Ducks vs. Coyotes & Downtown LA

Today we spent our first complete day in Los Angeles and it didn’t go without any problems. Right after we started from our parking lot the maintenance required light went on, so we called Alamo to ask for advice. The conclusion was that we should drive to their location at the Long Beach airport so that we can get a new car. So far so good but we had to make a 40 miles detour from our planned route and it cost us almost 2 hours. But the nice part was that we got a Jeep Grand Cherokee in change which is actually really cool and it’s pretty much bigger than the Camry.. And the best part of the whole chapter is that at the LAX rental station the officer wanted us to upgrade to a SUV but it’d have cost almost $300 and now we got it for no extra price! :)

After the little coincidence we headed towards downtown LA. The distances here are quite big and from our Long Beach hotel it’s a over 40 mile drive to downtown. We just drove there for a while and found a really awesome location at a small hill where the view at the LA skyline was spectacular. After a Taco Bell lunch we continued to Anaheim. After the one-hour drive we went to a big shopping mall to spend some time before the game. At a sunglass store we met a really friendly salesman who wanted to discus with us a lot. We talked about hockey and Finland since he was a big Kings fan by himself. He also gave us some hints for Las Vegas.. In the evening it was hockey time! The game was truly a really good hockey game and the Ducks won 6-2. The only bad thing was that the Honda Center wasn’t even close to being sold out, instead it was quite empty and the atmosphere wasn’t very intensive. But we went to watch good hockey and we got it :)

I'll upload some photos in the near future when we hopefully have a faster internet connection. It's kind of impossible to upload them here due to the very poor connection..

Time to continue to LA

Today it was time to leave NYC and move on to LA. One week is certainly not enough for seeing everything you'd wanna see in New York although we did see a lot of the attractions and don't feel like we would have missed something really important. One thing we all agreed was that next time we'll come during summer. The city was beautiful during winter time too, but for example the Central Park during summer is something I wanna see in the future! So this wasn't the last time in NYC for sure.. Right after today’s breakfast we ordered a cab to pick up us at the hotel to drive us to JFK for the flight to LA International Airport. We thought we’d get a free lunch or at least a snack on the plane but nothing! All you could eat was some light snacks which cost a lot, too much in our minds :) So we were starving when we got to LA and right after getting our rental car we headed to eat at Jack in the Box’s. Getting no food at the plane was not the only negative aspect about American Airlines. At first we were forced to pay $25 each for the bags since they apparently weren't included in the tickets. I'd be happy to say I don't have to fly on AA again but we're flying to Shanghai with AA. So let's give the another shot to give a better impression..

At Alamo’s the clerk strongly was in the opinion that we wouldn’t manage to load our bags into the Chevy Impala or a similar vehicle and wanted us to upgrade to a SUV. Otherwise we’d taken that but the price was way too high for us and he wasn’t in a negotiation mood and we were pretty sure that we’ll get the luggage into the trunk.. And we were right :) It was quite a puzzle and the Impala wasn’t big enough but the trunk of a Toyota Camry was just the right size! The car has not only a big trunk but it’s big in every way and we’re very pleased with it.

We had some concerns about the traffic here but the way from LAX to Days Inn at Long Beach went well, despite the problems in finding the hotel but finally we managed in that too.. In the evening we went for a drive around the suburbs here to take a first look at LA. Have to say that I just don’t get it how it’s possible to have that many fast food restaurants like it is here. There’s on every corner at least a couple of them.. But now it’s time to get some sleep and tomorrow it’s NHL time as we’re going to watch Ducks vs. Coyotes at the Honda Center in Anaheim!