The beginning (bear with me it was a long day for me too)

So for those of you at the airport, you left me walking down the (surprisingly short) hallway to customs, to which I was greeted with a friendly hello (something in hindsight I wish I appreciated more) and it was a breeze getting through (to which I made my first of many calls to mum…”yes mum everything went well”) it wasn’t too long a wait for the plane and there were enough seats to have a nice little lie down, watching the planes take of and listening to appropriately mellow music, the stuff that gets you in the mood to write sentimental messages of goodbye ; )

Once on the plane I met my flight companion, a rather outspoken German women who kept pushing my elbows of the arm rest and pretending not to notice, luckily it was a reasonably short flight and after a meal of braised beef and what I assume was mash potato we arrived in Auckland with a bumpy landing and a fat women who kept pushing me back into my chair with her bum. (no way was I getting out quickly Alex..I think we’re jinxed)

At the airport I soaked in as much of New Zealand as I could, however from the airport this meant fleeting moments of accent, a taste of beef jerky (you were right mum, I hated it) and…placenta cream???

Waiting to get on the next flight was tough, watching my Ipod slowly die, but then the welcome of woolly blankets, suspicious smelling air-conditioning and weird passengers was mine again, however this time I was in for a treat, choosing to shuffle through Qantas’s magazine instead of listen to the safety information (again) I was soooo excited to see that I had the choice to watch Meet The Robinson’s (it was almost a repeat of our England flight...when I watched Tarzan 9 times) teehee, there was also plenty of others I even started to watch Saturday Night Fever…yeah, I didn’t finish it…

When I arrived I wish I had taken advantage of spending the last 12 hours sitting down, cos that was basically how long I spent STANDING up in the line to get through customs…but when I was finally through I quickly grabbed my bag (or rather dragged my bag) and headed out into the partially cloudy LA weather and into a Shuttle that took me outside the Hollywood City Inn (on the shuttle I met a nice guy who had come to watch his friend play in a gig at the theatre...but he had really come to try and meet some contacts…welcome to LA)

The hotel was ok…not really like the pictures (don’t know why I was surprised) and the lady at reception was short…not literally, but the room was clean, the tv was big and the bathroom had its own light…somewhere : )

After putting my bags down I headed out to look around and after a long…long…walk down Hollywood blv (which also included an awkward convo with some guys in a shady phone store, a few bums, and a servo that gave me off water) I arrived at a really nice shopping complex to which I ate a huge meal of sahbu shabu (which is like an assortment of meat and veggies you cook in boiling water…with complementary edamame) and watched the Jungle book

After the movie I popped into the Virgin store to buy a phone and then caught a taxi back to the hotel…however I still got lost…I walked up the wrong street, but I made it in the end to which I met my neighbour (who unfortunately leaves his door open every night while he lies in bed in his skivvies)