Last stop this town

We came to LA for one reason and one reason only- to shop. Having ditched pretty much every garment we owned in Cancun we were excited about the prospect of wearing clothes which did not have comedy value written all over them. With the help of our long abused credit cards we explored the Beverley Centre and 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica to our heart's content.

"We got your back Spidey!"

On our first night we attended the house-warming of Evan Asano, of Belizean fame who had recently moved down the coast from San Fransico. We reminisced about Caribbean nights over steak and vodka, but illness lingering from our time spent in Cancun made us very unhardcore and we all went to bed early doors. One thing we cannot fail to mention about Los Angeles is the appalling public transport system. Not only does the metro not cover about 95% of the city, the trains are so infrequent you could have run a marathon in the time it takes for one to arrive. Not only that but the entire city is so sprawled that visiting anywhere or anything becomes an expedition of gargantuan proportions.

Girls lunch with Mona

So it was a real treat when Evan became our personal chauffeur and took us on a sightseeing trip to the circus that is Venice Beach. We were disappointed to find Muscle Beach empty most likely due to the cold weather, but it was crawling with weirdos and crazys nonetheless. One place we really enjoyed in LA, however, was The Grove, where Mona Atzinger- Colly's sister's mother-in-law- took us for a scrumptious lunch, where we drank rather a lot of wine and had a thoroughly lovely time- thanks Mona! To add to the day's excitement Tay and Murph were lucky enough to bump into world famous 'Dancing with the stars' presenter Cat Deeley in the ladies' loo of a fancy department store- soooooo LA. The smugs became the stinkys as we finally, after 11 months and 29 of days of talking about it, went for a meal in the famous garlic restaurant- The Stinking Rose.

New best friend Cat Deely

We devoured on average around four or five or possibly even six bulbs of garlic each as we chowed down on the delighful garlic infused cuisine. The next morning we paid for our sins however when we awoke with seriously painful acid reflux and a very smelly room. Other than that we strolled along Hollywood Boulevard, saw the Chinese Theatre where the Oscars are held and perused the Walk of Fame to see the stars.

So on the evening of March 19th 2007 we arrived in LAX to board the flight to our final destination- London Heathrow. We had seriously mixed emotions- excitement about seeing our parents and families, devastation at knowing our year was over and overwhelming satisfaction that we could not have possibly had a better time.

Home sweet home

After ten hours of anticipation we decided to make our parents wait a little bit longer while we applied makeup in the toilets and all joined hands in baggage reclaim for a final teamtalk. After 365 days spent in each others company we could hardly bare the prospect of even a day spent apart, amidst promises of daily text updates for everything spanning dinner plans and unusual bowel movements, we braced ourselves, burst through the doors, and ran to greet our lovely, smiling parents. Top points for John Taylor (Father O'Doode/Mandy Marmite- Mother of nine), recently retired, he had managed to find time to construct a huge banner to welcome us home.

The extremely smug parents

We would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who has read our blog and followed our journey. To all the very special people we've met along the way who helped to make our trip what it was, and last but not least, to our parents for putting up with a year of worry and always being there to support us.

We have had the year of our lives and can confirm that the Smug Adventures were truly very smug indeed.

Until next time, Murph, Tay, Colly and Erin x x x x

written by

Murph, Tay, Colly and Erin on April 24, 2007 from Los Angeles, United States

from the travel blog: The Smug Amigos Do Central America

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Do you have to go home? Does this mean no more smug adventures? I'll miss your blogs and photos..thanks for sharing

written by

no_fosters_thanks on April 27, 2007

really going to miss your travel blog. Hope you have had a great adventure. cheers!

written by

Benjamin Satterfield on May 20, 2007

Awesome!

So your adventures ended on April 24th 2007! I remember the internet cafe we met at back in Bangkok 2006. Love the banner that was waiting for you!

50.

written by

50watts on April 26, 2009

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