New holiday, new blog! Yep, from the maker of the still unfinished 'Europe 2014' blog (it's still getting there, 'in production' if you will) comes this sequel that will prompt you to get out of bed every morning in anticipation for its next instalment...in a year or two. At least you can't say it wasn't expected. And before you do start, another word of warning; today we flew 15 hours and landed 3 hours before we took off. Los Angeles is 17 hours behind home, meaning this first day will cover 41 hours. If you've been reading my last blog, you'll know how long-winded I make my blogs, so you're in for a treat. Notwithstanding the likely lengths and likely delays of the entries, you really are in for a treat as I keep you posted on the trip of a lifetime that'll see us make a dream come true; Stace celebrating her 30th birthday in Vegas, which she has dreamed of for a very long time. I feel really privileged to be part of it with her, and so lucky that she's in my life so we can do this together. Of course, I won't be sharing every detail with you; this is a G-rated blog and some of the things adults do in their own company is not consistent with that classification. Not wanting to preempt anything, if that business does occur, I'll just start writing about fairies. I really hope I write a fairytale. With all that warning let's begin. The day began really early; we had a 9:15am flight out of Melbourne so had to rise before the crack of dawn to get down there in plenty of time. It started with somewhat of a miracle too, with Stace waking up alert and not grumpy. Stace takes a few (lot of) minutes to connect with the world when she wakes up, most of the time doing so in a really grumpy state. She's like an old fashioned modem trying to connect to the Internet. It was all the more dangerous this morning as we didn't get to bed till late last night (sadly not because of fairies, we had to finish packing), and were up by 3:15am to make sure we were ready to go when Dad came to pick us up at 4am. But she didn't this morning, which is a pretty good indication of her excitement for this holiday that she totally deserves. We got ourselves up, ready, packed the bags in the car, said goodbye to Chilli (the cat - have fun looking after him Josh), and despite the emotion and waterworks from Stace in leaving Chilli behind, we were still on the road just after 4am. Being a foolish time of day to be awake, there weren't too many other fools on the road to the airport, which made for a really quick trip. Just before 6am, Dad dropped us off, we gave him a hug goodbye, and headed inside to check in, ready to spend an amazing few weeks travelling together. Typically, when you're early and have given yourself time in case anything goes wrong, nothing goes wrong. And when you're late, and relying on everything to go right, everything goes wrong. Today - somewhat shockingly - we were the former. We were so early that within 20 minutes of being dropped off, we'd checked in (no line at all), changed money, and made our way through customs to a comfortable seat in a bar ordering breakfast. We still had 3 hours till our flight, but I bet if we'd given ourselves an extra 3 hours sleep (which would've been heaven), there'd have been no way we'd have made it on time. We sat and had some breaky, a well needed coffee, and I had a beer, just because it's not often pre 9am beers are acceptable. And I wanted to gloat to Bill (my mate). Stace had a second coffee and lots of water, making me very concerned about my comfort for the upcoming 15 hour flight. I have a small bladder, but it's like the Pacific Ocean compared to Stace. As we couldn't get emergency exit seats (Qantas makes you pay and we weren't), I was between the aisle and Stace for the flight, and if she was consuming that level of fluid, I knew I'd be up and down more than a yoyo (do people still play with those?) all the way to the USA. We stayed relaxing at the bar until about half an hour prior to boarding, before heading towards the gate. I stopped to buy a book on the way, just in case I needed something to do during the flight, and Stace went to the toilet a dozen times. Eek. There was about a 15 minute delay to start boarding, but finally the call came out and we lined up. Stace went off to the toilet. ****. It didn't matter as we were on the A380, so the boarding line was massive. When we did get to the front, Stace had been 'randomly selected' for another screening (********, anyone in their right mind knows she looks dodgy - that's what happens when you **** nonstop), but she got through that and in no time we were seated, settled, and heading off. The start of the flight was pretty standard. In fact the whole flight was pretty standard. It's a 15 hour flight; you can't sell that positively. We were sitting just behind the exit row (****ers just wanted to rub my nose in it) and adjacent to the baby section. That could've been concerning, but the two babies in there were really well behaved the whole flight. Plus they were cute. Stace's desire for a baby really dodged a bullet there. I started passing the time by watching a movie (Joy), and occasionally indulging