Our flight from Rio to Houston (and then LA) was the first flight we had taken in about 9 months. Standing on the side of the road in Rio, waiting for the bus that was going to take us to the airport, I was getting that excited nervous feeling that I hadn't felt as much as I maybe thought I would travelling around the world. The bus picked us up and all was going smoothly until we hit crazy traffic and moved about 300 m in an hour (that is not an exaggeration). The guy sitting next to me said he'd never seen anything like it and he was from Sao Paulo! After much stress we made it to the airport with time to spare.
We arrive in Houston early in the morning with only an hour to catch our flight to LA. Much to my surprise we were able to pretty much just walking into The States, I get more questioning when I go to the UK. Houston was a crazy airport full of stressed out people about to miss their flights because they are stuck in security queues and unsympathetic security workers. In the end there was nothing for us to stress about here either as our flight was delayed by 40 minutes. We touched down safely in LA, ready to start the constant struggle of when to tip and how much (this never got easier).
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| Our first views of the Land of the Free |
With only two nights in LA we decided to stay amongst the action in Hollywood.
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| Our Hostel was a converted motel, which made for an interesting stay. Each dorm room got it's own kitchen, a first. |
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| After I had posed for this photo with Chuck Norris we read an article saying that you should never ever sit on the Hollywood walk of fame - it's one of the grossest streets you can have the pleasure of walking on. |
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| I was tempted to go in as a test of my will power but the stakes were too high |
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| Our first night in LA as part of a hostel activity we went to this club - complete with expensive drinks and girl dancing on a stage |
What better day to go on one of those cheesy and slightly creepy tours where you stare at celebrity's front gates than when you are hung over? Our tour guide was full of dad jokes which the lack of sleep made even funnier.
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| This is LA. LA is huge. Seriously. |
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| This is about as close as we got to the Hollywood sign. It's up the back there to the right. |
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| I have not included any photos of celebrity houses in this post, partly because I didn't really care and partly because they are all just photos of front gates and I can't remember who they belong to. However, this awesome house that looks like a whale was designed by Salvador Dali and was my favourite thing from the tour. |
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| Saw some pretty cool cars on the tour as well. |
We spent the rest of our limited time in Hollywood just wandering around enjoying the weird. To he honest, two nights really was enough.
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| I feel that this restaurant is trying to discriminate against a specific type of person |
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| Two Johnny Depps, One Wolverine and that dude from Halo just hanging out |
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| Marilyn Monroe hand and high heel prints |
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| Johnny Romone chilling in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery |
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| For a cemetery there sure were a lot of peacocks |
We spent our last morning exploring a local farmers market - our first of many farmers markets to come in the US. Breakfast was this awesome burrito and the start of some amazing food over the next 5 weeks.
