Last Day LA, First Day Melbourne

Hello again everyone!

It's been some time, for you at least. For us it's been quite some time as well, although it felt like it flew right by.

The last day of LA we drove up to the San Fernando Valley through the Hollywood Hills, passing by a lot of big big celebrity houses. It was a great drive over the Sunset Boulevard, Cold Water Canyon Drive, Mulholland Drive, Ventura Boulevard (Free Falling, anyone?), Topanga Canyon Boulevard and the Pacific Coast Highway.

In the afternoon we got back to Venice Beach, which was our goal for the day. Walked around a bit and had a bite before driving back to Inglewood to drop off the rental car. After what seemed to be a short wait at the airport (good books do wonders!) it was time to board the flight to Melbourne.

The flight was 15 hours long (15th longest flight in the world) but the seats were very comfortable and both me and John slept for the better half of the trip. The rest of the flight was easily filled up with the amazing entertainment offered on board from complete television serie seasons to classic movies that are worth a second or third watch.

After a quick descent and flawless landing we arrived in Melbourne at around 10:00 am. After a long wait at customs and baggage claim we finally got outside and it was sunny. I mentioned it was sunny in LA when we landed there, but that was nothing compared to this.

We bought tickets to a Star Bus which would take us to our hotel. It took some time for the busses to show and once they did they took random people with them, not taking into account how long certain others had been waiting so we went back to complain and got guarenteed to have a seat on the next bus.

And so we did. We jumped on and were taking all around Melbourne, a beautiful city. After about 40 minutes we reached Spencer Street and got dropped off right at the corner. Problems arised though. My bag wasn't in the bag compartment. Someone had been stupid enough to blindly take a bag which slightly resembled their own without looking back. And to make matters worse, the Star Bus had driven off, while we weren't anywhere near our hotel! They had dropped us off 3 blocks from the hotel...

Of course every journey has it's setbacks. If this is the worst we'll have then we have nothing to complain about, however, my bag is still missing as of right now and the Star Bus company has no idea who has it, or which driver made the mistake.

They guaranteed us they'll sort it out, so we'll just have to wait and see. We'll keep you updated, while we do our laundry!

Jeremy

go to: www.softengine.nl

Because it is still not possible to upload the photos to the reismee.nl site due to maintenance, I created an alternative. I hacked the softengine.nl site. It is now our temporary photo gallery.

enjoy, John.

P.S. Jeremy writes up a geat blog does'nt he? - and drives the car better than me too!

Griffith Park + Hollywood Highlands

Heey everyone!

Before starting the story of today, John took the time to change the Softengine site to a photo gallery. We uploaded the photo's of the past couple of days on to this site:http://www.softengine.nl

We left for the Griffith Observatory right before noon today. It was a nice and quiet ride up into the hills of Griffith Park, untill we came closer to the observatory itself. While driving up the road leading to the observatory we already noticed cars parked everywhere you could fit one.

We decided to be cheeky and try to snatch a parking spot up closer to the observatory and of course we succeeded! From here it was just a small walk to the pathway leading up to the observatory.

Upon entering the building you immediately notice the large Foucault Pendulum in the main hall. To the left was the Hall of the Eye and to the right the Hall of the Sky. The Hall of the Eye focused mainly on telescopes and the Hall of the Sky mainly on the way our planet is influenced by the moon and by the way it rotates and so on.

Downstairs was a lot more to see, but the most noticeable thing there was the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater where we saw a movie about the creation of the Griffith Observatory, as told by Leonard Nimoy himself of course.

We also went inside the largest dome of the observatory where you could sit down in real comfortable chairs and look up to a sort of projected movie on the ceiling of the dome. This was an incredible experience and a lot better than expected.

We were also allowed to go on the roof of the observatory where we had some amazing views of the Hollywood Sign and the city of Los Angeles itself.

After seeing everything there was of the Griffith Observatory we drove back through a different side of Griffith Park untill we ended up on the Hollywood Boulevard again. We had some time left so decided to see if we could get close to the Grauman's Chinese Theater and walk the walk of fame.

A big part of the boulevard was closed off because of the Academy Awards coming up, but you could still get there as a pedestrian, so we parked the car and looked around. We also stumbled upon the Hollywood Highlands shopping centre, which was quite big and had a really nice design. We had a nice dinner there and then headed back home for our last night of sleep in Las Vegas.

We will be flying for 15 hours tomorrow and there will be a time difference of about 8 hours I think, so we'll probably not have anything new for you all in the next day or 2.

See you in Australia!

Jeremy

Santa Monica (2)

Hello again,

Before going back to the hotel we went through the Chinese Market near the hotel and I got myself some sunglasses. We were planning to drive to Santa Monica and the day promised to be very sunny.

Back at the hotel we took the car and started to drive west, towards Santa Monica. We decided to skip the freeway and instead drove over Wilshire Boulevard, a long street which led all the way to the beach. It took us almost half an hour more to take this route than to take the freeway but we got to see the coolest and most beautiful buildings of Los Angeles, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica this way.

Eventually we ended up near the coast and decided to try the Pacific Coast Highway. This highway was a little less stressful as the freeway but we turned around quite fast. Mostly because we noticed the Santa Monica Pier.

Getting near the pier was quite easy, finding a parking spot was a little bit more tricky. We found a great one though and went out exploring the beach. The pier itself was quite large with a rollercoaster, an arcade hall, and much more on it. Around the pier were lots of bars and cafés and we sat down at one to get a drink. There was a skateboarder trying to jump off the stairs leading up to the pier so we sat there and watched him for a while. After he finally made it we ordered some really really tasty burgers and decided to head back towards the hotel.

