Los Angeles

We had spent the whole day in Fiji on Saturday 30th April and only left Fiji at 10pm that night. After a long flight we arrived in LA, but due to the time difference we were right back in Saturday 30th April and got half the day back again. It sounded great to us to gain a day, but in reality it was just really long (40 hours) and tiring.
On arrival we had to get through the tedious USA security, which involves some questions, fingerprints of all fingers on both hands and a photo. One of the passengers, a Japanese girl, couldn't understand English well and the officer struggled to explain this whole process to her. He finally managed through miming the actions to get her right hand fingerprints. Then for the left hand he lifted his own left hand up to demonstrate that she should do the same, but somehow the instructions she got from that was that the 2 of them were playing peek-a-boo. The girl lifted her left hand to her eyes, looking really confused and unsure, but still doing what she thought was expected of her, so this game of peek-a-boo went on for a bit until the officer physically came round to put her hand on the scanner. The whole scenario was hilarious, but I have to say I totally understand that she didn't get what to do, because all the security does seem very over the top.
On our way to pick up our luggage I overheard 2 Americans complaining about the flight staff and food. The man was very upset, because of the sandwich we got on the plane which we were told was a chicken sandwich, but this man didn't agree: "That wasn't a chicken sandwich, that was a chicken... chicken... um... chicken salad sandwich." As if this is such a major difference, I think the Americans just like to complain.
We got our luggage and immediately noticed that something was missing. Colin's Aunt Lynda and cousin Jenni had bought us the cutest luggage tags, they were bright yellow and on them said: "Are we nearly there yet?" We had these on our bags all round the world and people would comment on them all the time and even take photos. Somewhere between checking in at Fiji and checking out at LA, someone had taken both our tags and I was not happy about this. I did throw a bit of a tantrum, typical Annastasia style with my foot stomping and all, which you might think is a bit dramatic for luggage tags, but did I mention that they were really cute and they'd travelled all the way round the world with us?!
Our journey from the airport to our hotel was a bit of a nightmare. We had to change trains and buses 5 times and only finally got to the hotel 4 hours after landing. So that was our welcome to America and unfortunately was a sign of more annoying experiences and people to come.
In general we found the people rude and unfriendly and weren't very impressed with Hollywood and LA. It's not glitzy like we imagined and everything seemed shabby and grimy. Even the stars on Hollywood Boulevard looked tacky (that didn't stop me from taking photos of a few of them though). Also, we went to McDonald's and couldn't even get a Coke. Nothing seemed to work as it should here.
So we decided to get away from the "real" Hollywood and went to Universal Studios for a more glamorous experience. We had a great time on the simulators, enjoyed the 3D shows and the rides were really good fun too, particularly the Jurassic Park one which was a water ride that ends with you going almost completely straight down on a slide. We also met a few characters like The Simpsons and Shrek and had perfect weather on the day to enjoy the whole park.
On our final day before our flight we headed to Downtown LA, but there wasn't much to see and it wasn't very nice. We didn't really enjoy our time in LA, but I guess we're pleased we've been once so we know not to go back again.
From here we flew to Washington.