Los Angeles – Aethendas

We touched the sand at the beach, laughed, and remarked how great it was to visit here on a short airplane stopover!

Then we continued onwards towards the Santa Monica pier. There were many people here, and also musicians and artists, like with the 3rd Street Promenade. The pier was also home to a police station and an amusement park. The amusement park reminded me very much of Brighton, England (where there also is an amusement park on a pier).

Bright colours decorating the amusement park

The pier has a “special” significance in that it is the end of Route 66. There is a sign announcing the end of the route and also some displays.

In general, there was a lot to see here. A favourite moment was seeing a man with a megaphone spouting off words like “They will destroy all of humanity!” and carrying a sign saying “WE WILL ALL PERISH TRANSFORMERS ARE COMING”. This is one of the best advertisements I have seen.

Of course there was also a good view of the beach.

Walking back, we had dinner at an Italian restaurant called Boce di Beppe. We had some appetizers and shared a tossed salad, penne san remo, and an Italian supremo pizza. There was a lot of food and we were all really full. At the restaurant we also met up with more relatives. Afterwards we had to return to the airport and left on our flight to New Zealand at 9:00 PM.

We left home today at about 8:30 AM to head for the airport. There were few people in the lineups, so we got to our boarding gate fairly early for our flight to Los Angeles (LAX). I played a bit on my new iPad, then we boarded the plane at about 10:55 AM on flight AC570. During the flight, I drank orange juice and watched the movie “The Green Lantern”. We landed in Los Angeles at about 2:00 PM.

We had a very long stopover in LA. We started looking in a few shops before settling down to wait in the seats at the gate. Suddenly, my dad’s cousin Selwyn called and said he was coming to pick us up and take us to the beach! Selwyn drove us to Santa Monica, and we walked down the 3rd Street Promenade. This street is for pedestrians only, and is lined with many shops. There were also many singers and musicians performing their work, a puppeteer, and a crazy break dancer.