked. The guy looked surprised and replied, "what, didn't they tell you?" At this point, my heart leapt and I thought he was about to say it was complimentary. But alas, it was $60, but I was hugely grateful it wasn't more.

-One final funny. On the flight back we slummed it in economy and had a very gay flight attendant serving us named Philippe, with an immaculate goatee beard and beautiful cheesy grin. When dinner came around, he asked the gentleman in front of us if he wanted the chicken pasta or the beef hotpot. The passenger asked what the beef was like. Philippe then gave his signature grin and replied, 'oooh, beefy!' For whatever reason (I can't actually explain why) we found this hilarious, and the other people within earshot were also chuckling. The guy in front asked no more questions and took the hotpot.

Ok, that should do!

In case I don't post before Christmas, everyone have a good one! However, last year I did a reflective post on Christmas Day so this year I might do the same.