City of Angels

I wish I could say that my first glimpse of the city was the waves crashing down on the famous Los Angeles surfer beaches as the sun slowly set on the horizon... Sadly, I was wedged in between 4 people in the middle of the stupid plane and would have been lucky to even catch a glimpse of the sky... This was after being treated like a terrorist at Melbourne and Sydney airports and more than 13 hours of sitting in a cramped seat with a psycho child constantly kicking the back of my seat and the light from the projected television screen right in front of me constantly changing colours and not allowing me to sleep even with my eyes tightly shut... Ah well, I thought at least the worst must truly be over and it can only get better from here on in... Not quite... I had to endure an hour of waiting in an immigration line with a constant fear that the officer ("the face of our nation" as they call themselves) would deem me a threat or a possible immigrant and refuse me entry to see my family and friends after all this waiting... What a relief it was to finally get the Admitted stamp in my passport and to not endure any more screening of my baggage and finally get out of all the mess to see the familiar faces of R and R and the not-so-familiar face of baby A who is absolutely adorable by the way...

So then they spent the day showing me all the sights and sounds of Los Angeles... we drove down the Pacific highway and saw the beaches of Venice, Santa Monica, Palisades something (I can't remember) and Malibu... we stopped off at a fancy restaurant named Moonshadows (even though we were dressed like total bums and every car there was a Lexus, Jaguar, Porsche or Beamer) and sampled oysters and calamari whilst watching the waves hitting the rocks below us...

We drove through Bel Air and Beverly Hills and saw the houses (well, at least saw the walls surrounding the houses) that we will never be able to afford and the cars we will never drive and saw the shops we will never shop in down Rodeo Drive... you know what, I am being pessimistic... maybe one day these things will happen to us... There's no harm in dreaming!

Finally we went to the touristy star struck area of Hollywood and walked down the well-known star walk and caught a glimpse of the Hollywood sign sitting white and pretty on the hills...

That night we drove downtown and picked up J and R from their apartment in downtown LA... So we simply went down the road to Numero Uno Pizzeria and had an awesome time catching up... I cannot express how it felt to be with such familiar girls again... Girls must have their girlfriends or they can really pine away and I have been pining away in Melbourne for way too long... I was sad to say goodbye to them for the night but I am happy will get to see them again soon.

Back home we had a couple of drinks and spoke about what else but Madras and finally got some well-deserved sleep.

The next morning I left to Virginia but that's another story...

All in all it was a rather nice introduction to a city I've never been to and I found that I quite liked what I saw in the brief time that I was there... I can't wait to get back and really experience it...