Glad to be alive, sad to be in Hollywood

Wednesday night a lady that Melissa worked with was kind enough to offer her home to all 3 of us for the night, she picked us up at the airport from the South Island and took us to her house, and drove us to the airport the next day. Eddie came with us to the airport to kill time before he went to his hostel in Auckland for the night. He didnt leave until Thursday. The airport was awful, first when we checked our baggage at the airport last night, we are allowed our suitcases to be 20 kg and our carry-ons 7 kg. Well they didn't weigh ours on the way over so we had NO idea how much we had. Well my suitcase was only 25 kg (under), but Melissa's was 42 kg! So we loaded some of her stuff to mine. But then...they weighed my hiking pack (a carryone) and it was over, so I had to unload her stuff and repack mine. We were unpacking our luggage in the lineup for like at least 1 hour. Eddie was waiting at the airport with us this whole time...

Our plane ride to Los Angeles this morning was awful. WIth about an hour left in the flight. We hit some unbelievable turbulence. I thought that was the end of me. I started bawling my face off when the pilot came on and told all the crew to sit down and buckel up immediately. He sounded paniced to me, and I started sobbing. When it got rougher, I even contemplatted seriously using my visa for the $5.00/minute phone to make a phone call to mom on the ground. Melissa was great and held my arm, but I didn't understand why the pilot wasn't saying anything reassuring. This went on for about 20 minutes. The whole rest of the way on the plane, I pondered the best and fastest way to get home afterI sold my remaining plane tickets. Bus would be about 2000.00 and take 2 weeks. I am scared to death to get back on a plane.

Then we got a shuttle to our hostel in Hollywood, a 1.5 hour ride!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Its not that far but he drove around at so many stops and the traffic is NUTS!!!! The city is so smoggy and dirty. And our room...get this...the toilet is in the middle of the room....so everytime that we have to pee, the other person has to leave the hostel room! We detest it here already. Nothing is within walking distance. We are too sad and TOO exhausted to go anywhere. We both just want to come home...really bad. Sniff...sniff....