36 (!!!) hours delayed, we finally arrived in the city of angels in the land of unlimited opportunities. Caused by the delay, we didn’t arrive in the afternoon as we actually thought, but at midnight. That’s why we got a grandiose landing with thousands of lights, but on the other hand we were kind of homeless as we obviously couldn’t ask our host to pick us up that time. Additionally, we had to pass the customs and we heard some really scary stories about people spending hours until they got processed. That’s why we asked Fiji Airways (in Nadi) to provide us a hotel room and they agreed to that. However, as we know now, Fiji Airways is not famous for being reliable why we were a bit sceptic. After we got through the customs in only about 5 minutes (YEAH), we again queued at the service desk of Fiji Airways. We got company of two Norwegian girls who were with us in the hotel in Nadi having the same problem. The guy at the desk looked a bit sceptic but he didn’t even try to change our minds and we got checked into the Crowne Plaza hotel close to the airport. As we never heard about the name before, we thought it would be a cheap motel, but that didn’t bother us as long as we would get a bed and a shower in order to get rid of the jetlag. A short 15 minute walk later we were quite surprised. Crowne Plaza is no cheap fleabag at all, but a quite expensive hotel chain (regarding the website, the cheapest room was 179$/night). Not too bad… and we directly went to sleep. The next morning we even got a giant 30$ p.p. breakfast buffet which was the perfect start for our adventure in L.A…
As we were a bit tired of HelpX, we decided to try to get back to more couchsurfing in the States (and additionally HelpX is known in USA, but not as famous as in New Zealand). We found (that is to say we were found by) Carlos, a Peruvian photographer who lives in L.A. since around 18 years. After he picked us up from the hotel, he welcomed us with a German cake, American beer and Donuts. Directly after that he invited us to a short visit of Hollywood, a delicious Peruvian lunch and a movie (Mad Max II) in the Chinese Theatre. Carlos wanted us not only to see, but also to experience Hollywood! The cinema is directly at the Hollywood Boulevard, and location for the many movie premieres of the Dolby Digital studios. His friend Peter, a hopefully quite soon very famous actor, went with us and also joined us for the following obligatory In-And-Out-Burger with American Beer. What a fabulous start!
The next day everything went on really rapidly. Carlos organized a free guided bus tour for us at his neighbour’s business. So we started at 11am for the 6 hour our through all the important parts of the city. That was the point when we realized how huge L.A. is. We spent almost half of the time on highways between the different parts (they definitely should consider a better public transport). We saw Venice Beach (part of it is muscle beach where Arnold Schwarzenegger was discovered), Santa Monica Pier, Downtown L.A., Beverly Hills (including celebrity houses, e.g. the one of Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory), Bel Air (where Michael Jackson lived), the Griffith Observatory and back to Hollywood. All in all an impressive day! The tour offered us a good overview of LA and we wouldn’t have seen a couple of places without that tour. But it was a rush and would we have paid for it, we were quite disappointed. The really nice tour guide was talking – no joke – the whole 6 hours without a break which is quite tiring if you want to listen. But ….
The next morning, Carlos wanted to take professional pictures of us for his AirBnB account. That was so to say the deal for our accommodation (could be worse, couldn’t it? 😉 Afterwards, we got a private city tour by Carlos to Japan-, China- and Koreatown, Downtown L.A. including the City Hall, the Getty Museum and for sunset and star watching again to the Griffith Observatory that offers an amazing view over the city. But one prejudice was confirmed, which we heard before about L.A. There is a lot of smog hanging above the city (our bus guide the day before explained us the difference between fog and smog: „Fog is white, Smog not“ ;-)). But we cannot confirm the second prejudice that L.A. is boring. The city is full of (positive) crazy people, artists and therefore alive as not too many other cities.
Summarizing, an incredible good start for our USA adventure, mainly due to Carlos’s enthusiasm for L.A., who definitely earned a spot in our best-host-ranking! We rented a car for the next weeks and the next morning, we started in direction to San Francisco with the first stopover in Santa Barbara. Of course not before having a closer look on the Hollywood sign (Carlos was so kind to drive us to Hertz with a small detour). From L.A. to Santa Barbara, we drove the coastal highway, why we could have a look on Miami Beach. Basically, all beaches in L.A. are quite similar, golden sand, a lot of people and a wide range of distinct activities (skating, basketball, volleyball, surfing,…). But a really relaxed atmosphere in the apparently so hectic USA.
Afterwards, we really started to make our way to Santa Barbara, but what happened there is part of the next part of our adventure.