Day 01 - Go West:   Today is one of my vacation write off days.  I'm writing this at JFK airport as I wait for my flight out to Los Angeles.  I think this flight will take about 5 hours.   These are the days that I hate.  It's all about process and waiting in lines.   Ever since the cancelled flight in Toronto I've discovered myself giving people death stares in airports.  Have I become one of those bitter, mean old travellers?   Actually I'm really looking forward to getting to Los Angeles and staying with Todd and Daniel.   I lived for 2 years with Daniel in St Kilda when I first moved to Melbourne.  On a trip around America in 2000 Daniel met Todd while we were in Provincetown in a fairytale romance.   They met in the A Bar after too many potent red drinks and later got thrown out of the local leather bar for doing lewd acts in view of the bar.   I love that story!   They then lived in Sydney for a few years and now they live in Los Angeles.   I'll spend the next week in LA before I start the last leg of the tour...   South America!
Update:  The 5 hour ride to LA went pretty quickly.  Except I had a man sitting next to me who talked the whole way from take off to landing.  He was quite sleazy and was telling me stories of his sexual encounters!   It ended up being that he was trying to pick me up.  Even worse he started point out young boys on the plane he was attracted to.   I couldn't wait for the movie to start so I could put my headset on and escape his chatter.   Miss Congeniality 2 is a really bad movie...  but it was better than the alternative.
Daniel met me at the airport and we went downtown to meet Todd.   They live in a beautiful old house near Silverlake that Daniel has renovated over the past year.   It was a dump when they moved in and now it's amazing how beautiful it is.  (Remember that it was Todd and Daniel that chose the colours and painted Loft 1 in 2002).   We later had a junk food fix at In-N-Out Burger followed by icecreams at Coldstone, the icecream chain store where they mix up icecreams on a cold stone plate.  Mmmmm....

Day 02 - California Dreaming!    It is HOT in Los Angeles this week.   Today Daniel and I headed all the way down Sunset Boulevarde until we hit the beach.   We layed on the Will Rogers beach for a few hours chatting and watching people swimming.   It was a really amazingly nice day.   Around the middle of the day when the sun is at it's hottest the smoggy skies clear to show all blue.   Today's newspaper says the temperature will be 109 degrees (42 Centigrade) and the air quality will be "Unhealthy".

Day 03 - The Hot Desert:    I am very excited about today.  Daniel and I are heading out to the desert to do some outlet mall shopping.  These are huge shopping centres where major brands have stores where they sell their stock at much lower prices than those in the cities.   Then we are going to stay in Palm Springs tonight at the Cathedral City Boys Club.  
Update:  We arrived at the outlet mall which is about 30 minutes out of Palm Springs.   It was so hot there that I thought the car tyres would melt in the car park.   The mall had loads of great outlet stores like Calvin Klein, Guess, Armani, Adidas, Puma and GAP.   I bought loads of stuff.   We spent the day ducking in and out of the airconditioned shops to keep out of the heat.   Daniel told me that these places are usually full of bus loads of older people, but the heat was keeping them away today.
After our shopping expedition we headed past Palm Springs to Cathedral City to find our hotel.   The CCBC is tucked away right at the foot of the mountains.  It's a very old hotel that wraps around a very large property with a pool area in the middle.   And there are walking paths around the property through the beautiful gardens.  In the second pool area at the back of the property is another pool with a huge waterfall that you can swim under.   The rooms weren't anything special.  In fact they were a little run down.  But the actual ammenties on the property were great!   We stayed up till 2am drinking beer and swimming.

Day 04 - Sun Sun Sun Here We Come:    9am and it is already 36 degrees.   I realised that the clock on the pool wall where I was trying to tell the time from last night was actually a thermometer.  It only had one hand.
The free brekky was really nice and we met another guy from Melbourne over our bagels and coffees.   The sky was amazingly blue and the sun was amazingly burning everything it touched.  So we spent the last 2 hours of our stay lying in the sun and dipping in and out of the waterfall pool.  It was the coldest out of the 3 pools.   Then on the way back to LA I battled to stay awake.   The LA freeway traffic here is worse than I remember it.   People are very pushy and at one stage we actually left the expressway because a car kept racing up behind us to try to make us go faster.    We also saw a really terrible accident just outside of LA where people were trapped in their cars.   I would hate to have to drive in this every day.
Once we got back and met Todd we headed up to their local main street for a beautiful Mexican dinner at Acapulco.  Delicious!

Day 05 - Drop It Like It's Hot:    Okay...  I know this is starting to sound very repetitive.  Beach - Pool - Beach....   Well it is a vacation.  Today we travelled down to Laguna Beach to hang out with Joe from San Diego.  I met Joe back in 1999 on a trip over here to San Diego.  We have since caught up in Melbourne and in Los Angeles.  Joe lives in an amazingly beautiful house in San Diego and travels a lot with his work.  It seems like we have been friends forever.   The 1 hour trip to Laguna took 2 hours because of the crazy traffic jams on the freeways out of LA.   But it was worth the trip.  Laguna Beach is a beautiful village south of Los Angeles.   It was packed with people on the weekend but there was still enough space to chill out on the beach.   We had food and booze at the Boom Boom Room before heading down to the golden sands.   There was a really strong under current in the water where we sat so I didn't go out swimming.  I'm surprised the children out there didn't get sucked out.   It was a really nice day and it was great seeing Joe again.

