LA – The Arrival

Ahh well after a delightful 13.5 hour plane flight with only a few hours of sleep and no sleep at all the night before i was feeling great, naaaht. My stomach was stuffed, my muscles sore and i could barely keep my eyes open, i had grand visions of getting the the hotel, sleeping for an hour or two and heading off to the beach for a cocktail on a warm LA day, things didnt exactly go that way.

Upon our arrival after making a break from the airport we had to get the address of the hotel because in all the rush we forgot. While marina was writing down the address from a sign she found on a board at the airport some black guy pulled me to the side and started talking to me, i tried to shoo him off but i was no match in my sleep deprived state. He mentioned he was a volunteer for the police department and asked where i was staying, we told him where and things started to get scarey. He scared the crap out of both of us, telling us to change accomodation to Venice Beach or Santa Monica. He gave us a long winded story about his background and how he would never go to that sort of area, i tried to find out if he was selling something so i asked where and he only suggested areas, not hotels which made me think he was legit. He basically said dont talk to the locals just stick within the hotel catch taxis/tours from the hotel only and dont mingle with the locals because there are heaps of junkies and rap ganster type of people. lol. He turned out to be collecting for children but it was through the police department, we gave him a donation to get him out of our way, we weren’t equiped to deal with him in out dazed and disoriented state.

When we got there we saw what he meant, it looked pretty crappy, the hotel wasn’t great but meh it was a place to sleep, we were so paranoid though that we hid the laptop under the bed, hehe. We went and got some food to force down because we were starving and then slept. When we woke up we felt better and went to the front desk to ask the attendant where we can get power converters, he told us radio shack will have them but that we can’t walk there at night. We asked about food places, if we can catch a taxi to santa monica but he said there was no point, would cost too much and things wouldnt be open much longer as it was already 9pm, im glad we didnt because a taxi back from santa monica cost us $50! So the first day is over and its time to sleep.