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.

It’s a long weekend here, and what long weekend would be complete without drinking. I found this all natural lime Margarita pre-mix at the supermarket today. Now before you say “Whoa Nelly, isn’t lime like your Kryptonite?!”, yes it’s true I’m very allergic to lime, however the bottle clearly states “Contains 0% Fruit Juice”—gotta love those all natural ingredients, lol.

Though, it appears I’m also allergic to whatever chemical shit they put in there to make it taste like lime. Nevertheless, I have found the solution, the obvious solution some might say. Simply dilute your mixer with more alcohol, lol! The drink is now 10 times better, or is that 10 times stronger?! I dunno, but it’s all good anyhow, lol

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you my recall an earlier post about looking out at the apartments across the courtyard while sitting at the dining room table. In the ground floor apartment there was this girl, not unattractive I might add, that was always on her computer…

Well I’m about 90% sure she was looking at porn tonight, either that or she likes to sit naked in front of her computer with one hand between her legs while working on her thesis? or maybe it’s really hot in their apartment, which is highly possible since it’s like 4 million degrees here, lol. Needless to say, I quickly finished my dinner and let her do her thing in privacy.

Well it’s been a while since I’ve updated this, and I’ve been up to all kinds of stuff in the interim. There’s a whole stack of photos for this post, so be sure to check out the photos link at the bottom of this entry.

Last week I headed downtown and checked out L.A.’s historic buildings and some of the other sights. At the end of the Red Subway Line is Union Station, built in 1939 it is an art-deco style complex considered by many to be the last vestige of rail’s golden-era in the United States. It really is just like walking through a time-portal back to the 1930′s and you semi-expect to see steam trains to come chugging into the station, just like the ones in the Harry Potter movies.

Also in the same area I checked out the Los Angeles City Hall, which is said to have starred in more movies and television series than most Hollywood actors, including Superman and Hill Street Blues. Just down the road is the Los Angeles Times building, the Los Angeles Supreme Court and Walt Disney Concert Hall. I was intending to visit MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) however it was closed till after 4th of July weekend, so that’ll be coming in another instalment. I also visited Chinatown; one stop south of Union Station on the Yellow line. It was quite disappointing really, nothing like the one in San Francisco, the best part of was the entrance.

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At the local supermarket… 1 litre bottle of Smirnoff $12, 1 litre bottle of Bacardi $16… and the cheapest rubbish hair gel/wax? 22 bucks!! Hmmm, maybe I should just give the Bacardi to everyone I meet, then it won’t matter what my hair looks like… lol.

Turns out all alcohol is duty free here. America—an alcoholic-with-bad-hair’s wet dream.