One long flight was ahead, 11.30h hours from Paris to Los Angeles...... and flying during the day time. I had no hopes up, the entretaiment system -compared to other airlines- suxed. I watched two movies and then simply listened to music, walked around, read some magazines ate a sandwich, stared trough the window and slept for 2 hours. We passed greenland and entered the north of Canada. However it was very cloudy so no special views. The best views came when we entered the Nevada state and crossed Sierra Nevada between Nevada and California. Hollywood. The thing that shocked me the most of the plane was its already pacific style atmosphere. Attached are the pics that i took when I walked in the plane. Yellow pillows, polynesian music, blue seats, and air hostess dressed up with flowery dresses and shirt gave an atmosphere already in paris. THe plane was small, an airbus 340 but made it well to LA and later to Tahitis international Airport Faaa

Later we were able to do a full flight over Los Angeles which gave me a good view of L.A. and Hollywood. As can be seen in this picture, not very well. L.A. gave me the impression of being a very largely extent city. Full of small houses, very american style each of them with their own little garden and multiple cars. Even from the sky you could recognize the fact- seen in many more american cities that the cars are ten times bigger than european ones. LA appeared to have a small business center with large skyscrapers but the majority were houses. Dont miss out on the small white flower on the wing of the plane - That is the symbol of Air Tahiti Nui!

In Los Angeles, for security reasons even the passengers in transit to Tahiti -thus me, we were forced to pass the amercian police. Even though we were going to reboard the same plane. The policeman took a copy of all our finger prints of all 10 fingers together with a copy of our eyes. After having passed the policed we were forced to go back upstairs and into a transit zone, an extremly boring area where we patiently waited for a few hours. In L.A. the plane got quite full. Unfortunately for me, the plane got full of rich,rude americans. The man with the red shirt got on with a cigar on his mouth....why he got on with the cigar if u cant even smoke it remains a mystery for me. Roman and his sister who had been flying from paris to LA now had to sit together as the plane got full. Roman seemed to have goten over the fact that her sister - they must have been on their 20s but seemed like they were 5 - had thrown juice over his pants when they had just borded in Paris. And off we took from L.A....... this time there was no view of the city...directly the pacific ocean....and yet 9 more ours of flight to go....sunset was starting.

I had had only 2 hours of sleep before the flight,due to my nerves. And almost no sleep during the flight Paris Los Angeles. So finally after watching a movie I fell asleep right after for 5 hours.....next thing I heard was that we were finally ready to land at FAAA intenrational Airport in Tahiti! oh yeah! This is a french territory thus I could enter- if I wanted with only my Spanish ID. I showed my passport but got no stamp, as afterall I had a EU Passport. Flying for 21h it seemed unsual to me to be in a territory where I could entere with a european passport and have no need for a stamp! So so far the only stamp is that of Los Angeles,city which I did not even get to visit.

Everybody had tons of luggage, but me. I think I was rather unusal. Traveling on my own, having a hoody promoting alcohool consumption and having only 1 small luggage. I was the first one to exit and was told if i was on holidays and if I visited family. As I replied to both of them positively I was asked to exit through the right door. It turns out I came out at the RESIDENTS exit :)

Unfortunately at the hotel I remet Roman and his sister and a few other posh americans. Who looked at me strangely as I was now surrounded by 4 family memebers and no longer wearing my alcohool promoting hoody. hihi. With an extreme jet lag it took me 1 day to get into routine.