From Munich to Los Angeles - Southwest USA 2018 - 1
Thursday, 2018-04-26 - From Munich to Los Angeles
Getting up as early as usual and hurrying up a little bit gives me a buffer of some 40 minutes to be at the parking service in time. This is quite common at the bigger airports in Germany: You can leave your car some 10 minutes away from the airport and the provider will bring you to the terminal. The price for that is much cheaper than parking at the airport and if you want they might even clean your car, change tires or perform other small services.
As expected I got stuck in a traffic jam, but my buffer was more than sufficient. I'm in the Lufthansa lounge now and will have to leave soon as there will be a second security check before you can enter the gates where the US-flights are departing. You can spend quite some time there if you are selected to go through the X-ray channel, but I'm lucky and can go directly to the gate.
The flight is pretty boring and reminds me why I try to avoid long-distance flights during the daytime. I try to get some rest but as I hardly sleep on planes during the night this is quite a useless exercise. In the end, I watched three movies. At least the food was quite good.
Immigration in Los Angeles looks pretty confusing with different lines joining and departing again. All depending on your status and if you have to go for special questioning or not. I'm lucky again. Filling out the form on the service machine, receiving a piece of paper and I'm directed to the line where the immigration officer just wants to know the length of my stay. It takes me just 30 minutes from touch-down to leaving the building with my luggage.
I follow the signs to "rental cars" and manage to be the last one to enter the waiting shuttle-bus. For whatever reason, I was not able to choose the "skip the line" option at home, just the online check-in. But that was good for nothing. At the machine, l have to enter all my data again and have to decline all upgrade and insurance options. Well, it's still faster than on the counter.
After a while, I finished all questions and get a printout of my contract. Here in Los Angeles Alamo has a choice-line where all SUVs are mixed-up. I take a Nissan Rouge with only 3100 miles. Quite a big car with a lot of electronic gadgets and surely not what I would have expected to be in the IFAR class. Quite interesting: No 4WD is available at all.
Different to other visits in the US Bärbel, our Garmin GPS, locates the satellites before I leave the Alamo station. It avoids the highway for quite some time, but as soon as I enter it I get stuck in a heavy traffic jam (and that at 4 pm). In the end, it's no problem to reach my motel in Hollywood.
After all the sitting I want to go for a walk. The Walk of Fame on Hollywood Blvd is not far away, just some 2 miles to reach the Dolby Theater. I don't have high expectations and they are fully confirmed. In the end, I didn't take out the camera once. A lot of souvenir shops, bars, and restaurants. A few people in costumes like Chewbacca trying to make some money, but even for free, they would not be interesting enough to take a picture.
