Home Away From Home in LA

OK, so maybe we needed more caffeine....

The 10 days we spent with the Breester’s went way to fast and we regretted not imposing on their hospitality for longer.  We accidently timed our arrival to be on Australia Day, which was great as we hadn’t celebrated it for the last 4 years, so to have a fellow Aussies to be with was the icing on the cake (or should we say Pavlova as Linda and Sarah whipped up a killer one for dessert).  Our Aussie numbers were increased when Grant arrived, bearing welcome gifts of Bundaberg Ginger Beer (Dave’s favourite) and Darrel Lee liquorish (Sarah’s favourite)! Heather, who can be classed as a pseudo-Aussie, also boosted our numbers, so it was a great first night in LA.

Sarah's favourite :)

We spent the rest of the night in Aussie style catching up with old friends and meeting new ones, and thanks to Denny’s great coffee and creamer, our early morning start was soon forgotten….

On Sunday Linda was off to run the Disney Tinkerbell half-marathon (being the legend that she is – she completed it under her time goal).  So on Saturday night we drove down to Disney Land to see her off and wish her luck after enjoying dinner with Heather, Dallas and Wyatt at the Rainforest Café.  The café is literally like an indoor rainforest complete with thunderstorms every 10 minutes or so and filled with exotic, moving animals – great for the kiddies.

Having fun on Santa Monica Pier

Linda and Denny were such good hosts as they made sure we saw LA while also treating us to some normality that we’d been craving at their home.  We had trips to Big Bear Lake (beautiful, but not much snow as it had been a bad season), the famous star-studded LA street, Rodeo Drive and Santa Monica Bvd which was great lit up at night.  Sarah had a girl’s day out with Linda and Heather, heading to the beautician for a pedicure on feet that sorely needed some TLC after so much Birkenstock wearing (although poor Linda’s feet were just plain sore after her half-marathon!)

We started our visit with Australia Day celebrations and finished it with an American tradition – the Superbowl! We were invited to Heather and Dallas’ place and it was an excellent first Superbowl experience.  It was our first time to eat buffalo wings (and they are gooood, especially accompanied with beans, chilli and cheese…) and we were delighted to have what the Americans call ‘root beer floats’ for dessert, but what most Aussie’s would simply call a spider which is done with root beer instead of coke – it had been a while since we’d enjoyed one of those!

Unfortunately the day of departure came far too quickly and before we knew it we were driving to LAX to catch our flight to Turkey.  It was a sad farewell at the airport – since it had been such a great visit and one that we’d been looking forward too for our entire South American tour. 

See you all in Australia soon Linda, Denny and Lilly!!