Post PhD - the Breaking Waves holiday, day 1

Arriving into one of the older terminals of Los Angeles International Airport yesterday lunchtime it put me in mind of arriving in Cuba about a year ago.  The worn-out decor, the abundance of hispanics, the litter.  How ironic really.  Having at last secured our convertible via a lengthy run-in with technology to confirm our vehicle reservation, we sat in the car pondering the Gamin GPS we had hired and wondered to whom might belong the dainty size of finger which might successfully hit the key at which we aimed. It took us 20 minutes to input the address and then an hour to drive the twenty miles to the hotel in Malibu in which Janet and I were booked.  As it said on my facebook page....the traffic. Though not helped by labour day holiday traffic, and an almost seemingly mental collective decision of the entire population of LA to head to the beach. Having worked out after a bit that the endless stationery lines of traffic were stationery because they were attempting to turn left across a likewise endless stream of traffic heading in the opposite direction, we learnt to stick in the slow lane and so grind our way along the Pacific Coastal Highway heading for Malibu. It was slow. At times very slow. But at least we were moving. Eleven hours in a metal can at thirty two thousand feet, nearly three hours to clear customs and get the car and now having to contend with holiday traffic, we so very, very much wanted to have a chilled glass of Californian white in our hands and to be sitting in the bar of the our beach front hotel whilst contemplating the evening menu. We found our hotel did not have a bar. Or a restaurant.

Websites must be taken with the merest pinch of salt.

It's important, I think, to approach all situations with a positive mind.  And having politely listened to the recommendations of the middle-aged receptionist who eventually dragged herself away from what appeared to be a lenghty ongoing conversation with a friend and who suggested that as it was labour day weekend we wouldn't get a dinner reservation anywhere, I ignored her and instead strode out into the California sunshine determined to find a fun and stylish venue for our first evenings entertainment.  I decided that the restaurant next door, which at 5.30pm already had $3m dollars worth of grand margues in the car park, might be exactly the place to start our holiday with a bang (not a euphemism, you understand) rather than a whimper. "You two scrub up well" the receptionist said as she showed us to the bar having blinked hardly at all as we had dragged our worn, tired, post-Atlantic-flight bodies through the door two hours earlier to ask about reservations. As we sat at the bar, watching the ocean in front of us swell and fold into waves which crashed onto the sand, the bar tender poured generous glasses of Californian wine and the restaurant filled up with glamorous and beautiful people. Flocks of pelican gently drifted across the skyline and small groups of curlews companionably searched for the food in the sand. As I sipped my wine, the month of post PhD recovery cum 50th birthday celebration stretched ahead of me.  I picked up my glass, raised it a little in the direction of the setting sun and thought about the future.