I arrived in LA on August 1st after a LONG trip from Peru. The flights themselves were relatively short, but I spent a grand total of 26 hours waiting in airports, plus the searching they always seem to decide is necessary for me. Perhaps I will look into getting the Global Entry Card to limit the amount I need to stand in line at immigration so I have more time for them to "randomly" search me further.
The first night was at a hotel near LAX. We got up early, rented a car, and drove to San Diego. The purpose of this trip was to go to the Animal Park, but this did not happen. When we arrived, our plans changed, and we ended up going to Tijuana instead. Of course for the other two days or so neither me nor my travel companion felt very well after.
Coming back to LA after 3 days was not a joy. Not only was the traffic heavy, but there were issues with the gas station as well! We stopped at the gas station two buildings down from where we needed to drop off the rental car. Apparently here in California, one must prepay for gas. You can do this either by going in and paying the attendant (either in cash or giving them your credit/debit card) or by using the machine outside to do the same. I ignored the 45 cent convenience fee they charged and chose to use my friend's debit card. Unfortunately I was either a little more tired than I thought, or merely not observant enough, and I put the card into the slot for the cash. Normally this is not a problem, but the slot accepted the card and wouldn't give it back. My friend had to go in to get the manager to come out to retrieve her card while I pulled around to a different pump to try again.
The second attempt fared much better. This time I went in, gave my credit card, returned to the car and pumped the gas. My friend got her card back, and we used it when we actually charged the card itself. All seemed to be going well until we reached the car. Somehow the doors had locked, and the keys were in the ignition!
I didn't panic too much as the rental place was just a couple of doors down. We walked past the McDonald's and tried to enter our destination. For some reason, contrary to the "Open! Please Come In..." sign, there was no one about. We went to the hotel to use a pay phone (our cells were in the car) to see if we could get someone there to help. They said they would be 20 minutes. We figured we could handle that and went to get something to eat and help pass the time.
We ended up waiting for over 2 hours for someone to come! They did give us the key we needed (they weren't sure if they even had an extra one at first), and all turned out alright. Fortunately, this was the only real adventure this trip brought for the two of us. My friend returned home, and I stayed in LA visiting friends and such after the Travel Writer's workshop I attended in Santa Monica....So much happening, so little time to write~
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