we're here, we're checked in, we've registered...

we've taken the goody bags back to the room and dismantled them, and.. well... we're pleasantly surprised...

I quite like the bag - don't get me wrong, I won't be using it this week, but that's because I just wouldn't want to have the same thing as everyone else.. but I can see us using it on the rest of the trip.. although we won't be using both - we try to steer clear of "team guido" activity (tv reference for anyone who watches amazing race).


I was also impressed with the notebook - I don't know if it's a new thing, but the evaluation forms in the book are a great idea

I kind of expected a highlighter or something though, but apart from that... pretty impressed so far - let's hope the week goes well...

we've spent a little time out and about and also a little time in the room recovering from the flight...

one thing so far.. gotta love the television here... the shows might be rubbish, but at least the people on them are worth watching (even if they're amateurs). With a much smaller population to work with, anyone on Australian televsion is kind of average but the amateurs are rubbish... so it's a nice change of pace to see someone who's job isn't to be on television but they're still entertaining and don't appear to expect to have celebrity status just for appearing in a show where they rebuild a house or something!

oh... and 4 or 5 different sport channels isn't hurting the cause either! live basketball.. what a luxury!

I've been to the US before, so some things are quite familiar, and the US currency is one of those things. I quite like the feel of the currency here, and of course having it all green is why all the tv shows and cartoons I grew up on just had to print green paper and it would suddenly be the same thing to us. A couple of things though:

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Well... we made it. After something like 36 hours in transit, we finally arrived at our hotel at around 11pm last night. Our travel required us to take 3 flights to get there from Sydney, so we got quite used to taking everything out of our pockets, removing the laptop from it's case and getting screened for everything from explosives to drugs to illegally imported fruit and vegetables! After arriving in LA and going through customs - which is now a case of getting fingerprinted and having a mugshot taken as well as getting the passport stamped - I guess the only reason I didn't get asked to stand in a lineup is that they couldn't find any other poor saps that looked anything like me - although, after 13 hours on a flight who could tell anymore!

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