Touch down in LA

Well, I made it. Landed in LAX after 15 long hours. Went straight to my Hostel. Made friends with a 22 year old Swiss guy called Andy with tats, we spent the day driving around looking at places. For fun we decided to go driving through Inglewood and Compton. haha it was interesting. I saw about 5 drug deals taking place and two car jackings. Then we went down this one particular street and there were a small number of harcore looking guys, staring at us. For a while we were lost in this neighbourhood not knowing if it was a dead end street or not. Had a drive down rodeo drive, sunset Blvd etc... The only thing I haven't seen in the Hollywood sign. My body has not had any sleep for three days, well I had about 1 hour sleep the night before I got on the plane, but I couldn't sleep on the plane, so I am a little scattered. LA is a strange place, not good not bad, it is simply... LA. it looks just like GTA San Andreas, it actually does. I have enjoyed my day here and am looking forward to landing in NY tomorrow. LA remind me a fair bit of Melbourne, just more extreme and 8x bigger etc... I miss everyone already and I am starting to realise the enormity of this trip. The diversity of people is incredible. One street, the jewelry district has store after store of EXPENSIVE jewelry and the next street across is like a slum, make shift tents pitched on the footpath and injured people chatting and congregating. I went to Hooters and felt sick from the greasy chips but am still very glad I went. The "ghetto" (Inglewood, Compton etc...) is really awful. Factories and highways surround these little curvy streets with crappy houses. The best part was driving around these areas. Much more interesting than the obvious tourist attractions like Universal Studios. There is a huge homeless element to this city, contrasted by the immensely elaborate and expensive houses in areas like Beverly hills and rodeo drive. Please spread this site around to our mates who don't know how to find this site, much appreciated.