Camera Rolling......Action!

Touchdown, we made it! Loz and Simpson have sneaked through the United States borders, rocked up to Belmont Shore, Los Angeles and boy, life is goooood.

So May 24th was a bit of a random day, it all started with some fresh salmon and a giraffe. In Terminal 5. At 9am.
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As Loz and I talked over our crazy plan and how it had got us to where we were we heard 'Last call for flight BA279 to Los Angeles'. Argh, runnnnn!!!! Luckily we made the flight and even had time for a few cheeky snaps along the way. This was Loz's first time in a long haul jumbo and he was, I quote "as excited as a 5 year old".

The 11 hour flight went suprisingly fast, we watched a few movies including Benjamin Button which we wern't too impressed by. A little down beat. Bride Wars was much more suitable for the light hearted vibage and before we knew it we had landed at destination 1 in the US of A. After 10 hours of probing by the US military services and having our fingers and eyes scanned like something in minority Report we got on the Super Shuttle and cruised it down to the big PP (Pomona Place).

We knew we'd hit gold when we arrived as our friendly neighbours Shane and Sarah escorted us to le crib, a french/Italian inspired villa type pad. Chris (our flamboyant flatmate) was out for the day but totally chillaxed and left the place unlocked, access all areas top Alex and Loz, sweeeeet. We spent the rest of the day checking out the neighbourhood on our new beach cruiser bikes (courtesy of Chris) and learning that all the American stereotypes are true. Big trucks, big shades, running with tiny dogs in oversized LA Lakers hoodies. Amazing.

Day 2 Loz was in heaven as we grilled it up on the patio in the sun with copious amounts of booze. It was steaks at dawn as we all tucked right in. We also got to meet around 10 other locals and have secured lots of invites everywhere. Leon (who owns a gym in Santa Monica) is taking us to Hollywood to play 'beer pong', fun! We rounded off the day with a tipsy beach power walk with Chris and his boyfriend and checking out the millionaires mansions in the marina.

And yesterday was the day of days. It's true, when you're open to anything, anything will come your way. Our 15 min bike cruise down to Huntington Beach turned into a 2 hour sunstroke mission along the desert. All good banter though. Easily the equivilant of Worthing to Brighton Marina.I was up for visiting Huntington which is in the OC to find my kitesurf instructor. I had no idea where to go but luckily and randomly bumped into Nudge (his very surfer like nickname) on the beach and have taken the plunge and booked in for my 6 hour lesson. (First three hour one should be this afternoon).

We sunbathed, played in the waves, had a few beers with Nudge and dreaded the return back to Belmont so at sunset decided to get bus 1 which SHOULD'VE taken us home. But instead, decided to take us to a near death experience.

After chatting to this rather disturbing ADHD skateboard kiddie at the bus stop we managed to escape him by jumping off the bus at what we thought was our stop but turned out to be really, really wrong. We were completely lost in American suburbia...
Sunset had been and gone, the light was fading as was the temperature and Loz and I couldn't have stood out more if we'd tried in our swimwear with towels round our necks. At this point my main concern was making sure we didn't wonder into Compton or I might not be here to write this post today.

Why not grab a cab home? Because we had the bikes and ditching them was not a cool option. So we rode, we rode like our lives depended on it...except in the wrong direction.
Our chillaxed beach cruise had turned into a shady race against the light to safety and Loz and I had decended into hysterical fits of laughter fuelled by the disbelief at how bad our situation was getting.

Just as we thought we'd hit jackpot with the right road we noticed a steady increase in traffic and then it hit us....the FREEWAY. Loz and I were riding on the bloody freeway in pitch black on beach cruisers with no lights on. As the cars screamed past us I thought silently "We're screwed".

In our desperation, Loz, while pedaling for his life shouts across to a surgery-fied woman in her massive truck "Where is Belmontttt Shoreeeee????"...................."Oh dear. Way back that way i'm afraid dear" comes the response.

After some freak outs and more pedaling on the hard shoulder our guardian angels threw us a lifelife and three teenagers rode past on BMX's. We asked them for directions and thank god they were not only heading to Belmont, they said they'd personally guide us home. We spent the next hour following these dudes and getting a private stunt show as they were increbible bikers and pulling tricks the whole time.

We were relived to get home to say the least.

Anyway so we're off to a phone store in a minute to get American sim cards and then some beach action followed by our first grocery shop this evening.

I'm going to buy a 10 litre vat of vanilla ice-cream, oh yeah :)