Hollywood

It was surprisingly easy to get into the US. Everyone we met had told us how strict the regulations are, how annoying it is and how long it takes to get through all of the different controls. The immigration officer did ask a few strange questions but he does that, how we found out later, to watch and read your reaction. It's still a bit weird but a lot better than to be pulled aside and being forced to open and ransack your bag which we thought would be the way they welcome the people who they think aren't criminal.
Once we were through the controls the next problem came up. A rather big problem. "Where now?" was the big question we hadn't really thought about properly. We wanted to try to CouchSurf through America but hadn't successfully contacted a host and we had no internet to check if somebody had responded to our last minute request. We had checked out some hostels but hadn't bothered to write down the address so we had no idea where to go. We wandered around the airport for a while searching for a competent information and found a place with expensive but fast internet. We checked our e-mails and our CouchSurfing profile in only five minutes and to our great surprise and relief had received an answer to our last minute couch request. To guys had replied and said we could stay with them. We were very relieved and followed their directions out of the airport which was a lifesaver for itself...
We had to take a bus and then a Metro, they lived all the way up in North Hollywood, and we needed to find a mobile store to buy an American prepaid card so we stopped at Union Station, the central bus and train station, sent a package with stuff home, had a coffee and organized our contacts from there through the internet and a coin phone, which was exiting because I don't think that I've ever used one of those by my self before. It was getting dark when we finally arrived at North Hollywood station, where an interested and friendly stranger led us to the next T-Mobile store. We had a working cellphone at last which meant that we could contact our hosts directly who picked us up a few minutes later.
Their apartment was quite small and full with all sorts of stuff but very cool and Wade and Sunny, our hosts, welcomed us warmly into their home. We were a bit nervous because it was our first CouchSurfing experience and didn't really know what to do but they were so nice and made us feel very comfortable that we quickly forgot our worries.
We had a nice evening talking about LA and the whole showbiz thing, America and Couchsurfing. After dinner they drove us around the area and showed us places like the Warner Brothers building, the Disney Studios and Universal city before they took us to the Griffith Observatory, near the famous Hollywood sign, from where we could see over most of LA. It was a very clear night and I don't remember having seen anything like that before. LA is a very spread out city and it looks incredible with all the lights, all the way to the ocean, the different areas of the city and the planes soaring above all.

In the middle you see the relatively small downtown area, the ocean is at the far back and the rest is part of the huge LA county

Later that night when we lay in bed all the impressions of the day came back and for the first time we actually had the chance and the leisure to review our first day in America. It had been a great day. Very exhausting for sure and also a bit lucky but all in all very positive and rewarding. I think the biggest mistake I had made imagining California was to think it would be in any way European. It was just different to anything I had experienced before. People you met on the streets were very strange, everyone in his/her own way, but mostly friendly and interested in the young couple wandering around with far too many bags and a Surfboard in the middle of such a big city. Something that Wade had said before turned out to be very true as well: In America and especially in LA, everything is BIG. The roads, the cars, the servings in restaurants etc. It seems to be very important to have something bigger than the others and even if you aren't wealthy you pretend that you are.
The next morning Wade took us to a coffee place where apparently a lot of celebrities go to but we didn't see any :( We spent the day in Hollywood, doing a lot of tourist things like the Walk of Fame, the Kodak- and the Chinese Theater which we hadn't intended to do but it was kind of cool to see all those places you see on TV so often. We also went Downtown where we had lunch but there wasn't much to see except you are really into tall business buildings. In the afternoon we went back to pack our stuff together and Wade drove us to the next Metro station from where we would get to our next host. It was sad to leave these great guys so soon after we met them and we are very thankful that they accommodated us on such short notice with so much warmth but we had already arranged our next stay to which we were looking forward as well.

The staircase to the Oscars...

There was no red carpet for us though

Bamboo

We had another two days on Viti Levu, the main island, before we had to leave. We arrived around noon with the Mana Flyer and I was very glad to stand on ground that wasn't rocking because my hangover had turned out to be worse than I tought. We checked in at Bamboo, the hostel we stayed at before we went to the island and it was great to see that a lot of people who we had met before were still there. We chilled around the hostel, went swimming in jucky and stinging water and played volleyball for the rest of the day. It was a small Kava circle that night but I met a few girls who wanted to get rid of their Wiskey and so I helped them make it go away...
The next day was very similar to the one before except that we started to hang around earlier. It was so warm that it was exhausting to move and the hostel sold 1F$ soda cans which eliminated every reason to leave the property. We tried to organize a trip to a beach that is meant to be the nicest beach in Fiji and in the top ten list of the worlds best beaches but it was quite hard to get there and we gave up after a while. It was even to hot to think hard!
On our last day, we flew out at night, we decided that we had to do something so we took the bus into town with a cool German dude. We walked around the markets and the main street before we had lunch where we met another German traveller. We stayed in town til 3pm and took the bus back where we hung out a bit more. It was really such a good time there and I enjoyed it a lot, even though beach and water weren't nice at all. I played a last match of Volleyball before we had to start packing and left at about 7pm with the free airport shuttle. It was sad to say goodbye to that loveley place and all the cool people we had met during our stay there but also exiting to travel on to America.

