The plane trip... Virgin willingly 'code shared' with Delta Airlines, so our American experience began early... Let's start with the pension plan for Delta which meant the retired hosties from other airlines must all work for Delta on the Australian flight... (Where's the Virgin hosties when you need 'em...). The food was fine, choice consisted of whatever was left in the 2nd back row of the plane as they worked back to us... (Too scared to ask 'em anyway..) The inflight selection of movies, tv shows and other stuff was amazing, needed something for us and the kids once their myriad of electronic gadgetry ran out of batteries... Flight was loooong, but ok, a necessary evil to begin this great trip with lots to look forward to. I was very proud of my family, not too many fights, Lara was amazing looking after Finn (2 seats together) and the other 3 in the middle with the occasional snarl/snap between us after the first 3 hours.. Addy did swap with Lara later and of course 'nitro Lara' and "glycerine Connor', required seperation to prevent a mid-air explosion. It was late...and we all survived. Very proud of myself given my recent Business class experiences to Africa and having to endure those cattle class conditions....! Got to Customs and got the third degree including fingerprint scans for me, Addy and Connor! (No body cavity search though...)

Onto a supposedly booked shuttle to our hotel (after 3 phone calls and he said she said conversations at 7am on a cold LA morning we finally got there! A great groovy oldern style (think Melrose Place if you are old enough and watched crap tv in the 90's..). They got us our room early (bless 'em) and we showered and hit the streets of Hollywood for our first experience in sunny LA... "Melrose Place" hereby known as "MP" (the proper name of the place is (Magic Castle Hotel, no really it is.. Addy booked it of course..)

So, we walked from MP, 2 blocks to Gramans Chinese theatre and the star walk with more 'no names' than stars! Movie and superheroes abound preening like turkeys for a photo op and a fee! Very safe area to walk, plenty of people watching to enjoy of all walks of life, lots of tourists, not many loonies (the police have been busy..)

Found a mexican cafe for lunch and the food decisions start to get really tough. There are so many choices of fast food it boggles the mind and you get fat thinking about it.

l'll save that discussion for a seperate food blog, call it 'the 4Fs"(Fast Fat, Fried Food).. And then I can talk about the kids real love the multitude of amazing candy/sweet shops.. The quote of the day came from one of them "If you are what you eat, who wants to be a piece of brocolli!

Anyway, we ate lunch and the battteries were getting low with little sleep in the last 24hrs, so we trudged back to MP and crashed for an afternoon snooze. After our sleep we went onto our next adventure to "The Grove" and the Farmers Market, but that's another story..

c ya homies!