Quite honestly, after the time I had in the U.S, journeying to the airport to leave was not high on the 'Charlotte-would-love-to-experience' list. In fact other passengers on the bus to L.A periodically looked worriedly over at me and whispered to each other about whether the sobbing girl at the back needed help.
This state of upset wasn't helped by the many MANY hours waiting around I had to do.
Over 15 hours on a bus got me into L.A at 12:45am while my flight wasn't until 11:50pm later that night. Walking through downtown L.A at one in the morning is not recommended unless you have a penchant for violence and crime so I curled up on the relative safety of the bus station bench and, along with 6 or 7 hobos, tired to get some sleep.
Very uncomfortable. Quite cold. Worried about bags being stolen. Stared at by a 7-foot black man with neck tattoos and his hand down his trousers. Again, all things NOT featured on the 'Charlotte-would-love-to-experience' list, yet still things I had to deal with.
So at first light (around 6:30am) I got the hell out of there. I made the 40 minute walk from the Greyhound station to Union station so I could wait there for 6 hours before getting the shuttle to the airport.
*For those of you asking "why didn't you explore a bit instead of waiting around?" I answer "would you want to spend money going round a city, which you've already seen and explored 3 times, with a 17kg bag on your back?"*
In fairness the walk to Union station wasn't too bad; the sunrise colours really highlighted the smog and pollution that hangs over the city and the sun's rays picked up all the dirt, litter and grime on the pavement. (In case you didn't get that- Los Angeles is filthy).
At Union station I managed to slip unnoticed into the V.I.P section to wait in their armchairs so I was bored, but at least comfortable. After that it was 4 hours wait at the airport before I could even check-in, then 6 more hours until I was actually on the plane.
The good news was that all that waiting but hardly any sleeping (3 hours sleep in 40 hours) meant as soon as I got on the plane it was into my jim-jams and asleep in seconds. Except for waking up long enough to laugh my arse off at The Lego Movie, I slept almost the entire 15 hour flight so you would've thought upon landing I'd feel refreshed. But it's hard to feel fresh when it's been 55 hours since your last shower or even proper change of clothing so the one thing on my mind was "get to couchsurfing host to take a shower". Well that and "oh look, Australia has WHSmiths."
First couchsurf host turned out to be a douche. A very handsy douche. Whose response when discovering I'm in a relationship was "but the U.S is so far away and you should enjoy yourself" and who told me I was welcome to share his bed with him if the couch was too uncomfortable. Needless to say I left early.
Luckily my next host let me arrive a day early and more than made up for my first crummy day. There was a German girl couchsurfing there too and my first night our host made us dinner and supplied some excellent wine. Fun times.
Ah, now comes the job hunting, says me the next day. And house hunting simultaneously. Both soul-crushing tasks that mashed together in a joyous lump of despair. Actually no, I exaggerate. But it is pretty stressful, and several times a day I would return to my email inbox to check for any replies, consequentially giving myself a haircut as I pulled out great clumps of it in frustration.\My best option was to find a hostel set-up like San Francisco- working for accommodation and being paid cash for any extra hours I worked.
Alas twas not to be, all the hostels I contacted wanted me to work just for accommodation, no extra cash in sight. The only one that did offer me extra hours was grim and I did not want to live there for 5 months (City Resort Hostel, just to name and shame).
So, lo and behold, here I am having found a great hostel (Jolly Swagman Backpackers) whose manager liked this 'ere blog enough to let me write short daily articles for their website (http://www.jollyswagman.com.au/swagman-blog/- my articles haven't started going up yet though).
Hoorah, says I, as it means I am doing something I love on a regular basis and am not having to pay for accommodation.
The job-hunting, however, goes on and because Sydney has so many travelers there aren't really enough jobs to go around. But I persevere, someone has to give me a job at some point and actually I kind of hope it doesn't come until the footy is over.