Day 6

Our last day. We found another quiet spot on the other side of the island because sunset beach got a bit crowded towards the end of the week. It wasn't quite legal to be there because it was were the 5 star resort was going to be but no one cared that we were there. We had found a Mango and a very nice Fijian family who invited me for lunch had given me a cooked bread fruit so we feasted under a palm tree on a lonely beach. It was one of the best days on the island and definitely a great way to say goodbye.

We walked on top of the highest hill on the island. This is the view on to the southern lagoon.

Sunset at sunset beach, when the native animals come out to chill...

Footprints of a mermaid...

Model action!

The staff put on a fire dancing show the night we left.

We actually had something like a party going on the last night which was a bit of a change after all the chilled out Kava sessions we used to have in the evenings. It was great fun and the alcohol made me feel awake which was very different to the grogged feeling you get from being on Kava.

I felt sick the day we left but I think that I have to blame the drinks from the night before, rather than the fact that we were leaving or bad karma. We woke up very early (I always wake up early when I'm hungover, which is one of my rather useless habits) and even had to wait for the breakfast because the staff was still sleeping (hungover). We spent the rest of the afternoon packing and waiting for the ferry that arrived at 11 o'clock Fiji time and left, after a farewell song and lots of hugs and handshakes, for the main land.

Our Fijian island adventure was already over but it was so nice, that I can't see a way that I wont come back in the future.

Day 5

Day 5 was another of those days where we didn't want to move away from the lagoon. It was just too easy to lie down in one of the beach chairs and go to sleep or get caught in the inscrutable debts of Terry Pratchett's wonderful Discworld series. In the evening we decided that we should do something and went for a walk. We made the mistake and walked through a little forest to get to a lookout point but there were so many mosquitoes in the shelter of the trees that we had to jog the way back. We went to sunset beach instead and took a few pictures for Bekki's model portfolio.

The view from the lookout. It was hard to enjoy the scenery while being bitten by 20 mosquitoes at once.

I think that this could be out of a Billabong fashion ad...

All the guys dressed up as girls that night and we had to dance along the dining tables and a jury decided on who's performance was the best.

We saw this villager walk past with this shark behind him. It's crazy how their bodies feel and how strong and heavy they are...

It's still alive...

Day 4

We decided to have a quiet day at the lagoon, read our books and chill. Everyone who knows me though knows that I cant sit still for long and so I ended up doing all sorts of stuff. We met two French guys who played water rugby with me and a staff member which was incredibly exhausting but a lot of fun. We stayed in front of our hostel though and didn't even bother to go to sunset beach. In the afternoon the French guys asked me if I wanted to go fishing with them. I didn't really want to go at first but after a while Bekki and I decided to join them because it did sound like fun. We went on a boat with two locals and drove to another island that was uninhabited and looked beautiful in the setting sun. We roamed the reefs around it and I really caught a fish. It was the first time ever for me to catch something with a rod and it was kind of exciting.
It was cool when the guy, Moses, who took us on his boat called out "striking time" and in that very moment two fish took the bait.
We drove back when it started to get dark, had dinner and then went to Moses place to try the fish. It was strange to see that fish, that we had just pulled out of the ocean, on a plate but it didn't taste too bad.

Some local kids. They always came down to the beach and would play with anything they found. They were really cute and loved if you came up to them and threw them around or chased them.

Me and my new favorite animal.

Clement and Flavier

Joe and our first catch

Bekki fighting the biggest fish of the day

Day 3

After a very slow and lazy second day we planned to walk around the island to get some physical exercise. It turned out to be a better training than we thought because it was such a hot day. We left after lunch (a big mistake but I really didn't want to miss it) and were accompanied by two German guys who we met and who also came from Australia. We didn't make it all around the island because we got caught by the beauty of sunset beach again but it was a fun trip. We stopped every now and then for a swim  or a snorkel and to refresh ourselves and had a great day.

Another one of those beautiful beaches of Mana.

This dog followed us for most of the time. There are many semi wild dogs on Mana but they are so much nicer than the wild dogs from Indonesia.

The only place we found that you could jump off from. The water there is about 3m deep and so clear that you can see right to the bottom and sometimes you can see really big fish swimming past along the rocks.

I couldn't be bothered to rent snorkeling gear every day so I made myself a snorkel out of a piece of bamboo. Bekki brought those goggles and it worked out really well, even though I had to hold my nose together with my fingers.

Day 2

We stayed at the main beach in the morning for two reasons: There wasn't a lot time between breakfast and lunch and I didn't want to miss either and there was a little breeze constantly blowing from the south which cooled our bodies down a little bit. Usually we brought our books down and read for a while then swum and then read a bit more. The water in the lagoon was full of seaweed though and it wasn't too nice to swim in the shallow areas but it cleared up when you got into deeper water and there it was as nice as everywhere.
We went to sunset beach after lunch because the water over there was a lot cleaner and there were hardly any people going there. The walk took about 15 minutes through a little forest and past a few Papaya and Coco palms.

This is what we saw, as we stepped out of the bushes on to the beach. I had to stop for a while to handle what I was seeing. We had only seen the beach in the evening when it was getting dark but this was so much more than I had expected. Cristal clear water, blue sky and white beach... I literally jumped out of my clothes and ran into the water before I took this picture because I couldn't wait even a second to get in there.

This is where I want to be. Here, and nowhere else.

What a dream...