We were off to a good start. We finished, more or less, everything we needed to finish before leaving home. The journey thus began.

We ran our last minute errands around town, and got to the airport with plenty of time. We returned the car, and headed off to Los Angeles. We didn't really want to visit LA, but in order to finish up Kristin's UK Entry Clearance paperwork, we had to visit the British Embassy. The Embassy in San Francisco, while much more convenient, doesn't handle any visa processing.

We hopped aboard the plane, and arrived lickety-split at the Los Angeles International Airport. We got our luggage, and lugged it over to the shuttle that would take us to the car rental agency. After hunting down the shuttle stop, we caught our shuttle. By the time we were about halfway to the car rental place, I realized my jacket wasn't with me anymore. I had dropped it at the shuttle stop. Now, there's no need for any sort of jacket in Los Angeles from about May until October, so it wasn't really a problem.

We arrived at the car rental agency, waited in yet another line, and had one final headache renting the car. Unlike any other car rental agency I've ever seen, Dollar Rent A Car required a credit card for each person who would be driving. By that point, we were tired, exhausted, grumpy and not ready to cope with any more hassle, however small. I got the car in my name only, and then off we went.

Driving in Los Angeles is completely unlike driving anywhere in Northern California, probably anywhere else in the world. It's a land where agression is the norm, and you don't get space (or respect, presumably), unless you just take it. By comparison, us urban dwellers from Silicon Valley are downright polite on the roads. We stop for pedestrians, we yield (usually) to agressive drivers, and so on. Not so in Los Angeles. We do share some things, primarily that you need a car to actually have anything above a subsistence lifestyle, but the similarities end there.

Los Angeles (and by LA, I mean the entire metropolitan area, not just Los Angeles proper) is a freeway town. If you want to get from point A to point B, you hop on a freeway. All the freeways, outside of rush hour of course, have traffic that drives 80 miles per hour. The speed limit is 55, of course, but that only bothers people who believe the cops will slow down that much to pull them over. (If you want to tell if somebody is from LA, ask them to pronounce "Interstate 5". If they say "The 5", they're from LA. If they say "5", they're from Northern California.) So, the freeways are fast. And wide. 4 lanes each direction seems to be the norm, with the big freeways being 6 or even 8 lanes in each direction. All travelling 80 mph. The drivers, having their agressions stimulated by the driving speed, are just obnoxious. Nobody uses turn signals, they are a sign of weakness. Nobody slows down to merge or change lanes, you speed up to do that. If you need to go somewhere, you floor the accelerator, and take your space. It only works because everyone is expecting you to act like that, too. If you signalled and waited for a space to open up, you would never change lanes.

I'm not normally an agressive driver. If I come to a stop sign at the same time as someone else, I wave them through. (Not only does it make them feel good that someone was nice to them, it also seems less likely they'll run the stop sign and hit you.) That sort of thing. But, I had been forewarned about LA, and I was just exhausted enough by the packing weekend that it just felt natural. I took my space, and I got it. Driving fast wasn't much of an adjustment, but the sheer number of lanes is mind boggling. If I didn't have Kristin navigating, I'd have never made it anywhere. It took most of my concentration to just drive. In an absurd sort of way, it's almost relaxing. When you are driving, you can just become part of the road, and part of the traffic dynamic. The road is just hectic enough that you aren't given the time to think about other things. You freed from the realities of the urban sprawl by being consumed as part of the traffic landscape.

So, a drive across town winds up at the Holiday Inn on Wilshire Blvd, our hotel. At least, it was a Holiday Inn when we checked in. We were there for three nights, and each morning, something changed. The stationery changed the next morning, and then the soap, an so on. By the time we checked out, the hotel was no longer a Holiday Inn. It was now a Doubletree. "To serve you better".

Our first morning in LA took us to the Embassy. Easy enough to find, but we weren't quite prepared for it. We should have brought a big bottle of water, to help survive the wait. The opening hours of the embassy were from 8 until 12, according to the signs, and their voice mail system. We arrived a little after 9, and got our number from the ticket dispenser. It read 92. We looked up at the "Now Serving" sign, which said 65. Only 27 people ahead of us. The visa-processing room had two banks of teller windows, and an entire roomful of waiting chairs. That's what the room is for. Waiting. But, of course, it's not the beauracratic way to offer appointments for things. You must wait in line. The longer we waited, the more crowded the room got. By the time we were called, the entire room was full. No chairs were left empty. The ticket dispenser was up over 30. We weren't called until nearly noon. We could only figure that they just closed the doors at noon so that they would be able to go home by dinner time. The office certainly wasn't going to shut down by 12.

Once we were past the line, it took about 5 minutes to talk to them, show them our papers, give them money, and be sent back to wait. Another half hour later, we're called up again to pick up Kristin's passport with her magic entry clearance stamped inside. Free to go, both into the wonders of LA and also now to Scotland.

It was early afternoon on Tuesday, and we were now free. Nothing that we had to do until our flight left on thursday. We got some dim sum for lunch, poked through Aaah's (a name probably only meaningful to locals), and enjoyed the summer weather. We were pretty sure this was some of the sunniest weather we'd be seeing for the next six months. That evening, we went down to Hollywood and saw Mission:Impossible at the Chinese Theater. Hollywood seemed much cleaner than I remembered. There didn't seem to be any looming threat of being mugged, solicited, or otherwise detained by the "underworld". When we got to Scotland, the next weekend's paper had an article about how Hollywood was just seedy, largely irrelevant, and going downhill. That wasn't the impression my naive little mind left Hollywood with.

The popcorn at the Chinese Theater was the last time we'll probably see good popcorn in a movie theater until we return to the states.

Wednesday was originally going to be a visit to some relatives. After the last week's trauma of packing, moving, flying, and dealing with the embassy, we weren't ready for company. So we did Plan B. We went to Magic Mountain. Others in the same place would probably have gone to Disneyland, but when you're ready for roller coasters, there is only one choice.

I had travelled past Magic Mountain many times before on family vacations, but had never been. Kristin had been, but not in many years. Magic Mountain was a complete blast. By far, the best coasters were the Viper, Batman, and Colossus

Going through the park was like discovering a path through roller coaster history. The newest (not yet open) ride was Superman, a 41 story tall electromagnetically propelled sled ride. The Batman ride was the newest operational ride, taking advantage of all the technology developed over the years. The Batman ride leaves your seat suspended from the track above you. By doing so, they can do much faster loops, twists and turns, since the track doesn't need to be nearly as huge as in the older loop coasters. Spin the track a little, and the riders get flung around in much larger spins. The Viper is the pinnacle of the older style looping coasters. The highest drop is only 13 stories, but since it's up on a hillside ridge, it feels much higher. (And the views of the valley are spectacular.) It twists, turns, and drops you, all fast and furious. The Colossus is the peak of the old fashioned wooden roller coasters. It's a huge vision, dominating the view from the parking lot, and dishes out everything except for loops. The rickety wooden feeling definitely adds to the complete rollercoaster experience.

Occasionally throughout the day, we heard sounds like a jet airplane revving its engines up, and then back down. Towards the end of the afternoon, we realized this was the sound of the Superman ride shooting the sled down the tracks. They must have only been testing, since the sled never made it more than a third up the track before returning home. The ride promises 7 seconds of free fall when it is finished. If it's a fraction as impressive as the sound outside, it should be worth the wait.

All in all, a great way to wrap up the week. It already felt like the weekend trauma was far behind us. Now, the Scotland adventures lay directly ahead.