Los Angeles

LA is a large place. In fact it's fucking huge and if you don't have a car you can forget about seeing most of it easily.

On Friday night at the hostel there was a keg party-with a cross dressing theme. Some travellers from other local hostels came and things got a bit loose. I don't know what to make of this bit of the 7 people in total (out of about 60) who bothered to cross dress
-they were all guys
-5 of them were Australian
-I was one of them

Anyway the Aussie guys were from southwest Sydney and they were top blokes. That doesn't mean I can remember any of their names though. Also at the party were some young girls from western Sydney paying for the trip by stripping their way around the US. I admire their resourcefulness. The guys put their noses to the ground and dug up some gear. Crikey bloody Jones-I thought the whole situation was more than vaguely similair to my life in Sydney. Ah welllll..!

Anyway I've never done a handstand on a keg with the hose in my mouth before but next thing you know, there I was with my skirt bunched around my armpits, upside down on top of this keg, sculling beer from the hose. I was caning it too, I swear I drank half the barrel before I ran out of breath. Some great photo's, I'm sure. The best was the tiny little Korean guy with no English who we got up there. He drank more than all of us and wouldn't have weighed in more than 60kg. And such manners-even with froth dribbling down his chin!

The club we went to afterwards was spectacular. I won't bother trying to explain it because it was just a club but suffice to say it was very large and impressive, and expensive. I blew my $40 budget in 10 minutes, on four tequilas.

Leaving LA was a nightmare. I left for the airport 4 hours before I ws due to fly, and I'm glad I did because I got sent to 3 wrong terminals (there are 7) and then the auto check in machine didn't work. With only 2 people working to assist people with problems the lines were huge. There was one Transport Security Administration person working checking passports, with another 10 or so standing around chatting to people in the lines.

Suffice to say the whole process was a ball crushing experience. It's entirely possible 9/11 was done by people who were just so pissed of with their treatment at LAX they took matters into their own hands. Ok probably not but it was unpleasant. Strange thing is that Phoenix and San Fransisco airports were great.

I think it's unfortunate that the only real judgement I have of the US is a few days in LA and three airports so I should really point out that everyone I met was very friendly and helpful and next trip to LA will entail renting a car to get the most out of it. LA isn't a backpacker friendly city but I've heard great things about other parts so will have to explore those options one day soon.

Thought it would be worthwhile seeing some of LA so I went for a walk with a Danish guy called Peter who I was dorming with. Nice guy-he was computer game developer ooh yea. We thought we'd walk form West Hollywood to Venice Beach. We got halfway there, stopping en route to see the lobby of the building at Nakatomi Plaza (it's where Die Hard was set) because Peter is a huge Bruce Willis fan. Of course it's a pretty standard skyscraper so we kept going and eventually submitted and got on the Metro which took us to the beach. It was massive-the sand is over a two hundred meters long to the water. It reminded of Scarborough in Perth but bigger-more sand and longer.

A couple of the guys staying at the hostel were struggling-for-work-actors. I thought that was a bit of a cliche, till the one I was dorming with told me he couldn't even afford to eat-what a legend! I hope he cracks it big time but I get the impression its tough out there. Secretly I'm a bit disappointed I wasn't discovered while cruising the strip in my cargo's hightops and wifebeater.