Day 06 - Liquored Up:    It didn't start out to be the drunkest day of my vacation.   Today Kate arrived from Melbourne.   I met Kate years ago when I lived with Daniel in St Kilda.   Kate is one of Australia's most talented wine makers.  So if you need to know good wine...   ask Kate.   So after lulling about Daniel's house in the morning we decided to go take a look at downtown LA.   We very quickly found ourselves ordering drinks on the rooftop of the very hip Standard Hotel...  or "The Standard".   What a cool place!  I will post the photos soon.  Great music and the funkiest crowd ever!  It was like a big disco/pool party.   Skinny guys in 70's sports shorts, muscle boys in A&F and sexy girls in oversized sunglasses...   the whole thing was just way too fab!   We stayed for a few hours and ate there as well.   (Make sure you go to the website...  it's fantastic!)
Afterwards we headed back to Silverlake for the beer bust at Faultline.  What a crazy bar!   Guys were getting liquored up everywhere and doing some pretty odd things.  I saw one guy pee into a cup and past it round all his mates to drink out of.   Hmmm..   It was almost unbearable sitting in the sun drinking but the bar had a misting machine over the beer garden to keep us all cool.   Once the sun disappeared it was fine to hang around outside and drink some more.   Then amazingly we drove  to MJs for some more drinking.  By this stage I was having trouble forming a sentence...  so it was time to go home (via McDonalds).  It's been ages since I've had a big drinking night like this.   I think the last time was in Amsterdam with Joe and Paul.  

Day 07 - The Grove:   The Grove is a newish shopping precinct in the heart of West Hollywood.   Daniel took Kate and I there for a little shopping.   The day actually started at the post office where I sent box number 4 home.   This box was larger than the other boxes..  and only cost $US100 to send home.   I just hope they are all arriving in Melbourne.
I also got my haircut at Shorty's on Fairfax by Miles...   the super cool stylist.   I got a really short cut with a couple of racing stripes shaved into one side of my head.   I also talked Daniel into getting some of his curly locks trimmed back.
Then for dinner the boys took us out to a Korean BBQ in Hollywood....  it was delicious!   A BBQ pops up out of the middle of you table and you grill the meats yourself.  Afterwards we headed to a cocktail bar in Silverlake  (I can't remember the name right now).

Oops...  how could I have forgotten that we started the day with breakfast at the diner inside the LAPD's Police Academy up in the Los Angeles hills.  What a great place!   Daniel still won't tell us how he happened to come across this place.   We got a few strange looks from all the huge cops walking about.  I think we were the only ones in that diner not carry a gun.   It was nice eating breakfast with gun fire in the background from the nearby rifle range.   If you come to LA and you can get here I recommend you try it...   the food servings are massive!  So are the cops.

Day 08 - LAX SUX:    It's official...  I'm turning into an angry old man.  I'm not sure what' wrong with me today.   I figure it all started when I finally got all my clothes packed into my suitcase and then found that I was wearing 2 odd socks.  Today I am travelling for over 16 hours on LAN Chile airlines to Buenos Aires.   The check in was very quick and pretty effortless.  Then I headed through security and through the maze of hallways to find the LAN club lounge.   And they wouldn't let me in!   They said that I could not use my Qantas Club "ruby" level membership to get in.   And when I told them that my membership had gotten me into every other OneWorld club lounge they replied...  "we do things differently here in LA".   They sure do!    Then I headed back out of the secure area so I could buy my own food in the food court.  The Daily Grill looked pretty quiet so I went and asked for a table for 1...   here it comes....   "I'm sorry sir...  I don't have any tables...  would you mind sitting up to the counter?"   There were empty tables everywhere.   So I sat at the bar and shot death stares at everyone for the next 50 minutes.   I was going to call Qantas in Australia and ask them why I couldn't get into their affiliates lounge and then make them call Los Angeles.    But then the chemicals in my burger started to kick in and I started to feel nicely drugged...   like the poor animal who had died for my meal.    Hopefully the flight will make things better.  I just bought series 2 of the Chapelle Show to cheer me along the way.   My new boxers have a moose on them!

Update:   LAN Chile is really a nice airline!  Their planes could be Ansett cast offs but the fit out is really nice.  They even (to my relief) added new TV screens to the ceiling....  and yippee...  I got to watch Miss Congeniality 2 again!
Unfortunately the 16 hour trip took 19 hours when our plane decided not to fly again when we hit Santiago.   And because we flew through the night with 2 plane changes I didn't sleep all night.  So by the time I arrived in Buenos Aires at midday I was ready to sleep.

PHOTOS

Will Rogers beach at Santa Monica	Lifesaver Hut...    ala Baywatch	Dolphins going by			Shopping with Daniel
The desert outlet mall		I'm still Jenny..	A hard day's shopping
	Desert windmills	The "Walk" at the CCBC resort	CCBC Resort
I loved the waterfall!			CCBC	Clothing Optional..
Mmm...  hotdogs!  Try the Wiener diet program!	It's not all going back in that case	Todd, Daniel and Seymour	Mexican dinner near the boys house	Pimp my ride..	Auditioning for 6 Feet Under
Laguna Beach	Joe, me and Todd	The boys on the beach	Tan time		The complicated beach blanket
Beach boys				The Standard
Kate and Daniel relax at the Standard	The view from the rooftop
G&Ts at the Standard			The hip kids arrive	Daniel	Kate
Toddels		Beer Bust at the Faultline		Tipsy	Drunk
Hammered	Time to move on to MJs	Kate and I at the LA Police Academy Wedding Chapel	Gun fire in the background		Police Academy
Shopping at the Grove	Nice	Korean BBQ in Hollywood	Cocktails	More Cocktails