Being Bugged
This is the end of the cruise. Our breakfast is delivered half an hour early, as per the norm, and we finish our packing and head off the boat. Everyone onboard has to go through immigration, so you can imagine the queues. Not a joyous way to start the day.
Vancouver airport has a somewhat different process. After check in, you have to carry your bags all the way through the customs and immigration processes before putting them on the conveyor belt to the plane. Can anyone say "security risk"? I can’t say I appreciate having to lug my rucksack further than usual either.
I check my mail and am surprised to find that I have not received any confirmation from the LA hostel I booked while in Skagway. I call them and they have no booking record for me and no space. Fabulous. (*They email me to say they received my booking after I get back to Australia. Great system they have going there.) I start researching other places, but run out of time before boarding.
The flight goes via Vegas, so I have another opportunity to get online while transiting. I book into a place called the Venice Beach Hostel. It’s only one night, so I’m not too worried.
While I'm sitting at the charging station, I end up talking to the guys sitting either side of me. Drew, the guy on my right, is married to an Australian. He is on the same flight and funnily enough we are seated in the same row, but I'm across the aisle. On board, there is someone sitting in my seat already – another one of those people incapable of understanding airplane seating. I swap with him, which puts me next to Drew. We chat all the way to LA and he offers me a lift to the hostel.
.
The hostel is a little...shall we say...weird. It doesn’t have any kind of sign up and the guy who runs it is very much the ex-hippy type. He proudly shows me the soft drink machine in the basement that he's converted so it sells beer. There are six bunk beds in the fairly small room I'm in and three camp beds. It's a bit crowded . I remind myself that it’s only one night.
Drew suggests we go out for dinner and takes me to a seafood place called Rock and Fish, where we gorge on seafood washed down with a few glasses of wine. Drew then insists on paying. It's a lovely treat for my last night in America and is another demonstration of the kindness of strangers here.
Back at the hostel, I catch up on my mail. I’m sitting in a dining alcove off the kitchen and overhear part of a conversation with a girl complaining about being bitten by something. The guy she is talking to says something about the biting things living in the floorboards and that there is an alcohol solution on a shelf in the bathroom. This is not sounding good.
I head to bed, but struggle to sleep as I’m thinking about crawling, biting things. In the middle of the night, I see one of the guys on the camp bed leap up and start spraying around his bed. Now I’m really not happy. There’s nothing I can do though, apart from dream of bedbugs. By the time morning comes, I'm wrapped mummy-like in my sheet and I don't think I've been bitten by anything, but I've also not slept a whole lot.
*I find out when I get back to Australia that I have a delayed reaction to being bitten. Of couse I'm taking some bed bug bites home with me.
The End of Days
I have the full day in LA before my late night flight to Melbourne. This is why I picked a hostel near the beach. I put my stuff into storage, lock my valuables into a locker, and head to the sand. On the wa,y I detour to the Venice canals. The Venice Beach area was originally proposed as an upmarket resort area by a gentleman who envisaged something with a Venetian theme. Instead, it became a theme park, with a network of canals. The theme park is gone, but the canals remain, lined with houses. It’s a really nice area to wander around on a sunny day.
When I get to Venice Beach, I remember thinking it was kind of seedy when I was first in LA. Now I quite like it and I must have a different vibe about me as I manage to avoid most of the wierdos. I wander the market stalls, buy myself an interesting necklace as my American keepsake, grab a gyros for lunch, then sign up for a surfing lesson. I feel very un-Australian never having surfed before.
The first part of my lesson is on a board on the grass. I learn the theory of standing up and practice a couple of times. It seems easy until I try doing the same thing in water with waves. My instructor is very patient and I get standing a couple of times, but I don’t see myself turning pro any time soon.
Late afternoon, I head back to the hostel to shower and collect my gear. Drew texts, arranges to meet me for a coffee and offers me a lift to the airport. That would have been really handy except he cancels 10 minutes before he’s meant to meet me. I heave my rucksack onto my back and walk around the corner to catch the public bus. It costs me a whole 75 cents to get to the airport and only takes about 15 minutes.
I check in and complete customs and immigration. Now would be a good time to shop for duty-free cameras. There’s a lot of refurbishment work going on at the airport and I walk all the way to the departure gate without finding a duty-free store. I have to ask for directions and I'm told the duty free stores are all on the entry side of security. I go back through and sure enough, there are the stores, but I can't find any electronics. Again I ask. It turns out they don’t sell any electronics at LAX. I wonder about the economic wisdom of that choice as I re-join the security queue.
This is it. This is the end of my American Adventure.
I text a few of the people who’ve contributed to my travels to thank them. I’ve had an amazing time. I’ve met some incredible people, as well as some really odd ones. I’ve hiked in a lightning storm, slept in a car, been in a helicopter, met old friends and new, seen UFO’s (well, kind of) and danced ceroc, swing, salsa and the Texas Two Step. I’ve travelled by plane, car, train, bus, Harley, bicycle, ship, boat, raft, horse, mule and dog sled. I’ve had a ball and learnt a lot.
My advice if you’re thinking about travelling to America?Just do it
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