Staying in da hood LA.

Quite a journey to get all the way here to Honolulu! Seems like we have been travelling for three days. Luckily it’s all been pretty pain free up to now. (Touch wood…). Clear journey down to Heathrow and a nice stay at the Crowne Plaza ..despite not upgrading to club class there Dave! Made pleasant use of their wine bar and the Indian restaurant although afterwards thought this not the ideal preparation for a long distance flight…

Woke early the next morning to catch the shuttle bus to airport and whilst checking in were persuaded by the machine to upgrade our seats for extra legroom. It turned out the Virgin flight was half empty so not only could we upgrade but also we could have a spare seat in the middle of us. This was a great result as the flight was then extremely comfortable. Watched lots of movies on the plane to while away the ten plus hours flight time. 

We arrived at Los Angeles airport and even customs and immigration checks were very painless so we were soon in a yellow cab going to our hotel. It’s was only something like 10-30 in the morning. We were staying at the Diamond Inn. It was a bit of a rough Diamond . Classic old style American motel…the sort you get in Dexter where it generally turns into a crime scene. I stood watching an army of ants parade up a plant all the way out of the rubbish bin as Jane checked in. It wasn’t promising to see the man spraying the rooms with imsecticide but perhaps even worse to hear the man shouldn’t bother with our room. The decor was more Huggy Bear than Dexter mind you. I particularly liked the sign that said you could upgrade to a jacuzzi room but on this occasion we didn’t get pulled in.

After a short rest we were on our mission to stay awake until 8pm. This is Janes theory for preventing Jet lag ie you must stay awake not just given in the the urge to sleep. To help with this Jane had arranged to meet up with Sonya her friend from the Legal ombudsman, who had recently moved back to LA. Sonya came and picked us up and drove us across town to the Manhattan and Hermosa beaches. It was very lovely and busy with locals ..not tourists. We went for Happy Hour at Hennessys Irish bar and had drinks and something to eat. It was all very sociable and I think we coped with the tiredness well. 

Sonya told us that she lived not far from where we are staying and said it really was a bit of a ‘hood’ what with the Harley bike gangs, the prostitutes and their pimps and of course the drug dealers. Lovely. 

Anyway it all passed off rather uneventfully and worked v well in terms of staying awake. We slept pretty well and then the next day continued our travels onto Honolulu with another 5hr 25 mins flight.