Los Angeles, CA - Thursday 24 October


HQ for the next five nights

I flew out of Vegas on Southwest Airlines this morning, back over to LA to spend an extra-long weekend. I'm pleased to say I made it out of Sin City without doing any gambling - given my ongoing battle to control my weight, I suspect mine is the sort of personality which would chase its losses if given the chance to.

Southwest could definitely teach most of the short haul carriers in Europe a thing or two - I arrived at McCarran International Airport with just under an hour to go before the flight, self-labelled and handed over my checked baggage on the sidewalk outside the terminal, breezed through security, and just had time to grab a sandwich before take off. We arrived early, and I only had to wait 90 seconds before the bags arrived on the carousel. I can't ever remember flying around Europe going that smoothly.

So far, I'm pleased with the Aventura Hotel in LA - reasonably handy for all the places I want to visit, and almost brand new, which means clean, done up to a nice standard, and featuring a decent sized TV and USB charging sockets.

My planned five nights here is the longest in-one-place stay of the trip, and it's nice to be somewhere long enough to make it worthwhile unpacking.

There's also a KFC a couple of blocks over (well, I'm planning on visiting some famous but pricey Hollywood restaurants, so the daily average spend has to be dragged back down somehow...).