in public displays of affection (PDA) with Stace, after she's given me a book telling me just how much she loved that for my birthday. Lunch came, and I got the pulled pork. To my surprise, it was cold. Double checking the menu (prompted by Stace telling me I ordered a salad), I realised that what I thought said 'bean and apple salsa' actually said 'bean and apple salad', and I had in fact ordered a salad. I played it cool and pretended I knew this, and Stace was none the wiser to my mistake. It was actually pretty good (considering it's airline food), and the only thing I was disappointed in was that my curiosity of what a salsa made of beans and apple would be like remained unfulfilled. After lunch, the flight just kept going. And going. I finished watching Joy, wrote some of my Europe blog and started this one, played some phone games, indulged in PDA, played peek-a-boo with a baby (father me), moved a couple of times for Stace to go to the bathroom, and tried to have a snooze. That took up maybe about 4 hours. ****. Truthfully though, as painfully long as it was, it really wasn't that bad. I watched another movie (Concussion), ate heaps (they fed us well, and I didn't make any further menu mistakes), and did manage to snooze for a few hours, which is unlike me. By the time we touched down in LA, I was feeling pretty good, and excited for the next few weeks! As we were descending into LA, I looked out the window and saw the Hollywood sign outside. It was a bit of a wow moment, and with eagerness I pointed it out to Stace. It was right in the centre of the window, directly outside in front of us, but she couldn't see it. I thought she was only 30 next week but I was beginning to question the accuracy of that with her eyes failing her so badly! I've heard lots of bad things about LAX, but it was actually pretty good to get through. There was a little wait to get through immigration and customs, but that was made easy by the acquisition of wifi (of course it was), which was pretty quick. Immigration was really simple too, but they are thorough - we both had our finger and thumbs prints on both hands scanned and our photos taken before they let us in. We grabbed our bags from the carousel and literally walked straight through customs and were officially in the USA! The next thing was finding our transfer to Anaheim. We located a payphone, telephoned through to announce the great news that we'd arrived in the States, and they let us know they'd meet us out the front in about 20 minutes. We headed outside to the meeting point and found a seat to wait and watch the world go by. Finally our car came, and went, having not gotten into the pickup line in time. Grr. About 10 minutes later it came back around again, but still drive straight past us and stopped about 100 metres further up the road. Annoying at the best of times, but frustrating after a flight that's seen us travel 15 hours and land before we left, we trudged down to the car with our bags and got in the car. **** tip coming for this dude. The ride out to Anaheim was about 45 minutes, and if it wasn't for the fact everything we looked at was new, I reckon I could've fallen asleep I was that exhausted. But the never ending network of freeways to spot, the city, and the sprawling suburbs that stretched out to some seriously dramatic mountains kept me going. We arrived at our hotel just before 10am, really hoping that our room would be ready because we both felt greasy, hot (it was a warm day in LA), and in desperate need of a shower, teeth brush, and sleep. Sadly it wasn't. We checked our bags in at the front desk so we could at least stop carting those around, and started to wonder what the hell we'd do for the next few hours till our room was ready. Just as the enormity of how much it was going to suck started to sink in, a friendly voice yelled my name and came bounding over! It was Stace's good friend Jenna, who'd planned a trip with her family to make sure she could join us in Vegas next week for Stace's 30th, and also turned out to plan her time in Anaheim at the exact same time and place as us. We knew she was here, but we had no way of contacting her without wifi. At the best of times, it's always a happy and exciting time to catch up with Jenna, but this time especially it was something else! Jenna and her family were heading to the hotel restaurant for some breakfast, so we joined them and I started to break down some of the shyness of her kids (father me). I'm not sure how her and her husband Leigh do it; they've brought over their 4 children, all under 7 years old, on a massive long flight, right to Disneyland, and then for another few weeks travelling on top of that. They're pretty awesome kids, but it looks so exhausting! Sorry Mum, but you're not getting that many grandchildren from us! Jenna also found out about my blog at breakfast, and asked for some nice words about her when I write it. Sorry Jenna, but this blog is impartial and can't be influenced by outside requests; I have author integrity to uphold. This blog's not a work of fiction. But you are lucky you don't need to ask for nice words, they were always coming coz