Goodbye USA, It's Been Emotional

Our last nights sleep in the USA (for this trip anyway) was peaceful, and we woke with a hint of excitement that we would be soon entering the Southern Hemisphere, something that neither of us had done before. There wasn’t much on the agenda for that day, just pack up and get to the airport that were the important things. The hostel let us leave our main bags in reception and we set out to find a book shop to hopefully sell the USA guidebook that had seen us through so much over the past 7 weeks and purchase a Rough Guide/Lonely Planet for New Zealand. James had seen on the internet that there was a place just round the corner so we wandered out to find it.

We couldn’t find it. For the main reason that it looked like the entire section of shops where it once stood had been demolished and had workmen all over the place surveying this and that. We asked a couple of people walking past and they couldn’t pinpoint where the nearest one would be, so carried on wandering in the hope that we would find it. Out of the corner of his eye James spotted something that looked like a bookshop and we headed inside. Sure enough it was the place that we had been looking for, and it was very aptly named “The Last Bookstore”. We managed to sell the USA book and only pay $1 extra for one on New Zealand (not a Rough Guide or Lonely Planet, but still seemed like it had everything we would need) but only after James had been asked for his ID. This country is crazy for ID and we wondered what else you would need it for if they won’t even let you sell a book without it! But at least part one of our mid-morning mission was complete. Part two would involve a trip to the US Post Office.

We needed to send a few items home and the Post Office that we found in Downtown didn’t have the right box to send our things back by “snail mail” so we set off in search of another. We finally found one, after being given bogus directions, and bundled our items up and sent them off back to Blighty. Hopefully mum and dad will receive them within 15 days and won’t open them up. That means YOU, mum and dad if you are reading! BY the time we had completed this other little task it was getting late in the day so we went for a stroll through the Japanese Quarter and the Art District. Only briefly though, but we did see the old Japanese guy who was on Britain’s (or America’s, I forget which) Got Talent a couple of years ago. He was a one-man-band and had constructed his organ with the use of white plastic pipes, but he never got through the first audition. A train and a walk later and we were leaving the hostel and getting ready to hit the airport.

The hostel/Hotel Cecil

LAX (Los Angeles International Airport) is quite some distance away so it involved two long trains and a shuttle bus to get us there, but we were there in plenty of time (as per our old Greyhound adventures) so we had time to change our clothes, freshen up and dispose of any food items we may have in our luggage. Our flight was at 23:30 that night so we got through security and set up camp in the lounge. As per the Greyhound adventures a young chap came and sat down near us and started chatting away to us. He didn’t seem like a weirdo so we happily responded to his questions – the usual ones about England, the Olympics, etc. The girl sitting next to him was from Manchester, but we didn’t hold it against her. She took some of the pressure off us from the barrage of questions and general chat emanating from the young lad and it turned out that she had been in the San Francisco International (Party) Hostel at the same time as we had been there. We didn’t recognise each other, and it turns out that she wasn’t staying there but her mates had been able to smuggle her in for the free booze that started at half 9 every night. Small world.

We boarded the plane and James settled into his window seat (I had got the window seat from London to New York) whilst I chatted to the Australian grandma next to me who had been to the states to visit family. She liked America but she loved Australia so much and further increased my expectancies for the trip there later. She was a very bad sleeper on planes but had not slept well the night before so was hoping to get some decent rest on the plane. After agreeing that we would all wake each other up as and when food came round we settled into our flight. After dinner me and James were both out for the count for sleeping on the plane was an absolute luxury compared to the Greyhound. We woke for breakfast and then back to sleep. We woke for Immigration leaflets and then back to sleep. Poor old grandma hardly got any and she said she was incredibly jealous of both of us for sleeping so much. I guess you just have to pay your dues on the Greyhound...

When the plane finally touched down we were in Fiji. We had discussed staying in Fiji longer but recognised that maybe we should have a “rest country” halfway through the trip rather than just after America. But we were here, in Fiji, in another continent, and in another hemisphere! We were greeted by a small band playing ukuleles, as would be expected, and proceeded through to the next lounge to wait for our plane to Auckland. It was very quiet in there, and everything seemed closed as it has 5 in the morning. We didn’t have any food or water on us due to the laws on bringing such things into the country and we couldn’t even buy anything as we had no Fijian dollars. So we blogged a bit, listened to some tunes and played some cards until our next plane departed a couple of hours later. I had managed to retain my crown as Blackjack King and was leading James in the Rummy 3-1 but the session was cut short by the boarding call. The Unification of both titles will not take long and will surely be achieved in our campervan in the hills of New Zealand somewhere.

Fiji! OK,, it's only the airport waiting lounge, but it's still Fiji!