Gee Auckland was fun, I mean not fun like you're an adult at a kids carnival dominating on the jumping castle sort of fun, but the fun you have when the landing gear won't go down so you have to fly around for a while and then turn back to the airport to wait while another airplane is made ready.
5 hours after our original Auckland to LA flight was scheduled we finally got on another plane and headed towards LAX. Starving and grumpy, we managed to fght our way through lack of sleep and pretty ordinary airline food to find a shuttle bus to take us to our accomodation in LA. About 2 miles (notice I'm into their way of measuring now) from the airport in an area of town devoid of anything apart from fast food joints and a 24 hour sex shop with LIVE nudes. We ate right next to the Live nudes at Carl's Jr. Given the size of the medium meals, I'd hate to see an upsize from Carl's Sr!
After the delays on the flight, our 2 days in LA turned into 1 but we managed to make the most of it with a few rides on the BIG BLUE BUS and some time spent at Venice Beach, Santa Monica and UCLA. I may from time to time pass judgement on some of the things I see here in the USA but I'll give them one thing, when someone says catch the big blue bus.... that's exactly what it is......
A few shots hussling some black guys at the recreation area basketball courts (where they filmed parts of White Men Can't Jump), some enchalada's from the local mexican cafe, a stroll along the santa monica pier and boulevarde and a bus ride to UCLA where we saw some stunt man attempt a bungy jump into a pool full of green slime for Nickolodean kids TV show and our self made tour of LA was over.
Delta Airlines flight from LAX to miami was hassle free in comparison, the only issue was that it left at 10 pm LA time and Arrived at 3:30 am LA time. Some people think sleep is overrated... I tend to disagree. 20 hours total in 5 days is not a lot.
Arrived in Miami tired of course, but at 6 am local time at Fort Lauderdale Airport you look at getting down to Miami - South Beach so you can get some sleep. Train cancellations won't help. Monkey came up with a genious plan though to fill in time and deal with hunger...
We ate as much as we possibly could at the Marriott Hotel breakfast buffet. $8 was well worth it and our energy levels picked up accordingly. After tri rail train (a bit like v-line), metro train, metro loop and a couple of buses, we made it to Jazz Hostel on South Beach. Hostel like.. mostly friendly staff, crappy rooms, but a bed's a bed and to have one to yourself will be a luxury for the next 4 weeks on the boat.
Dale had tickets to the Ice Hockey at Bank Atlantic Centre in Florida somewhere....... We found out the stadium is about 35 miles outside of Miami and really hard to get to.... even harder to get back. Bus train, train, train cancellation, train, taxi, $50 US later, we were sitting 5 feet from the glass, almost centre ice right next to one of the players' bench. What an atmosphere! It's like the NBL used to be back in the 80's with music and cheering and really expensive food and drinks... The gyros and pint of Budweiser was all part of being there we thought so we joined the crowd at chow time, made friends with the locals and got into the spirit of the game. Being so close to the perspex screen meant I could see the player's faces squashed against it when they copped a 'body check' and hear the slap of sticks... it was really exciting. I reckon the Hockey fans would enjoy AFL, especially the hits.
For the record, Florida Panthers beat the Washington Capitols 3-2 in overtime, there we heaps of body checks into the screens, plenty of penalties handed out by the referees, and the Panther's cheerleaders rivalled the Swanettes from the 80's.
The taxi picked us up from a Burger King in the middle of nowhere after our attempts to get a lift back with someone to Miami failed, dismally, and we were forced to pay $90 US for the priveledge. Great experience though, and I'd already forgotten the cost.
So 3 of the other boys are here now in Miami, there's 6 together now (Dave, Dale, Matt, Andy, Brad, Karweng) with Brian and Liam to arrive at Miami airport tomorrow morning when we fly to Barbados and on towards St Vincent, the location of our charter base at Blue Lagoon, St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Miami is like a mix between the Gold Coast and Chapel Street, with pimped up Hummer's dropping off glamour people to clubs along the boulevardes while we laugh into our glasses of Stella and marvel at how we got this far and the fact that in a couple of days we will be on a catamaran and really starting to enjoy the whole thing...
