LA Fashion District

ah... Venice...
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Today was to be our shopping day at the Los Angeles Downtown fashion district (this time with no LA Marathon). At 4:30We had breakky once again at Coco's. Joe and I shared a steak and egg buritto with a side of buttermilk pancakes (only in the US!!). We then braved the weekday traffic and made our way towards Downtown. Once again the good old NavMan took us via the freak-in LA freeway, and our three-man driving team did just fine. I keep looking out the window for my rearview mirror and am trying to open the door rather than changing the gears. There is something not natural about sitting on the right hand side of the car. Also, these nutty Californians like to turn on red signals - not sure what that is about - but I ain't doing it!!

We found a carpark in Downtown and started our wandering around. It was just like wandering through the Victoria Markets in Melbourne, but think 100 times as big. Lots of shoes, jewellery, handbags and clothing (not in my size). Also lots and lots of knock-off big-name bags. I even found an exact replica of my most recent Vuitton bag - not sure how much it was - was too afraid to know how much cheaper I could have got it!! We spent about 3-4 hours here just wandering around. Lost Joe at one point and it got really cold from a wind that picked up. I ended up buying a lilac polar fleece zip up jacket with a hood which eventually warmed me up. Paula picked up one or two things and I also bought a couple of nice costume jewellery pieces and a really nice handbag. At one point we were busting to go to the loo and found a sign pointing to some restrooms - but when we got there found that we had to pay 25c to use them. The ladies wasn't too bad, a little mexican lady went in and cleaned out the stalls first for us. Joe on the other hand said the mens toilet nearly made him sick and refused to drink anything else for the rest of the day we were there for fear of having to return to use them again.

Freaky freeway drivers...

At 4:30 we all agreed that we had had enough shopping and decided to take a drive to Venice Beach to see what the view was like from there. The trip wasn't too bad, with only a quick trip on the freeway. I just love it when you get on the freeway and the Navman says keep left, then you have to try and manouvre four or five lanes of traffic to exit right in 2km. Might not seem so bad - but I tell you, these guys are just crazy when they drive!!!

We took a brief stroll on the path at the beach - not much to see and none of the "freaks" that we had been told to watch out for. Parking was running out at 6pm, so we decided to head back to the hotel. There is something about standing up shopping for four hours that makes you tired. It started to rain on the way back, just when the sun was setting which made driving just dandy! We decided it was time to eat again and stopped at a Mexican place called Frida's. Our meals were fantastic and we left a very large tip. No one is going to say that us Aussies are bad tippers!!!

So it was an early night home for us with Joe still trying to get the internet tunnel working so we can make internet phone calls home to friends and family. The internet link here in LA is pathetic, so I am amazed I can even get these entries posted. I have started writing them at night time and posting them in the morning as this seems to be the best time to get a connection. Until my next entry....