Life, the Universe and Everything » los angeles

Further westcoast ramblings

wnagele — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:29:25 +0000

Currently i’m writing to you from San Diego Sheraton. But, first things first.

As we used our last day in SFC to see Golden Gate bridge we took the chance to visit the museum of computer history in Mountain View which i can really recommend. We had a very nice tour there and have seen a lot including the first Google production server. As we already were in Mountain View we surely had to catch up at the Google HQ.

Afterwards we drove to Santa Cruz, as our plan (if you can call it one) was to use California #1 to go south. In Santa Cruz we had dinner and went for some bowling. We also enjoyed the Boardwalk named gaming lot – where we left some bucks playing air hockey.

As we wanted to use our travelling time as much as possible we used to make some more kilometers before catching a motel. So it came that we ended up in somewhere of nowhere and couldn’t get a motel for about 1 and a half car hours. The drive along the pacific coast on California #1 however was awesome. We had no full moon but growing moon i guess and so you could see a lot of the moon light flickering in the ocean. Finally we dropped at a motel in San Simeon at the other end of nowhere. It was a nice but short stay as we catched up in the morning and took our trip down to LA. In LA we stayed at a hotel i’ve already been once earlier this year. In the evening we grabbed our dinner and had some nice beers near Hollywood Blvd in LA.

Next day our choice fell on Disneyland in Anaheim, as we didn’t get up early in the morning we came there at about 4pm and so only had 4 hours left to enjoy the stay. I can recommend the space mountain ride. Most of the other stuff is probably only funny if you get there with children. After we had our dinner at IHOP (International house of pancakes) we stayed at a motel near Newport Beach (yes, as in O.C. California) which was – well, cheap.

Today we had a trip to newport beach and afterwards dropped by at San Diego. Here we’re staying at the Sheraton which i’ve also been earlier this year (at this time named Radisson). We weren’t able to get our trip to San Diego Zoo as BJ catched a cold (which i had earlier last week), so we took the rest of this day off and i enjoyed my stay at the jacuzzi.

Our plans for the rest of the trip are not quite sure, maybe we drop to San Diego Zoo tomorrow or we go directly to Las Vegas. We’ll see. As i had some time today i finally made it, to upload the photos.

Back in Vienna

wnagele — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 18:18:41 +0000

After another seamingless flight from LA to Paris and on to Vienna we arrived yesterday at about 3pm. The only thing i wanted to mention about the trip is my final conclusion that i will never fly again with Air France. We went to the airport in LA 3 hours before departure and had to wait over 2 hours at the checkin desk of Air France. The security afterwards was also this time done in about 10 minutes. So my tip for everyone is to choose other airlines on long distance.

I’ll catch some sleep now – still a bit jet laggy.

You can find my pictures of the trip here.

Universal Studios LA

wnagele — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 21:47:15 +0000

Today we took the chance to catch a little bit more sleep and didn’t get out of bed until 10am. We took breakfast at some fastfood restaurant on Hollywood Blvd. Afterwards we took the metro to Universal City. Amazing about the metro is at first the tact it’s driving – now i know why everybody here drives by car. Also the distance between underground stations is really big – you drive about 5 minutes between 2 stations. That would be about 5 stations in Vienna.

Universal Studios were really nice, you pay the entry fee of about 60 bucks but don’t have to pay anything for the shows afterwards. Compared to Disneyland that’s really cheap then. I really liked the Terminator 2D show and also had a lot of fun riding The Mummy. It’s not that big as a Disneyland so you can do almost anything in a one day trip. As mentioned we headed there at about 12am and we did almost every show in there.

In the evening we were looking for the Mood Club again. As we didn’t find it yesterday we had more luck this time. The waitress at the bar we’ve been beforehand knew where it was. But she told us that the Element Club would be much cooler and we should hook up there later on. So we did but Element Club was really awesome – nice girls and good music. So a good end for our last day in LA.

Arrived in LA

wnagele — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 08:04:10 +0000

Uff, getting up today was really hard. Yesterday we took the last oppurturnity to checkout San Diego with our workshop colleagues. So we went to a brazilian restaurant to get some beer first and afterwards had dinner at an excellent persian restaurant. I really have to get a day of now.

