The Book of Ashes

Vegas and back again... 9:02PM

It begins with a 4am start. I had had a restless night and probably only got around 2 hours sleep as I was excited/nervous about my first real trip overseas.

Out to the airport. Check in. Wait for a hour or so. Unfortunetly I left my New Scientist magazine that I'd brought along to read in my bag which I checked in.

6:40am, almost daylight and I'm outa here, heading in the wrong direction, back a few hours to Sydney. 3 hours later and its only 8:20am. Its a sunny day in Sydney and everyone's up and doing the work thing. I get off the plane and sort out my transfer details only to find myself stuck in the duty free area (that area between getting through customs and not being on the plane). Its actually quite difficult to get out of there if you don't know what you're doing and I realise that if I do get out I have to come back through the customs queue so I flag any ideas of a quick trip into Sydney, maybe next time. Instead I find a free internet stand and check out a few things.

2pm. Been in the airport for a while now. Been up for 10 hours or so. Time to regain some of that wasted time. Hop on the plane to LA (flying United). This is my first big plane trip. Its actually quite disapointing. I'd been seeing those cool ads for Air NZ where they're progressively bringing in those planes with screens on the back of each seat and games and heaps of cool stuff. Instead I've got a small seat (knees touch the front of the seat if straight ahead), old looking and a crapy projector onto screen in the middle of the isle. Instead their focus seems to be on beverage service. They get the drinks out quickly and regularly.

I am now heading in the opposite direction to the spin of the Earth, I'm effectively flying back into the morning, back through the night, through the sunset (which is now my sunrise) and into yesterday. I have three seats to myself yet I still can't stretch out comfortably and I don't get much sleep. I arrive in LA at 8:35am, almost 2 hours after I took off (flight from Sydney to LA took 13 hours).

LA is big. I see block after block of houses.

So I'm in the US of A. I'm a little daunted, my first other country other than Australia (and not counting my 3 years in Hong Kong as a kid which I don't remember so much of). I consider it a little harsh that customs takes my photo after more than 20 hours of travel and sleeping in the clothes I'm wearing. Thats gotta look good when I commit a crime and they pull that photo up, yeah he looks dodgy, doesn't look like he showers....

Luckily a chirpy little lady at the end of customs asks if she can help. I tell her I'm looking for my friends flight and give her a flight number (yeah I was smart enough to get that off Crispy before leaving). She directs me to terminal (something) which is out the door, across the road, round that big building and over another road over there. So I head off with my bags, ignoring the guy trying to get money off me for some charity (who gives a shit about their local charity, I've just got here, I don't know them, I don't know their pain and I'd like to keep it that way). Over the intercom I hear them saying, "You do not have to give money to [people asking for money], it is entirely optional". This repeats every 15 minutes.

So I find a seat, spend my first Washington on a bottle of water and wait for the Crispy One.

3 hours later we're eating Mexican and Chinese (the Mexican was Gooood) and chatting about shit. Crispy's brother, Joachim is coming in in another few hours, I've a little hyped at where I am so the lack of sleep isn't kicking in yet.

Joachim arrives and I realise how much he looks like Crispy. He has darker hair and he's taller (or was that shorter? the difference is only 1cm or so). Otherwise very similar build. They must be related.

So we hop on the bus to the car rental place (they have their own bus) and first thing I think about the driver is hey, hey its fat Albert! The dude gives us a running commentry of the rental company, where to go, what we're doing and he blurs all his words into one long sentance/word. Its impressive. He's friendly enough tho. We arrive at the car place to find we've got a wait for our car, maybe 15 mins, do we want to upgrade for $15 a day? Since we need a car with lots of seats we go for no and are sent to another desk. There we find out they don't have our car and it could be a much longer wait. So finally we are upgraded for free to this huge American beast...

Joachims the only one who's driven on the wrong side of the road before so he starts off. First interesting thing I notice is the car pooling lanes. As you head onto the moterway theres a lane for people with only 1 in the car. That lane has traffic lights on it that makes them wait. Those who are car pooling (2 or more people) drive straight past. Good idea.

So we're crusing LA in a beast of a machine. I've got the back six seats to myself. We head off to visit Venice beach. It was pretty cool.

We stuck out feet in the ocean, walked on the beach and grabbed a chilli dog there. Next we headed off to cruise beverly hills and the mansions they have there. We were not disapointed. The houses are excessive. Yo home to Belair (no idea where that is). So we checked out the shops. Found a no cruising sign (a camera records your plate and if you come round too many times, blam, they blow you up with a bazooka). It got dark and we went in search of the Hollywood sign, but alas it was nowhere to be seen. Eventually we discovered the lights had been turned off so we checked out the stars in the pavement instead.

By now I've had stuff all sleep for over two days solid. We head out of LA to a place called Banning (takes over 2 hours) and I fall asleep in a car for the first time ever. We find a cheap motel there and camp down.