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6:00am. Well, after so many months of prep, the Big Day is finally here to go on our long-overdue trip to Australia!! Very excited to see Jessica and Alex and meet Alex’s parents. It has been way too many months since we last saw Jessica and Alex – which was at Andy and Amy’s wedding on September 22, 2018! It seems so long ago and the pandemic has changed so many things since then.
We booked our flights in February 2022 – and, yes, of course, our flights have changed a few times because the airlines keep canceling flights and reshuffling things around (both American Airlines for our LA flight and Qantas for our Australia flight). For the first leg of our trip, we are on American Airlines, direct to Los Angeles. Then, with Qantas, we were supposed to land in Sydney and fly from there to Hobart, but now we are landing in Melbourne to catch a flight to Hobart.
9:00am. What an easy day to go to the airport. Our driver was here as planned, and we were on our way to the airport. Hard to believe but we arrived at JFK in less than 25 minutes. I am sure we beat all the records for the fastest ride from downtown Manhattan to the airport.
We noticed that the airport was very quiet with very few people. Saturdays are usually quiet days but it was really, really dead quiet. No complaints from us.
Having TSA Pre and business class tickets made our check-in and security checks very quick. Wish it could always be like that… We then went to the American Airlines lounge which was rather quiet on this Saturday morning. We found a table and had some fruit, water, and coffee. Quite a nice breakfast buffet with some light fare and drinks. There is no doubt that traveling business makes a difference. Like Jim said, “I’ll never fly coach again!”
We boarded on time and the business section was quite nice with seats that go completely flat and a rather large screen to watch movies, shows, etc. I was even able to catch part of the quarter final soccer match between France and England. France won! But lots of complaints about the referee not being fair and favorable to the French over the English.
Jim plays with his seat controls… 🙂
On the plane, we had a nice lunch served with a good Cabernet Sauvignon. We both took a nap after eating. The rest of the time was spent watching a dumb movie – Jurassic Park Dominion… really the worst movie I’ve seen in a long time! Luckily, I was able to watch the France-England game.
Overall, it was a very easy flight. We arrived slightly ahead of the official time and after picking up my big suitcase (filled with gifts), we called Uber and got to the Jamaica Bay Inn in Marina Del Rey. Of course, traffic was, well, LA-messy traffic. Nothing has changed on that front. I definitely couldn’t live in LA anymore as I have no patience with traffic.
The hotel was OK and the people were nice, but the décor needs significant renovation.
After a quick break we decided to go explore the area since it’s been a while since visiting Los Angeles.
We found the canals to be much nicer than we expected. Lots of pretty houses with well-manicured yards. Must cost a fortune to buy a house in the area. The sun was disappearing on us very quickly, but we were able to take some photos.
The Venice Canals
Although the weather was not your typical California sunny weather – a bit chilly with lots of clouds – we continued our walk toward Venice Beach. The night was still too young for the party animals to be out on Venice Beach. The area still looks the same from when we lived in California except with quite a few homeless camps – these didn’t exist when we lived in LA.
Venice Beach
We wanted to grab an early dinner and I remember a restaurant I used to go to with friends called the Rose Venice (in business for since 1979). We made a reservation on OpenTable and we were there right on time for our 6:00pm reservation.
However, the restaurant was completely changed from the “old days” and instead of a relax American/Italian café it was a fancier place with Asian fusion dishes.
The waiter was super pushy and tried to sell us their truffle five course dinners for $100 + $77 for 5 wines, supposedly the best wines ever. In any case, all we wanted was something light. But it is one of these restaurants that’s trying hard to be original with all kinds of weird stuff that makes it difficult to find a dish.
I opted for meatless cheese pasta and Jim had a fish cassoulet. Although it was tasty, they messed up serving us by not bringing our dishes at the same time. The waiter tried to find an excuse… thinking we were dummies. Needless to say, we didn’t give the waiter a good tip… he should change jobs and become an insurance or used car salesman instead.
Since it was too dark and a bit sketchy to walk back to the hotel, we called an Uber (our first ride in a Tesla) and finished the evening quietly in our hotel room. We hope that our trip continues to be as smooth as it has been so far.
TOTAL NUMBER OF MILES FLOWN = 2,475 miles (3,983 km)
TOTAL NUMBER OF MILES WALKED = 4.15 miles (6.7 km)
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