Two days in Tinseltown

Here we are, two days into our trip, right in the middle of Tinseltown in the land of dreams. And because tonight is probably the last night we'll have internet access for a while, I thought I'd update you already on our first taste of America. So here goes!

So our trip started early last Wednesday morning, as we all made our way to Schiphol airport for our flights to first London, and then Los Angeles. The flights were quite uneventful, although we had some awesome views of London, Greenland and Las Vegas from way up high. Very cool :) About 15 hours after we had left our own little country behind, we first set foot on American soil in the afternoon. And after we went through at least another hour of security checks and going through customs we could finally make our way to our hostel in West Hollywood. Food and sleep were the only things left on our minds at that point, so that's what finished up the day for us: looking for something to have for dinner and lovely, much needed sleep :)

Because of jetlag, the next day started relatively early for us. And because of that very same jetlag, we decided to have a nice and easy relaxed day on our first day. So we went to explore the area around our hostel and ended up walking around a nearby outdoor shopping mall and some cool vintage shops for a bit. Rest of the day was pretty much filled with playing card games and just relaxing. Good stuff :) Not only did the day start early though, we also finished early again. Jetlag still got the better of us...

And then today we're slowly starting to feel normal again. I guess we're slowly beating our jetlags :) Today was a very awesome day by the way. We went on an LA City Tour, which took us past all the highlights of LA. We started late in the morning with going up to the famous Hollywood sign, followed by a short walk on the Walk of Fame with all the stars in the sidewalk. We then went up into the hills for a drive through Beverly Hills past some celebrity homes like Jennifer Aniston's house, Dr. Phil's house and the place where Michael Jackson spent the last 8 months of his life. It's amazing how big all these houses were. LA is amazing like that anyway. Every place seems to have featured in some movie at some point, it's crazy! Kind of surreal to actually be walking around all these places. From the celebrity homes we made our way to Santa Monica Pier and then we had our lunch break at Venice Beach. Spent it nice and relaxed sitting on the beach and walking along the shoreline... lovely :) Venice beach was followed by a short drive back into the Beverly Hills area and the famous Rodeo Drive with all the expensive designer shops. Again a kind of surreal place to walk around as a tourist. And believe me, touristy we were today! Funny though to be supertouristy for a day :) And the tour was really good. Especially because we don't have our own means of transportation (yet) and only limited time here in LA, so this was just perfect to get a glimpse of all LA has to offer :)

So tomorrow we're checking out of our hostel and picking up our home for the next 23 days: our massive RV. I'm really excited to hit the open road and finally start our road trip :) Should be awesome fun! Hopefully I'll be able to update you every once in a while as we pass through the many national parks and hit the small towns along the way. I'll see how we go. For now though, I just want to say thanks to all who has already wished us well on our travels and left messages in one way or the other. As I'll be too busy soaking up our American adventures, I will only stick to updating this blog for now. But I love hearing from you all too, so don't let my lack of personal replies right now fool you :) Anyway, I'm off to beat the final remnants of jetlag... Hope you're all well!
Love Carine


PS. For those who are interested, my photo-count currently stands on 251. I've tried uploading a small selection on my facebook but that didn't work for some reason. So for now you'll just have to make do with the 10 photos I can post on here...

PPS. It worked this morning! Photos can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=68024&id=1069079796&l=6ad00554e4