From snow and ice to paradise

Monday, February 3

When I last blogged in September, I had just come back from a month in Morocco, Israel and Jordan. Christmas has since come and gone, I spent a week in Palm Springs with friends Karen and Allen, and my little timeline yard stick (my grandson) is now 15 months old! That’s him with his parents on the canal in Ottawa. The weather hasn’t been too, too bad this winter, but it’s so nice to be able to get away.

Today I’m sitting on a lounge overlooking the infinity pool and the turquoise blue South Pacific Ocean with waves breaking on the reef a few hundred yards out creating a demarcation between the calm waters in our bay and the rougher waters beyond. But I’ve jumped ahead haven’t I? I haven’t talked about the journey to get here or the fun day in Los Angeles.

So, I’ll backup.

My travel buddy Nanci and I left snowy Ottawa on Saturday afternoon bound for a hopefully sunny Los Angeles. Our eventual destination is Tahiti but we purposely built in an extra travel day just in case we ran into weather related delays and break up the long flights. (When I say things like that I feel old). We arrived at the Crown Plaza Airport on schedule after an uneventful travel day (always the best kind of travel days) and had a good night’s sleep.

Our flight for Tahiti left on Sunday evening at 11 pm, so on Sunday morning we decided that we’d go on a city tour instead of sitting around the hotel putting in time. I have to admit that I resisted this, given the potential for terrible freeway hang ups in LA and because I’ve already spent lots of time in this city, but Nanci prevailed and so I joined her in this adventure.

We had an “interesting” jokester of a tour guide. He told bad jokes all day long and so when we were tipping him at the end Nanci gave him a tip and told him it was to get a new joke book. He took it really well. Throughout the day people asked questions and his answers were less than helpful. Nanci asked a question at one point and he actually told her to look it up in Google! When someone asked who lived in a house that Kirk Douglas used to own, he said, “someone rich” and carried on with his rehearsed script.

We started the tour with Venice and Santa Monica beaches where we had time to wander around each of them. They have quite different character and Venice Beach hasn’t gotten any less weird than the first time I saw it a million years ago, and still would vie for the most tacky beach in the world I’m sure. But it was interesting nonetheless. And with my new interest in resistance training I took some pics of the original Gold’s Gym and muscle beach activities to send to my personal trainer.

The most interesting part of Santa Monica Beach Pier for me has always been that it’s the terminus of the famous Route 66. During my former partnered days, we travelled a lot of the route on our Honda Gold Wing. And this year, brother Rae with sister Lynn and brother-in-law Wally hit some of the route as well.

Next we went up and down some of the streets of Beverly Hills to see the Beverly Hills Hotel and homes of various former and current stars. The guide pointed out that Ellen Degeneris has drought resistance plants in front of her walled in space to encourage others to do the same. One house, that is now owned by the city looks like a wicked witches home! Sorry no pics of the homes because the bus had to keep on moving.

Tour buses aren’t allowed to drive down Rodeo Drive so we parked nearby and walked a couple of blocks of this glittering shopping strip with every high end store you’ve ever heard of, made famous by the movie Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. (We also saw the apartment building where she lived in the movie).

One place in LA I’d never been was the Farmers Market, which is not really a Farmers Market at all any more, but rather a shopping mall at one end, attached to the original farmers market area that has been there for years. Now there are kiosks serving every kind of prepared food known to man. By then I was so hungry I had trouble deciding on what to get to eat because there was so much choice and everything sounded great. I finally selected a Caesar Salad with chicken – how boring is that!

Then one more stop at Hollywood Boulevard to see all the famous things along that strip. The Grauman Chinese Theatre with it’s famous hand prints, Dolby Theatre (former Kodak Theatre), Walk of Fame and the HOLLYWOOD sign from afar all within a couple of blocks. Well, unfortunately clouds prevented us from seeing the Hollywood sign, but we settled for a pic with a backdrop in a candy store in the mall attached to the Dolby Theatre. There was lots of hubbub around the Dolby because it’s the location of the Oscars and they were setting up for it. It’s a bit of a seedy area, with piles of cheap tourist shops.

One interesting phenomenon we experienced is the grieving that is going on in LA for basketball star Kobe Bryant. There were tributes to him all over the city, even the city buses had “RIP Kobe Bryant” signs flashing back and forth with the route info. Outside Madame Trousseau’s Wax Museum the likeness of Kobe was in a special display. At Grauman Chinese Theatre there was a memorial that had bouquets of new flowers and messages, etc. His picture was beamed onto a huge building near the Staples Centre. And on our way back to the hotel, we drove past the Staples Centre where thousands of Kobe Bryant fans were standing around in tribute to their fallen hero. There was a street long line of kiosks selling all sorts of Kobe mementos, t-shirts, flowers, etc. I guess it will continue until his funeral.

Then it was back to the hotel to pick up our luggage, have a drink and then head to the airport. Our check in process was painless, and our flight on Air Tahiti Nui was as good as could be expected with an overnight flight. We were on a brand spanking new Dreamliner, that was decked out in pastel shades of turquoise, pink, yellow and green, which was really cheerful.

We arrived at 5 am, and yet the airport was pretty busy and there was even a greeting party of musicians to greet us.

We found the taxi stand and grabbed a short ride to the ferry terminal. I really did feel like I was back in BC. The process was the same, tickets from the ticket booth, drop the luggage off on to carts, up the stairs to the waiting area, and up the ramp to the ferry when it was docked and ready to take on passengers. The island of Moorea is only 15 km from the island of Tahiti and it was a calm passage. And the ferry terminal is right next to, and within walking distance of, the cruise ship terminal. So when we go back on Thursday to pick up the ship it will be really easy.

Once on the island we took another taxi to our hotel where it was too early to check in, but they provided us with towels and shampoo, etc to have a shower and stored our luggage until the rooms were ready. We were also given a coupon for a free breakfast buffet and were able to use all the facilities.

And that’s where this very long blog post started, with me over looking the infinity pool out to the South Pacific Ocean.