David's Blog

“This is pretty much a place holder post for today where I went to 6 flags magic mountain. Good story that. Will update soon with photos.”

OK so the awesome post i typed out is no longer here…so gay. Anyway in brief as it is not 1240AM and i need to be up at 630 at latest. The story went something like this: Do not go out to Hollywood (yea baby!!) and get a few spirits in ya (spirits being about 3/4 mix of spirits to the mix) then goto Americas biggest roller coaster theme parks. Worst idea ever.! I mean iI mean i got home at like 330am and had to be up at 740am, which i was, and i made it to the park on time. But being still half cut at the park i went on the first roller coaster i saw…”The Viper”…omg what a shit ride…i mean it started off nice and cruisey jus gradually going up this pretty high slope. I was like “This is cool, some nice views and relaxing cruis i can deal with theis”…then BAM sudden vertical drop into 3 massive loops! Then more twists and turns and more loops. Holy shit worst experience ever! I got off all jelly legged and dry mouthed looking for somewhere to spew. I found a nice quiet bench were i sat the next 30mins or so out just recoverying feeling sorry for myself. Then went back to the park doing most of the rides, which all sucked cos the are farking scary as all fuck. Hated them all except the water rides, they were cooll. Anyway heres the pics:

Well, Just got back from a tour around LA. I thought it was meant to go for 7 hours but am disappointed to find it only  went for 5 1/2. Anyway I was picked up about  8am from my hotel. The bus picked  up other people on the way back its base near LAX. From here we signed in and  got on the correct bus for the tour. There was about 8 buses leaving at that time. The tour guide was really good with lots of useful/useless facts that i do not remember.

First stop was at Venice beach. It disappointingly only was for 20minutes. There was lots to see and do but had to rush everywhere. Took some photos of the beach and what not, then went to the “muscle beach’ side. Lots of really fit guys and girls there. There was some kind of sponsored competition comp on so lots of merchandise and flyers and other useless shit. Did get me a free vitamin water though. The girl handing it to me must have thought i needed it cos iam so massive. Anyway heading back to the bus i was like 2minutes late, the tour guide likes to play with the last person on the bus. The old drive forward and reverse game. As i have played this game many times before i know the only winner is the driver so i let him have his fun.

Then after this point is kind of a blur. Iam still yet to look through my photos and see the geotagging to see where i went. But I remember going to Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Chinatown, little Mexico and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

It was a great tour i think and worth the money spent considering it included pick up/drop off at my hotel. But lunch was too early and the tour was shorter then expected.

Heres the photos. Just remember most were taken from a moving bus and i havent really gone through and done any post shoot editing or selecting.

Ok wow. I think i prepared for this holiday pretty well and so far its going great. But a few things I should have considered could have made my first day better. Anyway woke up about 4am  (slept in until 440am)on Sunday 29/5/11 in Canberra. Left for the airport at 515am and got there 540am. The Virgin staff did not arrive at the check in area until after 6. After checking in, security checks and getting to the gate we still had about 30minutes before boarding.  There was a lot of temperature changes going through Canberra old and  Canberra new. airport, with also the changes and conditions on the plane and Sydney airport i began to sweat a bit. Fortunately everything went smoothly in Sydney. Ie; landing, bus transfer to International airport, check in at Delta (although there was some problem iam not fully aware of but they sorted it), security screens, then i was able to buy at a chemist a mini deodorant spray that fit in my pocket. It doesn’t seem like a big detail but over  a 14+ hour flight and other travelling you want to feel comfortable and not smell. Just made it to the gate just after 9am just after the final boarding call.

I had been feeling a little sick during this lead up to boarding. Iam not sure whether it was lack of water or anything else. But it wasn’t too bad. I really should have got panadol at the chemist as well. But gradually on the flight i just got sicker and sicker even thought i was drinking lots of water and ate all the food. I would usually love turbulence, take off and landing but when you feel sick in the stomach and always watching the toilet door it was a horrible experience. Also being window seat didn’t help my mind for planning in the event of needing to spew. Fortunately i was able to hold it together for the full 15hours on the plane.

The plane was a Boeing 777 which i think is the biggest plane i have been on. I was row 53 which meant about 5th or 6th last row. There was a little screen in front of each person with a really good selection of  new and old movies, TV shows and music. I didn’t use it much as it made me feel worse. Also in the middle seat was a really nice Australian Buddhist on his way to New York for some once off Buddhist festival. The only problem was he was a giant! Like he could stay in the USA with a basketball career if he wanted to. So this in turn effected me when his size 1 million feet strayed into my side of the chair and when he ate his elbows needed to fold in mine and the other persons side of the chair so he could use his cutlery. Wasn’t really an issue in the scheme of things.

