First Day in Los Angeles

Arrived at Kingsford Smith Airport at 12 noon for check in for a flight due to leave at 4:30PM. We got there so early because my mate Leeroy decided that by getting there early we would get better seats. We were second in the queue and waited with anticipation for the check in crew to start. Little did we know that United Airlines chose that day to announce that they were laying off about half of their Sydney ground staff. So they had a stop work meeting and started check in at 2:30PM.

Finally get on the plane and 12 hours later after a very bumpy ride we arrived in LA where we queued for about an hour at immigration. At least there were about 50 cute Aussy girly gymnasts in the queue so at least I had something to look at while I waited.

We started walking towards the cab rank and looked with disdain at all the beat up old cabs on the rank when this shiny black Lincoln Continental stopped next to us and a very smartly dressed driver hopped out and I said to him "Are you here for us?" He wasn't of course but he did say he was available for hire and we negotiated a good price and arrived at the hotel in style for $5 more that a crappy cab. After a shower we went around the corner from the hotel to a Cuban reastaurant for lunch. We ordered Mojitos chicken. We had no idea what it was but it sounded good and it WAS big. A very large serving of tastless chicken a lot of rice, some tastless onion and some black beans. I expected Cuban food to be more tasty but it was cheap. I had a tequila, Leeroy had a beer and we got change for 20 bucks.

We hopped in a cab and asked the driver too take us downtown to a bar. We had this idae of a bar like Cheers, local beer, a few friendly people who would recognise our Aussy accents and buy beer for us all day. WRONG FUKEN WRONG.

There were no bars where you could just go and have a beer, only restaurants with a bar. We had a Peroni and got in an other cab and went to Hollywood and Vine where we were sure we would find a bar. We walked for half an hour and found nothing. Got in anoter cab who took us to The Ranch on Sunset Strip. A great looking place with a bucking bull and all the American stuff we expected. Ordered a large Bud each and sat outside and the fuken girl at the next table was from Melbourne. Travel half way round the fucken world to talk to someone from fucken Melbourne.

The Ranch Bar

We ordered a mixed entre plate for 2 and got this HUGE plate of deep fried onion rings, deep fried mushrooms, deep fried chicken and deep fried batter. The only tasty stuff were the dips.

Our Deep Fried Dinner

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Got in a cab to go back to the hotel and got stck in bumper to bumper traffick with the worst driver who accelerated at 60 mph to the car in front and slammed on the brakes and then did it again and again. 50 bucks later we were back at the hotel which is in Little Tokyo. We walked around for an hour and came back to the hotel and went to sleep. Tommorow is St Pats day so I hope it is better than my first day in LA.

TIPPING GIVES ME THE SHITS At home I don't mind tipping because it is apprciated, here it is expected and it's like every service person is begging. I find it very uncomfortable.