Los Angeles

On my way back to Ireland I decided to stop over in Los Angeles in the good old USA for a few days and pay my friend Gene a visit. I arrived in Los Angeles before I left New Zealand (2pm on Wednesday afternoon!) and Gene picked me up from the airport. He dropped me back to his apartment before going back to work and that is where I met and instantly fell in love with TIVO. TIVO is brilliant, wonderful, and my new best friend.

Who is this that has made my heart all aflutter?? No, Johnny needn't get jealous, because TIVO is kinda like a hard drive for the TV that you can record things on. But not only this, TIVO is constantly recording so that if you have missed half of your favourite program, all you need to do is rewind and it is all there. While you are watching what you had missed, it is continuing to record the rest of the show for you to watch whenever you like. Love it love it love it!

But don't worry, I didn't spend the entire time with my lovely TIVO, I managed to check out quite a bit of LA. On my first day I walked all the way from Hermosa Beach to Santa Monica. This is the part where those who know LA gasp in incredulousness and ask me if I am stupid and I admit that yes it took me almost 5 hours. BUT I didn't know it was going to take that long and it was a nice walk alongside the beach for most of it. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone though as as by the time I got to Santa Monica I was too tired to check out the shops and just caught a bus straight back to the flat. Not only that but my calves ached for a couple of days and I got terribly sun-burnt on my face and upper-chest. Silly me! Oh well, it was an adventure and I did have quite a sense of accomplishment afterwards.

I did manage to return to the Santa Monica shops during my stay though and appreciated them then. The lovely Gene also took me out to the Hollywood sign (well, a view of it anyway), Hollywood Boulevard with it's stars on the 'sidewalk' and hand and foot-prints of the stars in front the Chinese Theatre, the Kodak Theatre where the Academy Awards are held, Sunset Boulevard - the popular strip to drive up and down with it's pubs and restaurants and of course Rodeo Drive with it's oh-so-expensive shops.

Unfortunately we didn't get to Disneyland due to the fact that the school kids were still on their holidays so it would have been hectically busy. Next time I will though!

I also checked out the really American shops like Sears, Macys and Costco, I got to a 7 Eleven, and sampled some of the American cuisine at places like Wahoo's Fish Taco, Californian Pizza Kitchen (CPK), and the delicious Cold Stone where they mix up the icecream with all kinds of goodies (I had a Cookie Dough Icecream which was soooo good!!).

Of course there were fun nights out to be had too. Friday night was spent down in a bar in Hermosa Beach (10 mins walk from Gene's place) called F.F.F.F. (can't remember what it stood for though). It was a fun night drinking, dancing and doing shots with Mike, Darlene, and Christine (all who live with or near Gene). Saturday night was spent in beautiful Newport, Orange County, with Gene's sister Meg, her boyfriend Matt, Matt's Dad Mark, Matt's sister Katie, and her husband Matt. After champagne at Matt and Katie's house, we all went out for dinner and then on to another bar for drinks and dessert.

Los Angeles was great fun and it was great to meet the people I did. I'll definitely be back at some stage! A big thank you to Gene for giving up not only his bedroom (well, half of it) for me but a lot of his work time to show me around and of course introducing me to TIVO which will be in my heart forever... *sigh* ;-P