Today Keith gave us a ride because he had to go to LA for a meeting somewhere in Marina del Rey too. Thanks for this again, Keith! We found a cheap hotel nearby Hollywood Boulevard which is not the cleanest but for sleeping and a shower it’s sufficient. Also a nice aspect as we thought we wouldn’t have any internet here is that someone in the neighborhood has left his wireless network open.

So today we checked out the nearby Hollywood Blvd and found out that the walk of fame is not such a big deal and also the rest of Hollywood was a disappointment for me. But i guess it’s like in most cases where you have to big assumptions of what you’ll get. There’s no business like show business.

Arrived at Radisson La Jolla, San Diego, California

wnagele — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 05:22:31 +0000

Uff, you know sleeping in economy class is always kind of an adventure – but having 2 drunk males (i guess they were belgians, Teemu thinks dansk) behind you who try to figure out the deeper background of Casino Royale. Well, it just *sucks*.

The flight itself was seemingless. We catched both connections and that even though we had very tough transfer times (1 hour in Paris – which means a mission impossible for Paris CDG). The fear of Teemu regarding Air France however came to be true. It’s amazing how flying changed in the last few years. On one hand you have cheaper prices for inner european connections now. But you also have increased prices (you know – security …) on long distance (especially the United States). However although the prices raised the service on board and also at the airports decreased dramatically (maybe it’s just my subjective opinion). At the airport in Vienna i was very astounded about the incompetence and rudeness the woman at the checkin desk had. I was just asking about the connection in Los Angeles to United and she just came up with “i don’t care about that”. At least they brought us to LA on time.

But for sure the flights couldn’t be without any problems at all. When we arrived at LAX we were astouned that the immigration and luggage pickup were working fast (about 20 minutes). So we headed over to the terminal our flight with United should depart from. A nice woman at the checkin desk (Air France someone) made a fast and competent checkin and even explained us the way to the gate (Air France huh?). So we headed over to our gate took a coffee at Starbucks and grabbed our first US Dollars from a nearby ATM. The boarding was done in some minutes and so we jumped on our plane to San Diego which was a Brasilia EMB-120 (according to the onboard brochure). I’ve been on such kind of “airtaxi” my first time it only had place for about 10 people and was really nice to fly with. The flight to San Diego took just 35 minutes and so we arrived there on time at about 7pm. I’ve already been a little bit tired then. So we waited for our bagges … and waited … and waited … and waited. While i … waited … Teemu went out to call our hotel for the pickup shuttle. After waiting for a while i headed over to the United desk and guess what? United lost our bagges from LA to San Diego. But the girl at the information desk was really nice and beyond helping us with our lost luggage she gave us some tips for San Diegos nightlife. A little later we arrived at La Jolla (speak: La Hoya) which is about 20 minutes ride from San Diego airport.

Now we’re going to grab our first american burger here and then fall asleep. It’s about 10pm here.

Heading to San Diego

wnagele — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 07:36:44 +0000

I’m writing this from Vienna airport.

We’re currently sitting in the boarding area waiting to get on our plane to Paris. I’ve had a party with some friends yesterday and made the night through. Therefore i have already my 3rd mocca inside. I hope to catch at least some hours of sleep on our way to LA. *tired*

Flights booked – ready to rumble

wnagele — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 12:35:21 +0000

Today we’ve finally booked our flights to San Diego. I’ve booked my flight via Chicago earlier this morning and when Teemu found the time to give me his missing details (birthdate, etc.) the flight was booked out. Isn’t it kinda fascinating that Murphy can get his fingers off – at least one time? Whatever, we’ve had to change to some Delta and United flights which are operated by Air France. As Teemu already had bad experiences with them on long distance flights we’re heading forward to that. However we didn’t have any other choice because the refund limitations of NSF (Fly America Act) force us to book american airlines (even if they are operated by an european airline then ).

The currently planned flight schedule is as follows:

Vienna VIE (10.03.2007 10:10 ) – Paris CDG (10.03.2007 12:15)
Paris CDG (10.03.2007 13:15) – Los Angeles LAX (10.03.2007 15:50)
Los Angeles LAX (10.03.2007 17:55) – San Diego SAN (10.03.2007 18:43)

Los Angeles (17.03.2007 16:30) – Paris CDG (18.03.2007 11:05)
Paris CDG (18.03.2007 12:40) – Vienna VIE (18.03.2007 14:40)

We’ve choosen to take this chance to do a little holiday down in california and therefore will stay the days after the workshop in Los Angeles.