This whole trip came about because James and George's good friend Pete wanted to go to a wedding in Indianapolis. It somehow came up and I was interested in going too, so off we went. It was my first overseas trip as a "grown up".
So day 1. We left from Sydney in the afternoon. We had a 747-400, but Pete had arranged all the flights with a travel agent, and we got the worst seats on the plane - the middle two seats of a group of four. I could see the wingtips out of the window, but that was about it. Note to self: ask for window seats for the other flights. I didn't really sleep. It was the shortest night ever though - dawn broke at like 2am Sydney time! We watched "The Kid", "What Lies Beneath" and "Autumn in New York" which were all pretty average. "The Kid" was probably the best out of the lot. They showed "Loser" over breakfast before landing.
Qantas jet we spent 12.5 hours in flying to LA
Clouds from the plane
At LAX we transferred to a domestic flight to San Francisco. Got a windows seat on the right side of the plane and had a good view of the California coast the whole way up. Didn't get any photos of the plane though.
LAX Airport
LAX Airport
Playa Del Rey
Venice beach that you see on TV a lot is down there (north of the canal)
Coastline just north of LA, looking towards Santa Monica
Coastline just north of LA, looking towards Malibu and Point Dume
Blue sky!
Just the horizon for a fun photo, but you can see the reflection of my camera in the plane window
Lake San Antonio and Lake Nacimiento
Looking towards Monterey Bay, south of San Francisco
San Mateo-Hayward Bridge
This is a really long bridge spanning the whole width of the bay
San Francisco and Bay Bridge
San Francisco from the plane just before landing
Way over in the distance
We got a shuttle bus from the airport to our hotel ($15 each). The driver was a maniac. He managed to get all the way to the hotel before hitting another car just outside the front of it.
Spent $2.70 at an internet cafe, then had dinner at a diner - the kind of thing you see in movies/tv shows. I was too tired and grumpy to get any photos though. I've never understood tipping, but I suppose you can just think of it as a GST that goes straight to the workers, and not to the government. Still super weird though.