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Gays, Planes and Automobiles.
We've arrived safe and sound and are now celebrating out second full day, in the US.. well third, if you count the time spent flying over the country. Our body clocks are successfully screwed and we have found it particularly hard to stay asleep past 6am. Nothing a night on the tiles wont solve though!
Our journey began with a little stroke of luck. On arrival at GLA we were approached by a member of airline staff. Apparently the flight had been over booked and they were looking for volunteers to take a later flight departing from Edinburgh, and a compensation of $500 a piece.
As staunch capitalist...ie: poor...were already sold with the promise of free money, but they offered a free breakfast while we mulled it over. I say free breakfast, they gave us six quid which amounted to a cup of coffee between us and the opportunity to spent five minutes with our faces moushed against the glass of the pastry cabinet.
A few hours later we were whisked away to Edinburgh in a big merc.. I was very excited as it was the same one the police use as a pursuit vehicle, which I blabbered away to Eli about. She like the twin shiny exhaust and remarked about the curvature of the door and the associated panelling that was attached. What a couple, I know you miss our chat terribly.
Our new flight was destined C113... which, by god, sounded unlucky to me. The eight hours were spent in a state that leaped from complete boredom to abject terror.. although at one point I was reduced to tears by the feel good factor in Be Kind Rewind... if you haven't seen it, I recommend highly, although you have to sit through and hour of unsuccessful off-beat comedy to reach the good stuff.
We had a particularly bumpy landing resulting in ooohhs and aaaahs from my fellow doomed passengers, but Eli was wonderful and held my sweaty hand throughout. She gets a kick out of looking at the structures and shapes of the towns as we come in and I'm always sorry I ruin it for her. The celebrations were short lived as we realised quickly that we had another six, count em, six hour flight ahead of us.
The initial intention had been to meet Sergio in NYC for coffee, but our three hour delay meant that this wasn't going to be possible. There was brief hilarity around the innuendo that Serg had blown us out. He swears he hasn't and that we will know when he blows us.
America still smells the same. It's an odd mixture of sweetness, sanitizer and over cooked pastries, like a bakery at closing time. The country oozes confidence and its hard not to be sucked into the rose tinted immortality of it all.
Although Europeans like nothing more than American bashing there is one point that I feel must be raised...footwear. Immediately my hatred for the male sandal returned. For some reason young American men like nothing more than to scuff about all summer with tiny sandals on their feet, or 'thongs' as they insist on calling them, as though in emasculates the garment. It goes hand in hand with crap posture and I'm 100% convinced that the said footwear grows, on their feet, into a pair of indelible white trainers, both comfortable and practical, later in life. The pressed stone wash denims are an optional extra, though the belt clipped phone is a must have accessory.
Within minutes of arrival I had spotted a number of wonderful magazine titles: Guns and Ammo, Hooters Magazine and a geeky science fiction title that had pictures from the Watchmen movie. We grabbed a quick pint and waited on the next flight which turned out to be silky smooth as it brought us into LAX at around 10pm local time.
I'm sad to report that the beautifully strange structure, that looks like a white UFO or something, that symbolizes the airport is covered in scaffolding and is only a skeleton at the moment. Still it was warm and we had a queen sized bed to retire to for the night.
In the morning we went straight to ihop, the international house of pancakes. What makes it international, I'll never know, or care because for $5 I had a mountain of pancakes covered in golden syrup, two sausages and some bacon. Eli had the breakfast combo which was at least twice the size of mine and she ate it like a woman possessed.
From here we headed to the Hertz rental place where we collected out beautiful Red convertible Mustang. It's quite simply amazing cruising down the coast with the roof down and it's mildy hilarious watching Eli wrestle with her hair in the wind. We've christened the car 'Outrun'.
On the way to San Diego we stopped off a little place called Cardiff by the Sea. A small beach community where all the streets are named after UK places, we drove down Oxford and Cambridge and crossed, Glasgow and Edinburg [sic]. In the town was a big deli and some of the fresh fish looked amazing. Sadly we're on a budget so it was rolls and cheese for us, but that in itself was huge and awesome. Everything has leaped up in price over the past few years and, while the pound is ripping the dollar apart on a global scale, on the ground things are still expensive. The populous here are really feeling the pinch but the media is doing it's best to ignore the problem and every page is filled with news stories about some war in the middle east. I think it called Iraq or Vietstan or something, anyway...
San Diego itself is an 'nice' place. There not much doing really, though it's beautiful and relaxed. It's kinda like a synthetic New Orleans with it's, electric-powered, gas lamp district. We took a wander round the city and along the shore just soaking it all up. There are quite a lot of vi sable homeless, all with smashing beards, drawn by the dry weather and heavy tourist market, still it feels incredibly safe and we've been looking for Anchorman related sites of interest. I even saw a channel 6 news truck and took a picture.
Excitingly it's Gay Pride weekend and there was an amazing party atmosphere in the Hillcrest area of the city. We took a cab out and wandered aimlessly for an hour or so as the queens partied around us, honked their horns and sang along to every Donna Summer tune they knew. Unlike Glasgow, the scene here is full of handsome, tanned, muscle Mary's with little dogs and vests.
The jaunt left us hungry, so we grabbed a bite in a big American diner. The fayre was standard and enormous and left us exhausted. Our best laid plans to join the party were abandoned and we headed back to the hostel for some sleep at about 10pm.
It's touching 7.10am and once again we're wide awake. Still, it's time for pancakes....
