zimmers in texas

Hi All
We had a great flight from Brisbane to LA via Auckland.
Arrived at Brisbane airport in 2 cars and went to check in only to realise we had left a bag behind. Erin and Glenn went back to pick it up while Daniel and I had coffee. Checked in at 9.20 for our 9.50 flight. so much for needing 3 hours prior to the flight. Didnt even get to go to the QANTAS club.
We got to sit upstairs on the flight to LA from Auckland and slept like logs. Got woken up for breakfast but were so tired we hardly remember landing at LA. We went straight to the hotel and the courier driver was very impressed with our luggage being wrapped in gladwrap. I told him it was to protect the vegemite.
It was still Sunday. We went our for dinner and came back to sleep more. We booked on a tour of LA on Monday. Fortunately we only had to sit on the bus for most of the tour as we both were very tired- jet lag seems to be hard to cope with. We went to Venice and looked at the canals and some movie stars houses like Julia Roberts. We did the Venice and Muscle beach thing and looked in all the little stores.
Next place to visit was Santa Monica, then Hollywood. We did the walk up Sunset Blvde, Chinese Theatre with the stars and footprints ( John Wayne takes about a size 6 shoe). We looked at the Hollywood sign and saw Hollywood high. It really is all quite obscene. The American Pop Idol final was to be held on Wed night so they had a million movie trailers and cameras (Taylor Hicks won if that means anything).
We have been watching quite a bit of late night tele and I have even seen the finale of Medium but I wont spoil it for those of you who watch it.
The next day we slept in and then headed off to Austin. We spent quite qa few hours in the QANTAS club ( or Admiral club for those who are familiar with American Airlines). There is a 2 hour time difference between LA and AUstin so we arrived after 11pm and the courier to the hotel stops at 11pm. Caught a taxi to our hotel which is the Marriott. Sound Ok but there are about 5 Marriotts in Austin. Anyway we managed to sort that out and booked in.
We are still having problems with tipping like when to and when not to but we are slowly sorting that out.
Yesterday we did a tour of Austin which was quite informative. We found the biggest book shop you can imagine and the biggest supermarket with all sort of fresh fruit and veges. they have the hours between the time the produce was at the farm and the time it is in the shop. You can buy a whole dinner there and take it home on a plate. Truly amazing
Today has been the most progress so far- we hired a car. This has been the most nerve wracking of the lot. Glenn drives and I navigate which in itself is a probelm except that I am not really navigating where we are going so much as which side of the road to stay on. When you turn right you stay next to the curb when you turn left you got right over to the other side or something like that. How they can just give you the keys is beyond me.
We have started looking for accomodation so that will be our next milestone.
I feel like we are living in a parallel universe where everything is nearly the same but not quie. We all speak English but noone understands what we are saying. We went to Wal Mart today which is next door to work, and it is even bigger than yesterday's supermarket. They have self serve checkouts wher you scan and pay everything by yourself. If you dont put things in a bag you have to let them know by pressing a button so they dont get confused. We kept going back to buy things to keep practicing. I bought a new mobile phone today and my number is 5129833754 . Not sure what the area code is to ring but look forward to any phone calls. We are 16 hours behind in Austin.
I think we are getting close to recovering from jet lag as we have had a relatively normal day today. Woke up at about 8am and had three meals at normal times. We had dinner at the motel tonight and 2 people at different tables started talking to us when they realised we were from Australia - they had both been recently and loved it