Kelly's World

This morning I awoke a little bit groggy, but there was a huge improvement over the previous two days. I had a cough, and my throat was still burning but there was no desire to blow my nose every 5 minutes. My energy was coming back, my head was clearing, and I was on holidays. Things were definitely on the up.

After checking out of the hotel, the first car containing Amy, Pauline, Aunty Sue and Fiona made their way to Pismo Beach while our group (Madonna, Mum, Mat and I) attempted to find a post office. We had bought stamps back in Big Sur but hadn’t yet found anywhere to actually mail the post cards we had written to family and friends back home. We entered America Post into the GPS and within minutes we arrived at our destination. Mat dropped the post cards in the mailbox and we made our way to Pismo Beach to join the others.

When we arrived, Mat got a kick out of looking at the massive trucks in the car park while I got a kick out of looking at the lifeguard stations along the beach. It was exactly like Baywatch! If there are any americans reading this blog they’re probably shaking their heads, but it was still pretty cool for me. As we walked along the pier, I also enjoyed seeing a little shack with “rod rental” on it. Maybe I haven’t visited enough places in Australia, but as far as I know we don’t have shacks on piers, with big cool signs on it. I gazed at the people on the beach and the children playing beach, then turned back. I’ve seen the other side of the Pacific Ocean, so the water didn’t impress me.

Once I reached the carpark I was stoked to see a woody! I’ve only ever seen these cars in photos and movies (or on a t-shirt I had purchased for my dad back in Carmel – coincidentally my sister had bought Dad a nearly identical shirt from the same store the first time she had been to Carmel, I didn’t know that when I bought it). Seeing it in real life, I was in awe of the amount of love and care that had gone into keeping that car in such pristine condition. It definitely exceeded the amount of attention my Suzuki Swift received! I made sure Mat video taped it, then we were back in the car and on our way.

We took the route through Santa Barbara into LA. There had recently been fires there only days before, so the landscape was still scarred. As we drove through we saw many signs thanking the firefighters for all their efforts. I understand a lot of homes had been threatened, but due to the firefighters damage was minimal. Another job well done, and it was fantastic to see people offering their gratitude. In some shops I even saw signs offering firefighters discounts.

Our next stop was at some Buddhist church, or a monks place, or something. To be honest I really didn’t have much interest in it. There was a cost to go on a tour, which only Mum and Aunty Sue ended up going on. The rest of us spent the time sitting on the lawn in the sun, and interacting with some random dogs that approached us. We didn’t have food, and once they realised that they didn’t stay long. It looked like there might have been a wedding going on as there was a lot of people in formal wear, and I think we might have even seen the bride at one stage. I took some random video of the big pit out the front where the monks washed their clothes (it looked quite boring so I didn’t include it in my final video edit) and some beautiful flowers in the pond. Eventually Mum and Aunty Sue surfaced, and we returned to the cars to continue to LA.

We knew we were close to LA once the traffic on the highway started building up. It appeared there was more people trying to get out than there was getting in, which was a bonus for us. I also remember the roads being quite terrible, and incredibly bumpy. Over the course of our time in LA I would soon discover this to be true; the roads were the worst I’ve ever seen. I expect this is from the sheer number of earthquakes they encounter over a year. Why fix it if they’re just going to get cracks all over again?

Amy & co arrived at the hotel before us; I phoned her and she told us she would meet us downstairs. I almost got our car parked for us (which we would have had to pay for) before Amy came out and saved us. I don’t know – I was vulnerable and the man knew it! She used the room key to let us into the car park, we grabbed our stuff and headed upstairs. The hotel was one that Amy had gotten using a mystery deal site, and it was fantastic. It was incredibly nice inside, and had two different wings. One to the left, one to the right. Amy & Pauline, and Mat & I were located in the left wing, while the others were on the right. We received our cards, said goodbye for a few hours, and made our way to our rooms. Side note – they had these “aquariums” set up next to the elevator on each level. The kicker? They were fake! They were monitors showing virtual fish swimming around. I had a bit of a giggle over it though no one else seemed to care. I guess the maintenance on those type of aquariums is cheap!

It  felt like our room hadn’t been opened up for a while when we first walked in, it was a bit hot and stuffy. I went straight for the air con, while Mat took the opportunity to do a tour for the folks at home using the video camera. While he worked his way around, I discovered the fireplace, and to my surprise found it was controlled by a switch! Instant fire! It’s like a pyromaniac’s jizz material! If you listen carefully in Mat’s video tour you can hear me calling out “baby! baby!” trying to call him over. I was also impressed that our bathroom consisted of a large closet with a makeup table, along with the separate room for the toilet/shower etc. Not that I needed a makeup table of course – it was used to dump stuff from our luggage on when we were trying to find things.

After exploring the room, we relaxed a little bit before dinner. After an hour or so we met the others downstairs and went for a walk to find somewhere to eat. We were situated in West Hollywood, which I guess is an area for the “well off” crowd. We saw Porsches, Lambourghinis, and many other beautiful European cars, Mat was in heaven. We also found some rather interesting clothing stores, which contained items like bottomless chaps, and sparkley tops. Quite extraordinary.

I don’t recall the place we ate for dinner, and I don’t even recall how good the food was. I found a photo that showed some calamari though, so I guess that’s what I must have had. Something tells me that I thought the waitress was a little snobby, but I don’t know if that’s right or not. I guess I’ll have to leave the details on our dinner to Amy. I do remember that Amy, Pauline and I sat at one end madly updating twitter/facebook etc on our iPhones, much to the group’s amusement. People need to know what we’re up to, sheesh!

On the way home we split up into two groups again. Mum, Aunty Sue, Fiona and I dawdled along when while the others went ahead back to the hotel. We suddenly found ourselves in the middle of chaos. On the corner of a street there was 9 fire trucks all surrounding a pharmacy. There was no fire from what we could tell, and they put a ladder up against the wall to climb onto the roof but soon after took it down. False alarm? We’ll never know. Thankfully, Aunty Sue was there to provide a detailed first hand account which you can experience in the video below.

I got back to the room, told Mat about the fire trucks, then went to sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a long day – our first day in LA and we were going straight to Hollywood Boulevard. I couldn’t wait.

For Amy’s version of events you can see her blog post here.

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