We'll put some pictures up soon. Like an idiot I left the laptop charger at home, so we're going the excitingly titled 'Fashion Valley' later today to pick one up.
'And that is why, I don't like reggae.'
sillyOur journey began with a little stroke of luck. On arrival at GLA we were approached by a member of airline staff. Apparently the flight had been over booked and they were looking for volunteers to take a later flight departing from Edinburgh, and a compensation of $500 a piece.
As staunch capitalist...ie: poor...were already sold with the promise of free money, but they offered a free breakfast while we mulled it over. I say free breakfast, they gave us six quid which amounted to a cup of coffee between us and the opportunity to spent five minutes with our faces moushed against the glass of the pastry cabinet.
A few hours later we were whisked away to Edinburgh in a big merc.. I was very excited as it was the same one the police use as a pursuit vehicle, which I blabbered away to Eli about. She like the twin shiny exhaust and remarked about the curvature of the door and the associated panelling that was attached. What a couple, I know you miss our chat terribly.
Our new flight was destined C113... which, by god, sounded unlucky to me. The eight hours were spent in a state that leaped from complete boredom to abject terror.. although at one point I was reduced to tears by the feel good factor in Be Kind Rewind... if you haven't seen it, I recommend highly, although you have to sit through and hour of unsuccessful off-beat comedy to reach the good stuff.
We had a particularly bumpy landing resulting in ooohhs and aaaahs from my fellow doomed passengers, but Eli was wonderful and held my sweaty hand throughout. She gets a kick out of looking at the structures and shapes of the towns as we come in and I'm always sorry I ruin it for her. The celebrations were short lived as we realised quickly that we had another six, count em, six hour flight ahead of us.
The initial intention had been to meet Sergio in NYC for coffee, but our three hour delay meant that this wasn't going to be possible. There was brief hilarity around the innuendo that Serg had blown us out. He swears he hasn't and that we will know when he blows us.
America still smells the same. It's an odd mixture of sweetness, sanitizer and over cooked pastries, like a bakery at closing time. The country oozes confidence and its hard not to be sucked into the rose tinted immortality of it all.
Although Europeans like nothing more than American bashing there is one point that I feel must be raised...footwear. Immediately my hatred for the male sandal returned. For some reason young American men like nothing more than to scuff about all summer with tiny sandals on their feet, or 'thongs' as they insist on calling them, as though in emasculates the garment. It goes hand in hand with crap posture and I'm 100% convinced that the said footwear grows, on their feet, into a pair of indelible white trainers, both comfortable and practical, later in life. The pressed stone wash denims are an optional extra, though the belt clipped phone is a must have accessory.
Within minutes of arrival I had spotted a number of wonderful magazine titles: Guns and Ammo, Hooters Magazine and a geeky science fiction title that had pictures from the Watchmen movie. We grabbed a quick pint and waited on the next flight which turned out to be silky smooth as it brought us into LAX at around 10pm local time.
I'm sad to report that the beautifully strange structure, that looks like a white UFO or something, that symbolizes the airport is covered in scaffolding and is only a skeleton at the moment. Still it was warm and we had a queen sized bed to retire to for the night.
In the morning we went straight to ihop, the international house of pancakes. What makes it international, I'll never know, or care because for $5 I had a mountain of pancakes covered in golden syrup, two sausages and some bacon. Eli had the breakfast combo which was at least twice the size of mine and she ate it like a woman possessed.
From here we headed to the Hertz rental place where we collected out beautiful Red convertible Mustang. It's quite simply amazing cruising down the coast with the roof down and it's mildy hilarious watching Eli wrestle with her hair in the wind. We've christened the car 'Outrun'.
On the way to San Diego we stopped off a little place called Cardiff by the Sea. A small beach community where all the streets are named after UK places, we drove down Oxford and Cambridge and crossed, Glasgow and Edinburg [sic]. In the town was a big deli and some of the fresh fish looked amazing. Sadly we're on a budget so it was rolls and cheese for us, but that in itself was huge and awesome. Everything has leaped up in price over the past few years and, while the pound is ripping the dollar apart on a global scale, on the ground things are still expensive. The populous here are really feeling the pinch but the media is doing it's best to ignore the problem and every page is filled with news stories about some war in the middle east. I think it called Iraq or Vietstan or something, anyway...
San Diego itself is an 'nice' place. There not much doing really, though it's beautiful and relaxed. It's kinda like a synthetic New Orleans with it's, electric-powered, gas lamp district. We took a wander round the city and along the shore just soaking it all up. There are quite a lot of vi sable homeless, all with smashing beards, drawn by the dry weather and heavy tourist market, still it feels incredibly safe and we've been looking for Anchorman related sites of interest. I even saw a channel 6 news truck and took a picture.
Excitingly it's Gay Pride weekend and there was an amazing party atmosphere in the Hillcrest area of the city. We took a cab out and wandered aimlessly for an hour or so as the queens partied around us, honked their horns and sang along to every Donna Summer tune they knew. Unlike Glasgow, the scene here is full of handsome, tanned, muscle Mary's with little dogs and vests.
The jaunt left us hungry, so we grabbed a bite in a big American diner. The fayre was standard and enormous and left us exhausted. Our best laid plans to join the party were abandoned and we headed back to the hostel for some sleep at about 10pm.
It's touching 7.10am and once again we're wide awake. Still, it's time for pancakes....
We'll put some pictures up soon. Like an idiot I left the laptop charger at home, so we're going the excitingly titled 'Fashion Valley' later today to pick one up.
'And that is why, I don't like reggae.'