Los Angeles

We arrive in LA around 6:00am after a 14 hour odd flight. Neither of us has really slept despite our best efforts, so we're not feeling the finest. That quickly changes as soon we clear customs and step into the California sunshine!

We've hired a car so we take the shuttle to the rental centre. We pick up the keys and get pointed in the direction of the convertibles, we've booked a Ford Mustang, naturally. We pick our colour (white, because the sexy looking grey one's tyres are bald or something) and hit the road. Now the adventure really begins.

This whole "driving on the right" could be interesting. We tentatively crawl our way out of the lot and onto the road. Which has three lanes and isn't even a freeway. We drive for a couple of minutes and get beeped about 16 times. Courts may or may not have peed her pants in the passenger seat. Hectic is an understatement. We've already managed to take a wrong turn so well pull into Starbucks, grab some coffees and regroup. We check out the map, observe the traffic for a bit, before deciding to give it another go.

We make it onto the freeway and quickly realise indicating is optional and everyone is horn happy. We've entered the freeway in peak hour traffic, so things are moving pretty slowly, which gives Jeff a chance to get his bearings. We make it to our destination relatively unscathed (the Getty Centre) but it's isn't open yet.

We head back down and hit up Santa Monica instead.

It's winter in the US, but we're pretty sure there is no such thing in California. The sky is clear blue and the sun is biting.

We walk along the beach and sadly realise that not much has changed since our trip here 3 years ago in terms of the amount of homeless people around. We walk down the famous Santa Monica Pier, which is nice and quiet given its still pretty early on a Monday morning. We spot a few cop cars on the the pier, Jeff is just waiting for a real life GTA scene to happen (with him at the centre of it in his Mustang, no doubt). We take a walk along the promenade and hit up Chipotle for brunch. Some of you may recall we frequented this Mexican heaven on our last trip. We get our fix and it's as good as we remember.

Off to Venice Beach. We didn't quite get this far last time, so we better check it out. We spot the iconic muscle beach and see the beef cakes doing their thing. We keep walking until there is nothing left to see but surfers and Frisbee-ers. We are on our last legs at this point. Time to make for our motel to go and die quietly for a few hours. Our motel is as seedy as we thought it would be. Very LA, perfect.

We wake up around 3pm and plan out a cruise into the hills. We get the top down in the convertible and aim for Beverly Hills which isn't too far away. We cruise down some side streets to perve on the mansions and continue heading up the hill.

We start spotting Hollywood Hills Tour Buses, so we must be on the right track. Sure enough, a few turns later and we have a view of Santa Monica on one side and Century City on the other. Amazing.

After cruising down Mulholand drive we come to another "overlook". This one gives us Downtown LA and the Hollywood sign. For a city that really shouldn't be there (no water, Port, steel etc.), it's done pretty bloody well.

We now aim for the Griffith Observatory, which we think will be a decent spot to see LA after the sun has gone down. So does everyone else, it would seem. We make it on dark and get some money shots. Very very pretty.

We aim for a BBQ grill on the map and have some traditional USA pub food. Smashed sweet potato, baked beans, pulled pork, slaw, brisket. When in Rome...