So Cal

After my adventures round and about Northern California, I was left with very little time to explore much of the south. I had planned to visit San Diego, but that plan had to go out the window. I was left with only two days between leaving San Francisco and my flight departing from LAX for Auckland, so I decided that after a few weeks of living out of my rucksack going between youth hostels, that I would treat myself to two nights in the Radisson Hotel out at LAX airport.

Just about everyone I'd spoken to had said that LA was a bit rubbish, and I was inclined to believe them. When I got there, I just found the place a bit horrible. Everything's just sprawled out - there's no definable focal point for the city, and the people seemed more concerned with being seen than whatever it was they were doing at the time.

I have to admit, I loved the Radisson when I first arrived - room service pizza, VERY comfortable beds, a huge big room, and no room-mates snoring through the night. After the initial novelty wore off, I actually realised just how much I missed staying in backpacker hostels. The hotel being situated near the airport meant it wasn't very close to much else, and hence the room service pizza was pretty much my only option for food. The biggest thing I missed was the company though - the best thing about hostelling is meeting all kinds of new and different people from all different parts of the world, and staying in a hotel didn't come with that kind of fun experience.

I did manage one day trip out of the hostel along to a place called Manhattan beach, which was apparently the world beach volleyball capital or something like that. It was a bit weird, with all the tanned, toned and surgically tweaked bodies being shown off all over the place. Definitely no comparisons to Saltcoats shore and the fish-supper-fuelled efforts down there! My only real shooting was a wee bit of night stuff underneath one of the airport runways, doing a bit of a Wayne's World... WAAAAAAHH! I also found the adverts for the local ambulance chasers quite amusing - made some of the UK's claims direct ads look top class.