A couple more points

Some random thoughts that I forgot to write about yesterday:

30 minutes after arriving at our hostel and while testing out the wireless Internet, my laptop fell of my bed and the screen was destroyed. Maybe Steve can fix it in San Francisco.

If you're looking for a great place to eat and drink beers, check out BoHo in Hollywood. Friendly service, about 25 great beers on tap and good food. Highly recommended. It's a shame that we discovered it during our last night in the city, but we'll have to visit it again when we return to LA on the 18th.

As Juuso said, Los Angeles is a place that I could imagine living in, but for tourists it's not that great a destination. 3 nights is just the right amount of time to spend here.

And now we're off. Next stop for the night is Williams, AZ. 450 miles to drive today.

The story so far

Howdy.

We planned to start a blog to document our trip from Helsinki to Los Angeles before we left on our journey, but as is so often the case, we hit a couple of snags along the way and haven't had the time to write anything until tonight. To bring you up to date, here is a quick recap of what has happened so far on our trip.

Thursday 4.6.2009

A day before our plane leaves, I learn that in order to enter the United States, I have to have a valid ESTA form filled out and approved. No worries, however, since Otto, Antti and Juuso filled theirs out online months ago and received their approval within days. Upon filling out the form, however, my heart-rate jumped: "Travel Not Approved". I did not have permission to enter the United States.

I tried to submit the form a second time, only to discover that the request can be made once per 24 hours. We had about 18 hours until our flight left. Luckily, the phone lines of the American embassy in Helsinki were open from 3pm until 4pm Monday to Thursday (wow). I contacted an agent, who told me that my rejection was most likely due to the fact that I had temporarily lost my passport some years ago. I therefore had two options: to fill out an online form detailing my problem and hope that someone can help me on time, or simply leave and hope that I can somehow enter the country. I was also told that my biggest hurdle might be the airline company, since they do not want to send passengers without an ESTA permit to the US.

Friday 5.6.2009

After a couple of hours of sleep, we started our trip. Our plane to Amsterdam left on time, and due to favorable weathered, arrived early. Luckily, no ESTA check followed when we boarded the plane to LA. After 11 hours of flight, we finally landed at LAX.

The biggest surprise of the trip so far: the US border and customs personnel were pleasant and efficient upon noticing my problem. Apparently, Interpol had put out a warrant for my passport since it was "stolen". Since the stolen passport was the one that the agent was holding, one phone call was made and the problem was solved. I was granted entry into the country. Next up: time to choose our car for the next two weeks.

Of course, a Volvo S60 wouldn't do. Only an American car was good enough for us: a Dodge Charger.

During our drive from the airport to our hostel we finally realized how huge Los Angeles really is. Helsinki really is about the size of one of the suburbs of the city. The hostel turned out to be superb, with friendly staff and great services.

We ate dinner at a nearby (horrible) fast food joint.

Juuso and I were assigned a dorm room with four other guys. After 24+ hours of travel, falling asleep was easy. During the night, however, we realized why having ear-plugs is very important on our trip: one of our roommates had found a girlfriend for the night and had brought her along to the dorm.

Saturday 6.6.2009

Our whole group had packed very lightly since we planned to take full advantage of the fact that shopping in the US was quite a bit cheaper than shopping in Finland. The following day was spent mostly shopping for some necessary clothing.

We finished the day off with a trip to Santa Monica pier.

Of course, we had to dip our toes in the Pacific ocean. The waves were surprisingly fierce.

Finally, a picture to sum up the endless advertisements that litter up the sides of all major roads:

Sunday 7.6.2009

Finally, we end up with today. We decided that we needed to see some tourist attractions, so our destination for the morning was the Hollywood sign. Unfortunately, even though our GPS navigation system told us that we would be able to drive up right next to it, a roadblock prevented us from getting close and we had to make do with an observatory that was on the next hill.

We also visited downtown LA, which ended up being just as we had heard: boring and not worth visiting.

LA is soon to be behind us as we leave for the Grand Canyon and then Vegas. We will (hopefully) update this blog more frequently from now on as we get used to the time difference and have some energy left after long days exploring southern California (and Arizona and Nevada). Stay tuned for more updates and pictures.