Day 1, Part 3 - Jetlagged in LA
It's noon, but your body thinks it's the end of a long long day. (and it is, but avoiding jet-lag requires denying that reality.) You stagger down the hotel corridor from the elevator dragging your luggage behind you, swipe your card in the door and collapse on the bed.
No you don't. Sleep is bad. Sleeping now will make it harder to sleep tonight, which will only prolong the jetlag you're feeling. So get up, both of you, and take showers. Kerry first. Which leaves you to answer the phone. It's the tour director for the tour you are joining tomorrow, asking if you could come and see her in the lobby to go over the tour details.
Salvation! Aside from all of the tour information, baggage tags etc. she provides information on the shuttle bus service to nearby Manhattan Beach. (nearby in the Southern California sense of "ten minutes away by freeway", of course.)
So off you go to fill up your afternoon at the local shopping centre in Manhattan Beach, CA ("mall" in Californian). Here you see many upmarket stores getting into the Christmas spirit, as today is the day after Thanksgiving and thus the official start of the Christmas shopping season.
ASIDE: I tell you what I think Americans should be thankful for: Thanksgiving itself, throwing itself on the holiday season like a soldier on a grenade; thus preventing the invasion of Rudolph, Santa and his elves from hitting the department stores before their time.
In America there is the soothing progression of Pumpkins and Witches giving way to Pilgrims and Turkeys which become in the fullness of time the symbols of the season of the birth of Our Lord. (Oh, and those of Hanukkah, and Kwaanza, and the Winter Solstice, and the few more festivals that I'm sure have been added to the season in the four years since I was last in the States at this time of year.) In Australia it's all Christmas from oh, about March.
Anyway, you and Kerry look in the upmarket stores, and pick up a few necessities at the mall drugstore, but what really catches your eye are the restaurants. Lovely, lovely places, serving meals not specifically designed to fit into a four inch slot on an airline food trolley. Food is enjoyed at a restaurant called "Islander" which appears to be part of a chain, and which you suspect may have served as part of the inspiration for the fictional "Big Kahuna Burger" from Pulp Fiction.
And so, your hunger sated and the sky darkening, you board the shuttle bus back to the hotel district. It's been a good day and you're happy; so happy that you don't seem to mind when the bus driver confuses your hotel with another and drops you two blocks away.
After walking back to the hotel, you sleep the sleep of the happy and content (after packing the bag of the guy who took too much stuff along) looking forward to the coach tour starting tomorrow. First stop: San Diego.
No you don't. Sleep is bad. Sleeping now will make it harder to sleep tonight, which will only prolong the jetlag you're feeling. So get up, both of you, and take showers. Kerry first. Which leaves you to answer the phone. It's the tour director for the tour you are joining tomorrow, asking if you could come and see her in the lobby to go over the tour details.
Salvation! Aside from all of the tour information, baggage tags etc. she provides information on the shuttle bus service to nearby Manhattan Beach. (nearby in the Southern California sense of "ten minutes away by freeway", of course.)
So off you go to fill up your afternoon at the local shopping centre in Manhattan Beach, CA ("mall" in Californian). Here you see many upmarket stores getting into the Christmas spirit, as today is the day after Thanksgiving and thus the official start of the Christmas shopping season.
ASIDE: I tell you what I think Americans should be thankful for: Thanksgiving itself, throwing itself on the holiday season like a soldier on a grenade; thus preventing the invasion of Rudolph, Santa and his elves from hitting the department stores before their time.
In America there is the soothing progression of Pumpkins and Witches giving way to Pilgrims and Turkeys which become in the fullness of time the symbols of the season of the birth of Our Lord. (Oh, and those of Hanukkah, and Kwaanza, and the Winter Solstice, and the few more festivals that I'm sure have been added to the season in the four years since I was last in the States at this time of year.) In Australia it's all Christmas from oh, about March.
Anyway, you and Kerry look in the upmarket stores, and pick up a few necessities at the mall drugstore, but what really catches your eye are the restaurants. Lovely, lovely places, serving meals not specifically designed to fit into a four inch slot on an airline food trolley. Food is enjoyed at a restaurant called "Islander" which appears to be part of a chain, and which you suspect may have served as part of the inspiration for the fictional "Big Kahuna Burger" from Pulp Fiction.
And so, your hunger sated and the sky darkening, you board the shuttle bus back to the hotel district. It's been a good day and you're happy; so happy that you don't seem to mind when the bus driver confuses your hotel with another and drops you two blocks away.
After walking back to the hotel, you sleep the sleep of the happy and content (after packing the bag of the guy who took too much stuff along) looking forward to the coach tour starting tomorrow. First stop: San Diego.
posted by JJ Glamma at
1:17 AM
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