Trip to Los Angeles, California

    

Finally, I am flying out to the US again and get to go to all my favorite spots in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco and some of the National Parks.

Anyhow, this entry is really just about the trip from Frankfurt to LA as it was rather interesting. We had left Ravensburg on the 12th of May at 3:30am and drove down to Frankfurt. There we were supposed to have our flight at 10:50 so we had arranged for airport parking ahead of time, which is quite convenient.

Anyhow, Lori who is a colleague from Romania had quite a bit of trouble at the check in already. First they wanted to know why he was traveling to the US, I was there of course and told them that we are going to a wedding and are doing some work, and that he worked for me. Right away they asked about my company and sure enough they wanted to see a business card. Quite smart I thought, because if we are traveling on business, we would certainly have one with us.

Anyhow, it was more annyoing when they started arguing about how he came to Germany. When he answered that he had come by bus, they asked for the bus ticket, which we naturally didn't have.... Ouch... After a long explanation that this had been some private bus service and the receipt had supposed remained in Romania with Stefan, they were satisfied.

Then came a bigger issue, which was the fact that Lori only had a temporary passport. I really didn't understand this part, because Bucharest had aready approved it. Oh well, sure enough she was running after her manager to figure out how to handle this case. After a 10min wait we finally were told that we would be ok :)

We had enough time to grab some McDOnald's breakfast and then board the plane.

We were flying Delta Airlines and this time a quite old airplane. I was surprised that Gin & Tonics now actually cost money. Interesting, I thought, because you can also get drunk with Coronas which are free :)

So here is my travel tip to all Cross-Atlantic Delta travelers: Don't drink Cocktails - Beers and Wine are free!

With a little buzz and just readyfor the next flight leg, we landed in Detroit with a 15-20min delay. Unfortunately, the 1hr 15min was now enough for the stop over because there were so many travelers and things just take a while. I didn't think that the border patrol was very strict, yes, we did have to take off our shoes, and yes, I did get unlucky, because out of all the people I saw at the security check I was the only one who was picked for the body scan. Oh well, I hope that scan is safe :)

After they also pulled out Axel to check his luggage, we certainly had no chance to make our connecting flight. This was actually a pain, because we had been on the road for almost 20 hours by now and now that our flight got delayed, we would only leave Boston at 9:50pm and get into LA at 11:45 because all other flights had been booked out.

We spent the remainder of the Detroit stop-over at Fuddruckers, eating too many of those nice onion rings.

Finally, the flight to LA was more convenient and the airplane a bit more modern. We got into LA on time now and everything seemed good, except that Axel's luggage was missing. He was getting nervous of course, but then they had probably shipped his bag with a previous flight, so we could find it after we had talked to the luggage service guys.

Anyhow, I'll report more in the next days...

USA 2010 - overview

1. May 12, 2010 Trip to Los Angeles (Los Angeles)
2. May 13, 2010 Getting around in Los Angeles (Los Angeles)  ( 4)
3. May 14, 2010 Best things to see in Los Angeles (Los Angeles)  ( 15)
4. May 15, 2010 What to see in Los Angeles (Los Angeles)  ( 26)
5. May 17, 2010 Visiting Las Vegas (Las Vegas)  ( 94)
6. May 21, 2010 Our Bryce Canyon trip (Bryce Canyon)  ( 96)
7. May 21, 2010 Visiting the Coral Pink and Red Sand Dunes (Kanab)  ( 16)
8. May 22, 2010 Trip to the Antelope Canyon (Page)  ( 127)
9. May 22, 2010 Our Lake Powell trip (Page)  ( 19)
10. May 23, 2010 Visiting the Grand Canyon (Grand Canyon Village)  ( 65)
11. May 24, 2010 Shopping in Barstow (Barstow)
12. May 25, 2010 Short visit in San Francisco (San Francisco)
13. May 27, 2010 What to do in San Francisco (San Francisco)
14. May 27, 2010 Roadtrip on Pacific Number 1 (Pismo Beach)

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