Jakey Jake

So i spent a quick night over in LA staying at hollywood hostels before getting the greyhound to San Francisco. The trip was about 7 hours, luckily most of which i slept. Arriving in a big city where you have no idea where you are and only an address can sometimes be unnerving, add to that you are carrying a shiteload of luggage and you are walking through the local black ghetto and you get an idea of where i was at. I still managed to make it to the hostel alive and well and decided to have a quiet night in watching some videos and sitting on the net. Its definately worth having a laptop when youre on the road, especially if you’re in the states, there are that many free wireless networks its crazy.

The hostel is in a perfect location, just a block from the beach, 2 blocks to the main shopping strip and 1 block from the main bars. South beach is what is known as the ärt deco area as all the they are mostly buildings of that style, its really fiunky and you feel like youve stepped back in time to the 50s, although there are loads of lambos hummers, ferraris, bentleys, aston martins, vettes, and some really crazy done up cars. Anyway the super clubs are pretty shit cause the area where you would normally dance is the VIP area and it costs around 6-900USD to hire out an area there. Yeah it sucks, everyone is trying to see or be seen and it seems like no one has fun, pretentious clubs arent my scene. Thank god theres a lot of funky lounges and dive bars around the area. I hung out with a bunch of irish guys who were in miami for a wedding and we went a little crazy. We went to mansion cause head kandi were playing and on the sunday we went to nikkis beach bar which i would definitely recommend.

the plane was meant to leave from melbourne at 10.30am however because of an engine problem we were delayed 1.5 hours so i didnt arrive into LAX until 8.45am. The trip was pretty uneventful, watched a couple of movies and was unable to sleep for the most part, although the times i did fall asleep i would wake up with a startle with my head on a strange mans shoulder. So arrived in LA and caught the public bus into santa monica, which is a whole lot cheaper than taking shuttles or cabs. I had to organise a ticket to miami and the only flight center i could remember was the one on venice so i scooted over there and 450USD lighter had my plane ticket to naples florida. Spent the rest of the day looking around santa monica’s beautiful shops and trying to decide whether i should go out to the airport or head in to the orbit hostel and get a few short hours sleep before heading off at 4am to catch a 6am flight. Orbit won. I caught up with katana, mohammed and steve, managed to have a couple of beers before hitting the hay, LA is just as i remembered it