The flight from Sydney was in full sunlight  (hot)until about 4PM when it was suddenly night time and freezing cold. Nothing interesting to see out the window so that was closed the whole trip. Except in LA, it would look like Mitchell i think just on a much larger scale.  All the houses were neatly organised  in rows and columns with massive roads joining up. The airport was not like i expected. I was expecting a fairly nice organised airport. we had to walk a long way from the plane to go through customs, and then another long walk to security. Both of which were fairly uneventful. I was worried my bag would not have made the transfer but it was waiting for me on the ground when i got in. After collecting it I went outside to fresh air and a whole lot of cement. Took awhile but the shuttle bus i was after finally arrived with some other passengers on board. We headed off downtown. And for Graeme’s record took 35minutes to my hotel. So maybe 30mins to the hotel he stayed at. It was pretty much straight from LAX to downtown on massive 6 lane per side roads. The intersecting roads were amazing. Its like what you see in the movies, just in real life .

I arrived at my hotel at 730ish. They unfortunately could not check me in and said around 12. So i went for a walk around a few blocks which i remember from street view. Sat down and had some breakfast at subway and used the internet there. I tried to pass a few house by walking  but the hotel was still not ready. So i had a quick rest in the foyer until 1pm when the room was ready. I should add that by this stage i was feeling very sick again despite having a bottle of water with me the whole time. So once i got to my room it was panadol and sleep/rest time. I woke up at 5pm still tired but got up. Organised my tour for tomorrow, had a shower and had dinner. They are going to pick me up at 8am and give a 7hour tour of the city which will be nice. The day after iam going to try and organise a trip over to 6 flags amusement park. Looks like e some good roller coasters.

Anyway iam off to bed. Not sure when i will have internet as the hotel is a bit pricey. If i need it bad enough i will walk back to subway or i found some1s unsecured wireless in the street across.

Oh PS this laptop is shit for typing so any spelling and grammar mistakes are 100% this laptop. 6

Day 4 and 5 saw us travelling upto Windang just shy of Wollongong. What a beautiful cruisy drive that was. The scenery was great, the roads were relatively quiet and it was a fairly quick drive at about 2hours 45minutes. The caravan park we stayed at was between Lake Illawarra and the ocean which again was nice. Also being so close to Wollongong we didnt have any trouble shopping or getting food etc. In fact anything we needed was within walking distance. Unfortunately for us we were allocated a site which was stuck between several families with feral kids. Although they wernt too troublesome it would have been nice not to have woken up to swearing and kids running around making a racket.

5 day long weekend this year, what a waste to stay at home. We decided to break the weekend up into parts. First the friday and saturday somewhere and come back for dinner Saturday night, Sunday lunch and Dinner then back off again for Monday/Tuesday. We didnt know where we were going until the morning of each day which was half the fun of it I guess.

We left Canberra at about 1030am Friday morning down the Monaro Hwy to Cooma, Bega then onto Bermagui. The roads were fairly busy to Cooma with lots of other holiday traffic, but from Bega right though to Bermagui it was a nice clear run. The GPS led us from Bega along a dirt road to Bermagui for a good 20KMs which funnily enough was nice. Was a quiet peaceful road with only 2 other cars that went past us.

Once back on the tar it was a great relaxing drive to Bermagui and the campsite. The caravan park was really nice located between Lake Wallaga and the ocean. There were plenty of free camp sites availiable access to the amenities. However getting the car to the camp site proved troublesome being as low as it is it would scrape on almost everything.

Saturday morning after checking out we decided to drive home back up the coast. We drove past Tilba which had what seemed like some festival going on. We decided to drive in only to be directed by the local girl scouts to some grassed parking however again the car was too low and there was more unpleasant scrapping. We didnt end up going into the festival but it was a nice area.

From Tilba we kept heading up the coast to Narooma where we had a morning tea and swim.

After that headed to a friends place in Sunshine Bay for a quick break before a drive back through Batemans Bay, the Clyde Mountain and home. Was a great few days away.

Ok so after about a year of planning and organising my USA and Canada trip is 100% paid for and booked. The itinerary is finalised and there is no turning back now! It hasn’t really set in actually how close this trip is, looking at the dates I leave in about 1 month 1 week. The stress and nervousness probably won’t kick in for another 3 weeks id say. I think iam ontract with organising what I need to prepare, pack, organise but as always iam sure there will be a massive last minute rush.

Anyway here is the Itinerary:

Below is a photo map of my North America holiday in May/June/July 2011. Click HERE for the fullscreen version.

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