you're pretty cool and all. Moving on... After breakfast we headed up to Jenna and Leigh's room, while they discussed what the plans for the day might be. Leigh was kind enough to offer me a beer (legend), and I got tackled around by their daughter Aleia (that spelling is probably not right but I'm sure Stace will correct me when she reads this), who was having lots of fun (father me). We hadn't really planned for much today, thinking it would more be a day for recovery before hitting Disneyland tomorrow, but we were happy for anything. Leigh went and got Jenna's parents, who were also on the trip with them, from another hotel, so they could all figure out what to do. They thought of hiring a limo and see the sights of LA, but couldn't get through to the booking agent. In the end they booked the limo for tomorrow, with enough room for us as well if we were keen, and decided to go to Disneyland today. It ended up good really because when they headed off, we got our bags from reception and were able to use their bathroom to shower and freshen up. It was bliss! After that, it was getting close to lunch time and we were getting hungry, so Stace and I headed out for a walk to find some food. Everything in America seems to be a franchise of some sort, and there were various fast food or steakhouses in close proximity to choose from. We went into restaurant called Denny's and sat down, but couldn't really find anything much on the menu. I think there was probably another menu but we couldn't work it out, and not wanting to look foolish we legged it before we could! A few doors up we found a steakhouse and sports pub and went in. We almost walked out of that one too; the waitress told us they didn't do lunch on the weekend. Confused because there were lots of people in fact eating lunch, we went to leave but she got menus and led us to a table. It turns out they do lunch, but just not off the lunch menu on the weekends, only the dinner one. Which happened to pretty much be the lunch one! Anyway, we ordered our first burgers and beers of the trip together, largely agreeing that these choices were indeed appropriate lunch fare, even if they didn't come from that menu. Stace also ordered a 'side salad' that would've been bigger than my head. Only in America. Needless to say she barely touched that, but the burgers were delicious! The lethargy of a massive flight, a full stomach, and a couple of beers very quickly caught up with us after lunch, and we headed back to the hotel. Luckily our room was ready so I gathered our bags from Jenna and Leigh's room and we settled into our own. We decided to have a half hour nap or so; just enough to get our energy back, but not too much to destroy our hope of a good sleep later tonight. A few hours later we woke up. Well, Stace was a few minutes after that as her mind reconnected with the world, but it was longer than we had intended. Oh well, we had been exhausted. After regaining our composure, we decided to go for a bit more of a walk. This time, we went a lot further than the restaurant down the road, as Stace was keen to find a bar she'd been to before. If you know Stace, you'll know she's shocking with direction, so we never found that bar. But we did walk through the main part of Anaheim and past the convention centre, where there has been a cheerleader competition on. That explained all the freaky well-over made up girls and their overawed parents walking around I guess! We began to walk back in the general direction of the hotel, and stopped for a quick beer at a bar we found on the way. We were getting a little peckish again but the place we'd chosen didn't have much of a menu, so we ended up going back to the steakhouse we were at for lunch and sat by the bar to have a few drinks. It was a pretty good night in the end. The bar was friendly, had all the American sports showing, and had some good snacks. We stayed for a fair few drinks, had some great potato skins and an 'onion loaf', which was basically deep fried onion moulded around to form a loaf, and got a little drunk. But not as much as the bloke next to us, who fell asleep at the bar. We finally left and headed back to the hotel at about 10:30pm. When we got back (and had wifi), Jenna has messaged for us to come upstairs for a bit, so knowing they had beer in their fridge, we obliged. All of the kids were asleep by then, except Grayson, the youngest, who was super cute in his cot begging to be picked up. I couldn't resist his smile (father me) so went to get him (with his parents permission, I'm no baby snatcher). But I could resist his smell; he'd had a **** (unfather me), and he was put back in his cot quicker than he was picked up. Maybe she'd had too much to drink, or maybe she's more keen on children than I even realised (and believe me I've realised), but Stace swooped in and changed the nappy for Jenna and Leigh! Wow. After that, we decided we would join them tomorrow for the limo tour, and squeeze two days at Disneyland into one the next day, so at least we'd get to see some of LA. We drank them empty and headed to our room, totally exhausted but epically excited for our holiday. Day 1 was done!