Trying to beat rush hour wasn't easy at all, especially since there were some major accidents on the freeways and everyone tried to take the regular roads. We tried to reach the Sunset Boulevard because this would take us through the hills of Hollywood, past some of the big celebrity houses. We did quite well in avoiding most of therush hour traffic and when we reached the hills the roads were quite clear.

The Sunset Boulevard led us back into the city where we had trouble with rush hour again. After some time we found our way to the Hollywood Boulevard, driving alongside the walk of fame. The part in front of the Chinese Theater and Madam Tussaud was closed off so we took a right back to Sunset Boulevard and continued our way to the hotel.

If anything I'm glad we skipped the freeways today and focused mainly on driving along the Boulevards. We saw a lot more of Los Angeles this way and I also enjoyed the driving a lot more.

See you tomorrow at Griffith Park!

Jeremy

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P.S. Still can't upload pictures, the site seems to be updating?

El Pueblo de Los Angeles (1)

Hello everyone!

Today we started off with breakfast at the hotel and decided to try some sightseeing on foot afterwards. Using google maps we found out Union Station was about 15 minutes away. Along the way we found the large Post office of Los Angeles and not even 5 minutes later we arrived at Union Station.

Here we felt straight back in a theme park just like last night's Farmer's Market. This time however it had more of a Six Flags feel, like the opening hall at Six Flags Holland. The station itself was unlike something I had ever seen. The opening hall was a large waiting area with comfortable chairs for everyone and to the right there was a door that led to garden area's with lots of sitting opportunities aswell. We made quite some photo's and then went back out to check out Olvera Street and the place where Los Angeles started out.

Olvera Street was right across Union Station so it did not take us long to reach it. We went around it at first and ended up at the oldest Firestation of Los Angeles where a guide recommended us to walk across the plaza onto Olvera Street and enter the Avila Adobe, Los Angeles' oldest house.

The house used to be a lot bigger but it gave us a good impression of what living in the 1840's was like. At the end of the house there was a 15 minute movie about the founding of Los Angeles. We grabbed some traditional mexican bites after the movie and explored some more before we went back towards the Hotel.

Santa Monica's up next!

Jeremy

The rest of day 2

Good evening everyone,

We started off the afternoon by trying to find the fashion disctrict of Los Angeles. This wasn't that much of a hard task, however, finding a decent clothing store to go shopping there was. After driving around for some time we decided to move on and try the Farmer's Market.

We had picked up a brochure of the Farmer's Market the other day, and although I wasn't interested in it that much, we had read that you could go shopping there.

Fastest way to get to the Farmer's Market was, according to our TomTom, over the Santa Monica freeway. However, driving on the Santa Monica freeway was quite fast-paced and if you don't know where you have to go you'll most likely miss your exit, which we did a lot.

In the end we made it to the Farmer's Market, drove around twice to find a (free) parking spot and found a clothing store just outside the Farmer's Market area.Ross. This store took shopping to a whole different level. All the best fashion brands at impossibly low prices. We spent quite a few hours in here buying and fitting untill we finally walked out with about 20 pieces of clothing.

Night time had arrived when we exited but out of curiosity we crossed the road to the Farmer's Market just to check it out. And boy, were we suprised to find a mini Disneyland there. All the best retail stores in a Disney like architecture. There was a trolley that ran up and down the street and a very nice fountain in the middle. Can't explain it, you have to see this yourself.

After a while we decided to drive back along Wilshire Boulevard and found a restaurant along the way. They served the greatest Rib-eye steak we've ever had.

After battling with the TomTom again we finally made it back to the hotel and went to bed. A day that we were supposed to only go shopping turned out to be better than expected with a little suprise exploring.

See you all tomorrow!

Jeremy

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P.S. The site won't let us upload photo's at the moment, so we'll add them later.

Day 2, morning.

Good morning everyone,

We left our hotel around half past 8 and immediately noticed the sun was already brightly shining! We already had dinner in the hotel the night before so decided to go out for breakfast. There wasn't a lot around so we ended up at the Burger King for breakfast!

After breakfast we set out to find ourselves a rental car. The nearest Car Rental only had luxury cars left so we walked to Avis Car Rental one block further. They would not allow under 25s to drive the car and I really wanted to drive around here. They ended up arranging a chauffeur for us to drive us to another Car Rental company called Sakura. They gave us a great big Toyota Camry for the price of a 'small' car, with a TomTom!

We drove back to the hotel and got our stuff. I tried out driving in the car park at the hotel, to get accustomed to an automatic car. It felt different but I felt confident enough to drive to Downtown Los Angeles! So we started driving and programmed the TomTom to our new destination. The TomTom however, didn't find the street we entered (North Hill Street) but instead gave us the option North Hills. We drove there and thankfully this was near our destination. We found it by map from there and checked into our new hotel: Dragon Gate Inn.

We'll go out for a bite now and go shopping!

See you later!

Jeremy

Los Angeles

Good Afternoon everyone!

After 12 hours of flying I could finally see Los Angeles through the clouds. Shortly after we landed and set foot in the United States of America. After getting all of our bags and passing through customs we arrived outside in sunny, sunny Los Angeles.

We took a free bus to our hotel where we arrived at around 14:30 local time. Took a refreshing shower after being awake for nearly 24 hours and are now ready to go explore the area and grab a bite to eat.

Have you seen our beds? We'll sleep like babies tonight!

See ya tomorrow!

Jeremy