Uncle Travelling Matt .com — the personal site of Matt Gifford

Actually it turns out, after the checking the weather on the Internet for July 13th… it was 40°C (104°F) with 54% humidity here yesterday!! I’m sure it was well over 50+°C in the apartment!! No wonder I thought I was gonna die, lol, they’re having one of the hottest summer’s on record over here and August is usually the worst month, thank goodness I’m not staying around for that!

Just a quick note to let everyone know my US Phone number has been disconnected. Over here when your prepay balance hits less than $0.50 they disconnect your phone number, so you can’t send or receive txt’s and calls; the only thing that work’s is 911 (I think).

You turn on the cold tap full bore, let it run for a couple of minutes, then put your hands under the water and promptly have to remove them, cos’ the water’s so freakin’ hot it’s burning your fingers!! Living in an oven would be cooler—honest to god, this is insane!!

Really busy here at the moment, bit of a mission to fit in all the things I still want to see in LA around work, but I’m managing. In this post I’ve got the previously mentioned Long Beach Aquarium update, pictures from South Central, and stuff on today’s trip to the Getty Center. But first, check out the L.A. Cityscape Panoramic Montage I made from photos taken at the Getty Center, by clicking the image to the right—it’s bitchin’. I’ve marked in all the relevant locations mentioned in previous posts; btw, the actual Getty Center gardens are off to the right of the picture

So on Tuesday I was meant to go to the Aquarium of the Pacific, however due to me being extremely hungover that got deferred to Wednesday. It’s a bit of a hike down to Long Beach, as you can see in the panorama above, it’s freakin’ miles away. This time I took a few pictures of the trip including the Los Angeles Industrial Area (south of Pico/Grand), South Central, Compton and Anaheim. Anaheim is where Disneyland is, however arriving at Disneyland via the freeway you don’t actually see the real Anaheim—I have to wonder how many people that actually live in Anaheim can afford to go to Disneyland?

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Fun things to do? Hop on the bus with a psychopathic bus driver! however there isn’t a sign that says the particular bus is carrying one, you only find out after you get on!!

So I was in Westwood, which if you don’t know is the student village/township of UCLA (a bit like Parnell—lots of café’s, the UCLA art museum and cool clothing stores), heading back from the beach. I get on the bus to valley, and it’s packed, standing room only. Now the trip to the valley can vary between 45 minutes to 2 hours depending on traffic, which to way too long to be standing. The next bus was only 25 minutes away and there was a clothing store I’d seen in Westwood that looked kinda cool, so I thought I’d check that out and then it’ll be time for the next bus, all good.

However, after 15 minutes in the store I exit onto Westwood Blvd to see a red 761 whizz past, to which my prompt reply was “shit!”, and starting running like a maniac up the road so fast you’d expect to hear Harrison Ford say “Prepare to make the jump to Hyperspace!”. Fortunately there where a couple of people waiting at the stop that held up the bus just long enough for me to get there. Little did I know, but this was in fact a Psycho Bus.

It became quickly apparent when he starting beeping his horn and yelling at almost every other driver. I had my noise isolating headphones on, so no problem. At one point he got so close to the car in front, I thought he was going to push him outa the way with the bus! However, then he turns off the route, completely missing two stops and we go off in a totally different direction. I thought this was kinda odd, but my iPod was on Shuffle and had dialled up some pretty mellow tunes, so whatever, all good again. After we went though the tunnel in hills and he starting driving rather quick around windy roads I started to worry a little, like “where the fuck are we?!” I hope this guy hasn’t gone crazy and is going to drive us over a cliff or something—hey this is America, that kinda shit happens here!

However, eventually we ended up on Sepulveda, and then my stop on Van Nuys, thanks goodness. Funny thing was, as I was walking home from the bus stop, I saw the other 761 that left 30min earlier go past. So crazy or not, the guy certainly got me home faster, lol.

Been flat out with work today, however the guy in the apartment down stairs smokes and the smoke often comes in the window here. This afternoon it was starting to make me feel sick, so I went out for a walk. On the way back, I was waiting to cross street to the apartment and was thinking “damn the traffic here is nuts, I’m so going to get my sorry arse run-over”. Half way across the street I look down and what do I see?

Got another trip update post coming, however I haven’t got time to write it and Photoshop photos now. So that’ll be online over the weekend, after I’ve got my work stuff done.