Hello USA - The Longest Day Of My Life

Even though I had passed the half-way point of my big adventure, it was only now that I felt half of it was over. Maybe it was because I was crossing the pacific and fly to the US, leaving the 'right' side of the world (i.e. east of Germany) and flying to the ‚left' side of the world (i.e. west of Germany).

Leaving Fiji and arriving in the US was also the farthest I would travel on a single day during my trip (>10h flight time). But that was not all. It is a day I certainly would never forget for the rest of my life because it would turn out to be the longest day of my life.

Here is why. In the previous post I wrote about my last day on Fiji, i.e. waking up for a beautiful sunrise on the beach, going snorkeling with reef sharks, watching the sunset and saying goodbye to the Yasawa Islands and taking a flight to the US. In other words, I woke up at 6am in the morning on Kuata Island and left Fiji by plane at around 9.30pm in the evening.

However, since I was crossing the dateline flying to the US, time just got very weird and I lost complete track of it. Essentially, I left Fiji on 1st of July at 9.30pm and arrived in Los Angeles on 1st of July at 2pm, i.e. the same day just earlier. That meant that I still had a few hours to explore LA on the same day that I snorkeled with reef sharks - so weird.

Anyway, once I arrived in LA, I took the bus to my hostel in Santa Monica and then made my way to the famous Santa Monica Pier. While it was busy and a stark contrast to my peaceful time in Fiji and Samoa, I actually liked the atmosphere (music playing, waves crashing, sun shining, wind blowing, buzzing with people) and spent a solid couple of hours there soaking it all in. I also felt as if I was in Latin America when it came to the people on the pier as l heard far more people speaking Spanish than English. Anyway, I was mainly waiting for the sunset so that I could say, - yep, the second sunset of the day for me. And with that, the longest day of my life came to an end.

So yeah, that is me in the US. A bit of a strange feeling being in a massive city again as I did not get the feeling of being an ‚adventurer‘, more like a typical tourist (which, of course, I am, but still). The plan for my US leg was to be here for roughly a week (4 days in Los Angeles and 2 days visiting a friend in San Diego). It’s only a week, as otherwise my budget would be totally destroyed by prices here.

Admittedly, I already came with the expectation that I will not be blown away by LA or San Diego, but since I had to do a stopover in LA, I thought I might as well check out the two cities for a bit.Meer informatie