Thursday 22nd July:(again)

Its odd setting your watch back to yesterday, but here we go again. Los Angeles airport is paranoid after 911. Passport control is taking finger prints and retina prints of some passengers! I kid you not. It take AGES to get through, and its not even busy.

Picked up the only vehicle capable of taking us and our luggage to SanDiego down the coast- a 4WD Jeep! Horrible to drive - spongy and lacking any acceleration - people choose to drive these things? It felt like driving a boat, with a broken tiller, and only one oar - and a leak. Its supposed to be a 4-litre engine - 4 litres of blanchmange!

When we booked the hotel, it was still being built. They assured us it would be ready well before we arrived. Well, it had a broken bathroom light, and the air conditioning didn't work. Eventually, it turned out that the maintenance crew knew about both these problems, and had done nothing about it! In the mean time we where getting very hot unpacking and couldn't even take a shower. They didn't have any other rooms available, so they 'did us a comp'. Eh? 'We'll do you a comp'. Turns out that this is Hotel talk for letting us have the room for free! (A complimentary). They got us two fans and we showered in the dark - compliments of the management..

The hotel bar overlooked the pool, overlooked the Marina and also overlooked SanDiego Sea world. We were informed that we had ring side seats for the firework display that SeaWorld gives every evening. Sure enough, a very impressive fire-work show was presented as the finale to the day at Sea world - and we got it for free.

Friday 23rd July

Set out to San Diego Sea World. This is THE original sea world, with performing killer whales, Dolphins, otters and aquaria. Every thing is entertaining but somehow rather inevitable. Its not Disney but has all the theme park trappings, including massive queues for the few rides that it does have. It is worth it for the performing killer whales and the dolphins though.

Saturday. 24th July

Walked around old San Diego. 'Old' San Diego is called the 'Gaslamp quarter'. Its just the same as anywhere else, except the road lamps are gas lit. No quaint old buildings, pavement cafes or street performers. No mexican guitarits with a sombrero optimistically placed to fill with passing coins. No. Just parking lots, high rises and exhaust fumes. Had a Mall selling Ben and Jerry's ice cream though.

This afternoon, Andrew wants to go on a waverunner, SeaDoo or jet ski, whatever you call them. Andrew's too young to go on his own, so I'm with him and David gets his own. SanDiego Mission bay is a recreational Marina/harbour, bounded by sandy beaches. It is a water sports mecca. Waverunners are running all over. Sale boats, pedaloes, power boats, water-skiers all hack around. There are tight rules here. If you get into trouble in a boat, you raise a red flag or your arm.. You give way to everyone and take things sensible. Well, that's for every one else anyway. When we first set out, David was in front. When he hit the gas, I got a dousing from the jet of water shooting out the back. Right. This is war! These boats are very fast. Although the water was fairly calm, we felt every wake from other boats and some larger ripples. Around us people where getting into trouble. We helped one family of three who were all perched onto one Waverunner - a bit overloaded . They had fallen in, all managed to clamber onboard, then realised that they had lost the emergency cutoutout cord that is attached to the drivers wrist. They couldn't re-start the machine and wanted us to fetch the coastguard. Coastgaurd? What coastguard? I suggested that they could manually hold the cutout on and get back to their landing that way. They seemed to be greatfull for this tip and puttered off very slowly and very damp.

It was Andrews turn and he was intent on outmanoeuvring David, so that we could blast him with our jet spray. David was more manoeuvrable (being on his own) and so the game of cat and mouse was a bit one sided. Out of nowhere a big blue boat pulled up with two uniformed officers on board. They told David to stop, and gave him a dressing down about the rules of the sea. They said that they regularly fish people out of this bay with various broken limbs, and had a fatality a week ago. They said that if we werent English, then David would have got a ticket for Dangerous Driving! I wish we had got that ticket. It would have been great framed on the wall!

Sunday. 25th July

Nipped down to Mission beach and hired some skates. There where so many skaters, skateboarders, cyclists and walkers, that the promenade had a one way system! I didn't have my camera on me so I cant show you a picture of one character. Imagine, an overweight bloke in an uptight, out of sight thong, kneelength black boots, quad skates and a batman mask. Its was quite revolting, but he seemed to be getting some attention. Maybe I could book him for this years presentation evening!?

We go out for an evening meal at Jimmy's. No, not a Scottish themed restaurant, a family diner. The great thing about this place was the waitress. This little girl with an outside head and an ever so 'umble manner, presented herself. 'Hi, I'm Kirsty. I'll be your server tonight' in the most squeaky little voice. We stared in disbelieve and barely controlled a full set of smirks. Every time she came over to the table to get us anything, we said 'thank you.' , and she said 'your welcome'. Thank you - 'your welcome'. Thank you - 'your welcome'. Thank you - 'your welcome'. We could play this game all night. A great souvenir of this place would be a little nodding doll - like the nodding dogs you get in the back of cars. Every time you squeeze it, it squeaks 'Your welcome'. I was wondering if we could come back tomorrow and plant a hidden camera - just to show the folks back home.

Monday 26th July.

Fly Home.

Two hour drive back to the Airport. When we got into the airport, there where queues everywhere. We where glad that we werent directed to one rather long queue in the middle of departures. At every other airport on the surface of the globe, you book in, get boarding passes and offload luggage onto a conveyor belt. Simple enough? No not for the Los Angeles airporters. No, after we booked in, had all our luggage weighed and labelled, then we had to go and queue up AGAIN for a single overused X-ray machine. To our horror, we realised that we had to go and join the huge queue seen on the way in. It had barely moved in all the time we had waited for our check-in. We only had two hours till take off. That queue was longer than two hours.

We joined the queue, then a hassled looking official caught our eye and beconed for us to follow. Anywhere is better than this, about turn - Follow that uniform. Baggage, feet, small children, where blasted aside in our bid to follow the rabbit. Other passengers had also given chase, but we where in the lead. Ducking and diving, we saw it. An x-ray machine with only a very short queue. We broke through and had that wonderfull sense of satisfaction of all queue jumpers, as we realised that we had cut Hours off our wait. A swarm of trolleys and red faced, wide eyed passengers jostled for position behind us. Soon, this queue was as long as the one we left.

It only took about 3/4 of an hour to have our bags put through. Then, a porter had to take them back to where we had come from, to put them on a conveyor belt. On the way, we walked past one other unused x-ray machine, and the original queue, which was now shorter than the queue we had just left! That was just the baggage. We then had to queue AGAIN for the main security area.

Nearly 3 years after September 11th, this is the best system that Los Angeles airport can come up with !? I was amazed that our plane left on time with all passengers. The code for Los Angeles international airport is LAX. I now see where it gets its name from. Its not just lax, its a shambles.

Tuesday 27th July

Back in Blighty.

There are three things that make England so English. Its SO green. Not a pale green, but deep greens that you barely get in other countries.Houses are made of bricks and don't resembled overgrown garden sheds. Roads are not smothered with bill boards and advertising.

Its good to be back.

Richard Gregory.