Hollywood, LA

It's been already 10 days since we first arrived in the US and we already made 2 really good friends, Sebastian and Jordan. After we have looked and looked on the internet (Craigs List), searching for the perfect mean of transport that needed to be cheap and confy , we decided for a Chevy Astro Van from 1998, white and clean inside. Jan left Monday morning towards El Monte, that was about 3 hours in public transport....so as you can see going arround LA or America in general by public transport is not such a good idea. Anyway , going back a few days, i must say that our time in the house of Sebastian has been great. We met almost all his familly and we could spend time with them. On saturday june 12 , we arranged to go to Malibu where we spent all the afternoon. So in the house of Sebastian there were also 2 german girls, Stefi and Ariana( the mother of Ariana was of Romanian origin). We drove to Malibu but we let the guys hang arround on the beach and we met David, a friend that Bruna recomended us to meet. David was very friendly and he took us to a party of a friend. The girlfriend of his friend owned a house in a private beach in Malibu....we found out later from Sebastian that the house was worth at least 5 million dolars. The party was simple, people swimming and hanging in the jacuzzy but we felt a bit unconfortable,because we knew only David.

I could relax a lot these days in the house of Sebastian. I managed to get rid of the jet lag but still once again it takes time to accomodate to the routine of the road. It is quite consuming. Anyway...getting back to the car purchase, Jan payed to the mexican man that owned the car about 2000 dollars in cash, took the car and brought it home. We felt very happy with the new car but next day, when Jan went to register the car in his name, found out he had to pay 400$ more bacause the owner did not pay the registration for the last 2 years. Anyway....we found out later that he didt want to pay us this money. In a way we felt cheated...but still the price for the van was pretty good.
Tuesday, 15th of june we decided it is time to go, so in the morning i went to buy some food to prepare a romanian dish for lunch and a bottle of wine. I went to the local market where i found a lot of imported romanian, bulgarian, russian , and turkish food. Actually the super market that was owned buy armenians and had food from anywhere. It was amazing to find so much romanian food, when in Spain i couldnt find anything. My surprise in the shop was that when i wanted to pay the bottle of wine (a romanian one) that i choosed very carefully after 30 min. of thinking, the women in the couter asked for a document of identification because she thought i am less than 21 years old and that i cannot buy alcohol. I was trying in vain to explain to her that i am 26...she simply refused me the purchase. I was shocked because in Europe i coud buy alcohol since i was 14...and here they didnt want to sell me. Anyway it seems that they ask for the Id to the peole that seem underage.I could take it as a compliment.
The same day in the afternoon, we left the house of Sebastian and we drove towards Hollywood, where another friend from the CS was waiting for us in his restaurant. Jordan was the second person that answered to my hosting request and also he was very interested in meeting us because he also wants to leave the normal life and start his trip arround the world. We parked behind Frank and Musso, the oldest restaurant in Hollywood, owned by his parents and directed by him and his cousin Mark. The same day arrived also Marrisa, a girl from Colorado and we met Maysa, Marks girlfriend. We will all stay together in the house of Jordan for the next days. Jordan is a very nice guy, with same taste in music and film as me. He showed us the house and where we will sleep and immediatly we made the sleeping arrangements. We were supposed to stay at his place for only 2 night but he invited us to stay 6 nights, because on Sunday there is a nice flee market that we shouldnt miss and a concert of Tinariwhen in Hollywood Bowl. After thinking about the options and getting accostumed to his house, we decided to stay these 6 days here. We walked by night the famous Walk of Fame with all the Hollywood stars, we saw the Kodak theater, the Chinese one, The Egyptian theatre. It is interesting but the feeling of Hollywood bvd. is a bit different from what everyone thinks. It is decadent, and i felt that also a bit poorly taken care of. In some places smells like pee and there are enough homeless people around. On the second day here i went with the girls in a shoping spree around LA (more exactly Fairfax and Melrose). Here the people are so diverse, and they dress so different that the normal shops for clothes cannot satisfy all the tastes, so they have other shops of Vintage american clothes, or third hand or even shops where you can sell your own cloths or change them. In the evening we went to the restaurant of Jordan(an old fashioned American restaurant) and we had dinner with Jordan. It was amazing the food the company and the drinks:)BIG Thanks to Jordan:)!!!!

spending info: 2000$ the van. 70$ the smog, 400$ the registration, 400$ insurance, 95$ AAA, food and drinks-the last week-100$, new hard disk-105$(640 giga) , GPS-114$,Wood for the car-20$