Hotel California

The theory was that a night's sleep in a hotel near the airport mid-way between the UK and New Zealand would alleviate the jet-lag effect of a 26-hour journey.

The evidence is positive; it's only taken me a couple of days to adjust to being eleven hours ahead of myself and, yes, the Los Angeles Airport Hilton is very nice thank you.

Well, I say that. The entrance is grandiose, the facade impressive in that smoked glass monolith kind of way, and the corridors are spacious and richly furnished with art and faux-antique couches. The actual rooms seem to have been an after-thought, squeezed around the edges of the magnificent approaches.

I had my fill of American TV, lost my battle with the telephone system, had a fine breakfast and a comfortable day resting in the public spaces and even took a walk. 'Walk ?' asked the concierge when I asked where might be a good place for this activity. 'Well..er.. there's a park about 10 blocks, you could get a taxi.' Was there anywhere I could walk from the Hotel ?

Following his directions I walked alone along tired boulevards lined with old parked cars. I walked for five blocks past hotels, private houses, rest homes, industrial parks and vacant lots in the humid Los Angeles sunshine. Every few minutes a planeload of people passed over me, ruffling my hair and landing moments later at LAX just across the way. I had the sidewalks entirely to myself.

It's worth saying too that travelling through this American port, which I've done several times now, was smooth and relatively stress-free. The staff were relaxed and friendly, a marked contrast to a few years ago when many of the staff were clearly on a hair-trigger.

Spongebob Rules

Billy Connolly once described taking his two girls on a journey back to his roots in Scotland, trailing around the places of his childhood and telling them stories of his life there, immersing them in the history, the music, the culture of the place.

Asked upon their return home to America what impressed them most about this odyssey they both replied 'Sesame Street on the hotel TV'.

Why am I telling you this ?
Spongebob Squarepants. Say no more.

To begin at the beginning

No such luck. Here we are already on our final night in LA and an unexpected treat was seeing the Disney fireworks display from our bedroom window. A contrast to last time (2004) standing on Main Street in Disneyland with two tired little kids, one asleep on the pavement and the other watching the fireworks with vague disinterest. Somehow just as special from the window, with the added bonus of hearing all the neighbourhood car alarms sounding off in response to the shock and awe of the explosions. Presumably it's just part of the wallpaper if you live in Anaheim.

I understood only hazily that Anaheim is not Los Angeles. This week my plan to see the Getty Museum was sunk by the sheer difficulty of getting anywhere in LA - sorry, Anaheim - without a car. As it happens I rearranged the car hire and got it today instead of tomorrow, so had my first experience of driving in the US on the Friday afternoon freeways of Anaheim as we shopped for food, cameras (!) and tried to find anything to eat that wasn't fried. I bottled out of driving 40 miles through central LA on a Friday afternoon to see the Getty. It'll still be there next time.

Oh yes - food shopping. Big portions, high cholesterol, low prices. Say n'more.

Arriving back where you started

September 23rd:
Left the ground in Auckland at 5.55 this afternoon and arrived in LAX at 11.15 the same morning, at last reclaiming the day we mislaid on the way over in 2004. We are changed people for our four rich years in New Zealand but returning by the way we came has a strange concertina effect. Also air travel is a great leveller, at least in cattle class.

September 25th
The other great leveller is Disneyland. I get into those shops and realise my own fundamental shallowness. That Fantasyland sweatshirt and black plastic ears combo set is just the thing to keep out the cold and raise a smile on Peebles High Street in February, isn't it ?

Even so, we had a great time on the rides and in the park; the kids are a great age for Disney, with Sara managing to ride a few of the more syrupy attractions with balanced irony.

Coming this way again gives us an odd sense of the familiar as we were here just before arriving in New Zealand and now just after leaving. It settles our knotted stomachs, or mine at least. Shallowness has its place.