Big city - huge amount of traffic!

We left New Zealand and it was so sad! We'll miss.. well everything! But no time to cry.. gotta move on and so here's what we did in LA:

I know.. another stop in LA and I thought it'll be really boring.. I don't really like the city and so it was perfect that we had met Nick (remember, he gave Dani and us a ride to Christchurch..) and so we met up with him and spent pretty much the whole 3 days with him. We arrived on the 16th and that night Nich was invited to go out for dinner with his son Dominik and his track team. Dominik is studying in the States right now and they had this huge race the following day which was the reason for Nick to come to LA. So we went with him, got to know Dominik and his teammates and had a great evening!

The other exciting coincidence that happened during these few days was that Miri met her sister Rebekka who happened to be on a field trip with her organization in LA the same days we stayed there! How amazing is that?!? So of course we had to figure something out for Miri to see her sister and this place happened to be Hollywood Boulevard. You know.. the one with all the stars on the sidewalk and the chinese theatre with the foot- and handprints of famous people in the cement pavement.. well anyway.. I finally got to know Rebekka but we only got to see her for about one hour and then she had to go back on the bus and take off for the next place on their busy schedule.. butshe's really nice and I think it was quite nice for Miri to see her again after.. 8 months! Although I have to say that it looked like they were meeting like any other day. I was really kind of confused but Miri told me afterwards that it just hadn't felt like they hadn't seen each other for that long. And she's really looking forward to seeing her again in a month. So I guess that's okay ;-)

Miri and Rebekka

Rebekka and ME!!!

Well Miri, Nick and me still had some time before Dominiks race which was that night and so we walked a little bit around the Boulevard, drank some coffee and took some pictures of.. well everything there is to see;-) and then we started to drive to Mount SAC. That's the place where the race was at. It's about 35 miles away from the citycenter but it took us almost 2 hours to get there! Can you believe that? It was the same like the night before (sorry.. I forgot to tell you..)! It was aweful! But we got there in the end and watched the race (there were actually a lot of races going to that day). It was really good and Dominik was amazingly fast! In the end Nick had to say goodbye to Dominik again because he left the next day to go back to his university..


Because Nick had this rental car we took it the next day to explore a little bit more of the area. We went to the Observatory on Mount Hollywood, looked around the displays of the planetarium and took a walk to one of the little hills around.. well it was actually bigger than we thought it was and it just seemed to take for ever to get up there! (what the hell is wrong with us?? As soon as Miri and I get out of New Zealand and are back to the States we are just not used to walking anymore..ahhhhh!!!!)

Miri and me on top of the hill we climbed on ;-)

The city is so smoggy!!

The white building is the Observatory/Planetarium/Outlook

In the end of the day we spent some time at Santa Monica and had dinner at a really nice mexican restaurant there to celebrate out last night together in LA..
And at 10 something the next day Miri and I went to the airport to go to.. BUENOS AIRES!!!