The flight, LA and misadventure

We left New Zealand at one, with unexpected guests on  the plane with us. The Otago Highlanders... Boston was beside himself with excitement. The boys were well hydrated so they had to keep walking past us on the way to the bathroom at the back of the plane and Boston never missed an opportunity to fist bump and talk to them and call out to them by name.

Gaining confidence by the end of the flight he asked Aaron Smith and Dillon Hunt for a selfie with them. They were very obliging and in all fairness Boston was the youngest fan on the plane while most other fans were well into their twenties and even seventies.

We landed in Suva to drop the highlanders off and their mountains of gear then we flew onto Nadi where we had a three hour stop over.

Our flight to L.A was pretty uneventful with Both Dani and Boston sleeping for the most of it. Dani sleeping on the floor under our feet because by that stage that was the best place she could sleep in her option.

We arrived at LAX to go through a multiple security measures. Not for the faint hearted or if you are in a hurry to catch a connecting flights. The people there helping you are just so cherry yelling at you, "Move, keep in line, Keep up, get your passports out. Get your forms out." All the shouting brings tears to most of the children that were being put through the security measures.

First we were fed into a maze of lines then shouted at to fine a green light and fill in passport measures, finger prints and photos. Lucky the kids didn't mind their photos being taken again at this stage. Then we were fed into lines again where we had to talk to an actual person who wanted to know why we were visiting the states today.

It was loud and noisy when we left the airport, horn honking and people shouting at everyone. So loud and confusing to what was actually going on. We found our shuttle and headed to the hotel. After we showered and changed we headed out to look around which is where we found the taxi driver from hell.

The next bit might not be for children.

We called for a taxi to take us to a place to eat. They sent a taxi for four, instead of five. Lindsay said he would walk as it was only four or five blocks. So I hoped in with the kids. Five minutes into the ride after the driver decided he knew a better place for us to eat took us off course and started asking me weird questions, like how long had I been married and asked the kids if they would like a new daddy..... Eeeekkkkk.!!!!!!!!!! I asked him to stop and we got out by a petrol station and down the block I could see a bunch of restaurants we could eat at.

However we had no idea where we were.... or where Lindsay was. Lucky all the streets here have sign posts with names and suburbs and I was able to ring him and finally get a hold of him to go back to the hotel and get a taxi to where we actually were. Which was not easy since my phone is pre paid and I had decided not to set it up for Roaming here because we were only here such a short time. And I had to try top up my phone and text him and ring him. Such a lovely two hours of us wondering where we were and what would happen. I had enough American money on me to get dinner and a taxi back to the hotel however there are three hotels with the same name. I finally managed to buy data and type into google "Where am I?" and send Lindsay off some pictures on google maps because we could hardly hear each other on the phone.

The place we ended up eating at was called Rock and Bruise, which was a huge place filled with Americans and I took the kids in there and told the guy taking us to a bench seat about what had happened in our dodgy taxi ride. When he asked us how long we had been in the States for and I said four hours and we ended up jumping out of our taxi.

We slept for fourteen hours now we are heading out to have a look about for the day, then off to Costa Rica tonight.

Lara.