Goodbye L.A.

For our second visit to LA we decided not to rent a car (very expensive around the 4th of July) and move around by public transport. Everybody says that you can't stay in LA without a car so the challenge made it even more interesting. Spoiler: it's actually very hard and slow to move around the city without a car. I'm glad that we had already seen most of the interesting places during our previous trip.

Back to the city of angels

In any case our main goal this time was to collect our marriage certificate and have it stamped for international validity. Information on the web are scarce and neither phone calls nor emails had helped us in any way to understand whether our papers would be ready and how exactly we should collect them. We got up super early to make sure that there would be enough time to do everything. When we got to the first office, first in line, we were trembling at the idea that they wouldn't have the paper ready. What would we do next? Could they send them at home internationally? Should we hire someone to collect them for us? Bureaucratic nightmare scenes were forming in our heads when the lady simply told us "Here are your four copies. Sign here please.".

The second part was supposed to be more complicated, although we definitely had enough time for any scenario. In the end it was even easier at the Department of State. We were ready to fire up a sequence of questions regarding Money Orders and international shipment when the young cashier stopped us with a simple "Wait here please, I'll have your final papers ready in a minute". Wait, what? We didn't even know that it was possible to have it done immediately. The web page says that we'll receive them at home in two weeks! Of course we didn't argue about it. We smiled back, grabbed the papers and left the office, about five hours earlier than when we expected to finish. Habemus papers!

Amazed by the amount of time left to spare we decided to have a decent breakfast and head towards Hollywood to buy some souvenirs. Hollywood by day is even more tacky, crowded and unpleasant than in the evening. We didn't last long and after some minor shopping we went back home to have lunch and rest a little. We needed as much energy as possible for the highlight of these days in Los Angeles: a camping trip at Joshua Tree National Park with Victor, our amazing CS wedding photographer!

The most interesting sight in Hollywood

Victor came to pick us up rather late to avoid the infamous traffic jams and we arrived to Joshua Tree around 11:30 pm. K fell asleep on the back seat and I struggled to stay awake and keep the conversation going while Victor was driving. All sleepiness disappeared once we reached the camping area. We set up our tent in the darkness, lit a campfire and cooked sausages and marshmallows in it. My marshmallows cooking technique is apparently pretty good. After dinner we admired the stars and played with night photography and light painting. So much fun! We managed to stay up well after 2 am, but at some point we just crashed on the mats and fell asleep.

Making sausages on a campfire

Marshmallows... flambé

Playing with lights

Joshua Tree National Park is practically a desert and while the night are simply warm, when the sun goes up the temperature raises abruptly. Even with a well ventilated tent we couldn't resist the heat and got up around 6:30 am. Definitely not enough sleep. Nevertheless the beauty of the place, and a consistent breakfast, kept us going for the whole morning. We did some short hikes and tried to see as much as possible of this beautiful park.

Good morning

Victor's pictures are always amazing

...and fun!

On the way back to the city we stopped for lunch at a Chinese restaurant. We were probably the only westerners there, and most of the waiters weren't fluent in English. Thanks to Victor's knowledge of Chinese we were able to order and enjoy a really tasteful lunch. I had wanted to try Dim Sum since our first visit to Bangkok, and eventually my wish has been fulfilled.

Yummy unpronounceable meal  

The cart ladies offering food can be rather insistent

My first fortune cookie!

Since it was the 4th of July we had planned to join the celebrations and see fireworks in downtown Los Angeles. We had actually planned these last days precisely to be here in the US on the 4th of July! Unfortunately we didn't consider how tired we could be after an almost sleepless night and a morning hiking around a desert. I overheard the crackling noise of fireworks from the distance while falling asleep... at 8:30pm.

The next day we got up early, packed our backpacks and went reluctantly to the airport. Today's flight will take us to the very last destination of this trip. The adventure is almost over.