When we landed in L.A we had 15 hours to kill before our next flight to Guatemala City, so we made our way down to Santa Monica Pier. Only $1 for the ticket on the LA public bus to Santa Monica which was fun, a nice 30 minute trip courtesy of a crazy african american woman bus driver...she didn't let a poor student get away with putting his student card renewal sticker on his bus pass two weeks early - even though he was paid up until midway through the next year..... "Is there a problem" asked the student, and I quote, "yeah, I have a problem with that" - absolute stereotypical gold....Not to mention the run in with a lovely special needs group, driving past various offers of 2 tacos for 49 cents (sounds inviting), of petrol advertised at 339 and 9/10's for a gallon (wtf? fractions - come on) and we are at the Santa Monica Pier.... With Steph complaining of imminent death from starvation, and my trademark indecisiveness, we trek aimlessly for 20 minutes through 6 identical fast food menus before settling on "Big Dean's" - just down the road from Muscle Beach ( think oversized tank tops, the beach, and very, very big muscles ). While in Rome - we thought a discusting fast food meal was entirely appropriate - come to think of it, I don't think we could of gotten anything else if we wanted to. We dovoured our burgers and chillie fries (The chilli fries were like a large bowl of chips swimming in chilli concarne sauce and covered in about 1kg of cheese....) before setting off for a walk down to Venice Beach. Full of bums and vagrants either wanting weed or smoking it, and heaps of people selling 'licences' for medical marajiuana. Bit of a wierd place. Must admit the romantic memories of Baywatch (not a bikini in sight) and White Men Can't Jump from my childhood may have raised the expectations a little. We did get to see a really cool blue Macaw though, perched on a rail having lunch with its owners in a cafe along the boardwalk.The beach was pretty cool though. It was massive!!! And strangely empty...The beach would have been 100m wide.
We dawdled back towards the pier, which was around 600 meters long, had heaps of shops/restaurants and a amesuement park with rollercoaster.... Steph was in Japanese tourist photo ninja mode by this point.. photo of sand, another photo of sand, sand, sand...photo of the pier, another photo of the pier, another photo of the pier....photo of sand, pier.....Really surprised by the amount of franchises that I assumed were Aussie that clearly ain't - Curves, the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, H and R Block, Century 21 Real Estate...the list goes on - I hope we get "El Pollo Loco" soon though (crazy chicken) - great name.
We headed back to the airport for our 5 hour flight to Guatemala City...What a massive day.....
