Saturday 11th June
Some time ago a group of grey bearded, white coated scientists used a government grant of some description to study the effects of jet lag on a human being.
Their results established conclusively that the body takes around 72 hours to fully adjust to a different time zone during which time it is likely that you will be completely knackered and a bit of a fuddy duddy.
So how is it that for the passed three days I have slept like a baby, rising at around 08:00 every morning and crashing out at around 23:00 but here on day 4 I find myself updating this bloody blog at 02:30.
Well, we made it to LA relatively unscathed, we were almost really lucky on the flight over too as when we arrived at the gate to board my name was being called out over the tannoy system and I therefore presumed that my wonderful BA card had blagged us all an upgrade.
Unfortunately on this occasion I was slightly off the mark in my assessment of the situation as apparently instead of obtaining a reclining seat and vanilla scented facial towelettes I was actually being accused of smuggling drugs and carted off to the airport basement flanked by security guards.
Although we should have already known this, it turns out that anyone who has visited Bali and Australia must be smuggling drugs of some description as there is apparently absolutely no other reason to have been to both destinations.
Unfortunately we had missed this flyer before we arrived in New Zealand and therefore forgot to pack out all of our teddy bears butts with crack cocaine or force Pauline into swallowing those condoms full of meth amphetamine.
Still, I guess this is our loss and the nice people at the airport still had some enjoyment having watched me take out each individual item to convince them that Tylers wet suit wasn’t made of reconstituted hashish or that the DVD player wasn’t encased in solidified ecstasy tablets.
By this time however I was the only passenger not on the already delayed plane so they finally let me go, where I was met by rapturous applause by my fellow passengers and looks of disdain from the airline staff for disrupting their LA time.
So having injured all of that you can imagine my face when, upon arriving at LA passport control, my name was already being shouted out over the tannoy system once again, I had visions of very large men with very large hands and very tight rubber gloves wanting to have intimate conversations with me.
Fortunately / unfortunately it turns out that the bag that the New Zealand security team had made me go through at the airport and had convincingly assured me would make our flight, didn’t.
I cant be certain but I would imagine that normally when they relay this sort of news to passengers they are not expecting beaming smiles and looks of complete and utter relief but that's exactly what they got from me.
They then informed us that we would be receiving $100 for essentials, well they might as well have told me I had just won the lottery, I was ecstatic and we could probably make do without our non hashish weaved wet suit and DVD player for a day or two anyway.
So having finally negotiated our way through the airport without even a hint of a rectal examination we proceeded to the car rental place.
When we arrived at the rental office they gave us the option of 2 very different cars, a sporty 3.5 litre dodge charger that kind of resembles a pre-transformed bumblebee from the transformers films or a Chevrolet town&country which kind of resembles a car for someone that once had an over-active libido.
Surprisingly it seems that Tyler has outgrown his transformer days and as such I was unanimously outvoted and now have the pleasure of driving around the US in a pearly white people carrier because, according to Tyler it has, and I quote, “really cool sliding doors” and “plenty of boot space”.
Still on the bright side it does provide us with the additional space needed to squeeze into after having a meal out here.
Although I have been to the US on many occasions I always somehow manage to forget just how humongous the portion sizes are out here, its as if people cant be content unless their meal comes in a bucket and contains at least one entire animal and a years crop of potatoes.
To give you an example in MCDonalds in the UK you can pick up a chicken nugget meal and you probably get about 6 bits of so called chicken, here in LA at the moment you get 50, that’s almost an entire farm.
So, with this in mind then I still find it hard to believe that when we went to Universal Studios I somehow managed to be the heaviest person on the Jurassic Park ride and submerged myself almost entirely underwater whilst my fellow riders remained completely bone dry.
I had to endure walking around the park looking for all intents and purposes like I had just wet myself whilst people three or four times my size were not in the least bit wet and the only explanation I can come up with for this is that they were just too fat to ride.
In all of the parks over here they usually have a ride seat provided at the beginning of the line to ensure that you can squeeze your sprightly frame into the desired position and save you queuing / the embarrassment of everyone looking at your gigantic arse whilst you fail to suck in enough.
I am not sure if America has a bigger obesity problem than England but its more in your face and my theory is that they are just a little more active over here, so you see a lot more extremely large people ambling about where as in the UK they are just too lazy to get off the sofa.
Anyway, prior to universal we did the obligatory touristy sites including the Hollywood sign and the avenue of the stars which were both cool, I was pleased to see that Kermit the Frog got the recognition he deserves for everything he has done for cinema.
We then drove out to Malibu and stalked a few of the stars homes which was both sad (in the geeky sense) and uneventful, Pauline was a little disappointed that Bruce Willis didn’t make the effort to come out of his house to greet her personally, these stars can be so selfish at times!
Yesterday we went to the Knots Berry theme park which was cool, over here Tyler is able to go on practically all of the rides so we convinced him that it was really in his best interest to indulge in our roller coaster fetish and be shot upside down really really fast, several times
.......backwards.
To his merit he mostly took it in his stride and went on absolutely everything we asked him to although he may think twice before going again, well at least until we go to the next theme park tomorrow that is.
It was here that we were also introduced to another of the fine culinary delights of the US the Funnel Cake, which basically consists of deep fried batter covered in icing sugar, covered in ice cream, covered in dairy cream and then covered in more icing sugar.
It just wasn’t fattening enough for us though so we opted for the additional oreo infused crust just to add those much needed carbs and stop our slender frames from wasting away.
Oh yeah, our bag turned up at the hotel the following day as promised, it looked as though they hadn’t taken me at my word and had gone through everything again, however when they failed to lock it they simply wrapped it in a bit of cellophane and hoped for the best, which as it turned out wasn’t the greatest idea.
Anyway, I apologise if today’s blog doesn’t make a lot of sense but I blame this on the jet lag which in turn I blame on a group of scientists who blatantly spent their grant money on beer and curry and invented a 72 hour explanation just so that they didn’t get found out.
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