5am is not the ideal time to have to get up to catch a flight. We flew first to Atlanta - which was suffering miserably in 25 degree weather (that's -3.8C), before heading on to LA. I love flying across the States - there's almost nothing there, and it feels like looking down on an alien landscape. Very cool.
When we picked up the car at Alamo this time, we opted for GPS for the remainder of the trip. One does not attempt to navigate LA without it. With it, we arrived without a problem at the Queen Mary Hotel in Long Beach. And then the problems started.
I had had great difficulty booking in here - their on-line booking system was a nightmare, it kept dropping out and redirecting me to wrong pages to the point where I gave up on day one, and didn't manage to make a booking until the next day. When it finally worked and sent through a confirmation, I glanced at it, said thank goodness for that, and breathed a sigh of relief.
Little did I know the system had not booked us in for the dates on the December calendar that I had selected, but for November. About a week prior to our arrival I had received an e-mail from the Queen Mary thanking us for our recent stay and asking if I could fill in a survey. I sent a reply saying we hadn't stayed on board yet and could they check our booking, but never heard back from them.
The blonde dolly bird who checked us in apologised profusely for the mix up - but insisted on double charging us. So, not only had they taken $214 off my credit card, she did the same off Mum's. Maybe she thought that everyone who stays on the boat is filthy rich and doesn't care about being ripped off by a dodgy reservation system, but in my case I had saved for four years for this trip, had no job to come home to. I hated it. This was supposed to be one of the highlights of the trip, and was certainly intended to finish the trip on a high - instead the experience left me feeling physically sick for the first 24 hours on board, and tarnished the whole trip for a while, until I decided I wasn't letting Miss "I'm really, really sorry" ruin my holiday. I sent a letter off to the Hotel Manager when we came home, so I'll see how that goes. There wasn't any point arguing any further with her or any of the other lackies on board.
Aside from that, the ship is well worth a visit, a walk around, and a meal on-board, but I wouldn't recommend staying on-board. It's a bloody long way to carry your own bags from the carpark to the cabins, the walls are paper thin, and the cupboards were all quite dirty inside. Not what we expected for the most expensive accommodation we paid for in the States.
On Wednesday night we had dinner with my cousin Valerie, daughter of my Mum's sister Jackie that we had caught up with in Sonoma at the start of our trip. I've been friends with Val on Facebook for a while, but this was the first time we'd met. She was wonderful! So like our family - same outlook on life, same sense of humour, it was quite strange (but delighful). She took us to an awesome Thai restaurant in Studio City (she's a writer and lives in the gorgeous Hollywood Hills) where the recipes all come from the village back home in Thailand. Wonderful.
The next day we used our GPS to get us an hour an a half north of LA to Acton, where Randy and Debbie, long time friends of one of our friends here in Tauranga, live. They ruin a sanctuary for abandoned cats, and currently have 52. 52 cats! Oh, heaven! Acton is beautiful - 4000ft up (I think, or 2000 - high, anyway) with lovely mountains around desert landscape. Gorgeous.
Randy took us down to West LA for a tour of "the" areas of the city. I had to chuckle - there is not a single price tag on a single item in a store window on Rodeo Drive - if you have to ask, you can't afford it! The concierge on the Queen Mary said he was talking to a rich dude once who shops on Rodeo Drive, who has NO IDEA of the price of anything he buys. He sees, he likes, he hands over card, he never looks at statement. Mad.
We were also privileged enough to have Randy take us to Westwood Cemetary. If you don't know where it is, or you don't have a local to take you there, you would never find it - and yet, the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Rodney Dangerfield, Farrah Fawcett, and Don Knotts are buried there. Marilyn's tomb is pale pink - they clean the lipstick off, but over the years, so many girls kissing the marble have stained it pink. The empty tomb on the left of Marilyn is Hef's, which I knew. He'll be lying there when he goes. I had my bunny bag with me for a photo - it's probably the closest I'll ever get to Hef.
Randy also showed us where he was parked up the day they caught OJ. He saw it all go down - all the cop cars, the helicopters, and OJ himself go sailing past before he was caught.
Another highlight (my North Carolina friends will laugh at this) was a trip to Gelson's Supermarket, where I don't know how many people are employed to replace every single item as soon as it is taken off a shelf, so it looks like a brand new supermarket all the time. It really was a work of art. A huge thank you to Randy for sharing his LA with us.
After our day with Randy it was back to the Evil Ship for our final night in the US. The following day we didn't fly out until 10pm, so had planned to go to Griffith Observatory, but when I Google mapped it it said an hour and a half drive north from Long Beach. In LA, that means two and a half hours (the traffic is HORRIBLE), so we flagged that. I also wanted to go to Moods fabric store and Sprinkles cupcakes, but was really just too tired to drive anywhere much. So, we headed for the Long Beach Shopping Center, and saw Harry Potter 7 on IMAX - awesome! Then to the airport early in preparation for the loooooooooooooong trip home.
More photos from Los Angeles.
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