Caliornia Odyssey Day 7

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My final day in Pasadena I had a few hours to kill in the morning because my flight wasn't until early evening so I packed, booked my supershuttle ride, checked out, left my luggage in the hotel luggage facility, and went for breakfast in the old town. I spent a couple of hours wandering around with the hope of tiring myself out so that I might sleep on the plane later. Around lunchtime I returned to the hotel had humous and flatbread sitting at the bar and got talking to the bartender. We started talking about Whisky and I pointed out that I like Bourbon and that a particular favourite is Wild Turkey. At this the bartended informs me that Wild Turkey really isn't very good and he lines up about eight glasses and proceeds to take me through a succession of top quality Bourbons, starting with something just a little more up market than Wild Turkey and finishing with a 146% proof rare single barrel. Needless to say he earned himself a very good tip and I felt that I had a good chance of falling asleep later on the aeroplane. My flight from LAX to CDG was uneventful, in the early hours of the morning I got up to stretch my legs and spent about two hours talking to a retired social worker from California named Chester who was on his way to Europe with his wife. It turned out that he had visited Dundee 30 odd years ago to attend a social work convention. He had also spent some time in England and told me what it was like to be a black man in Britain at that time. Because of heavy immigration at that time many people thought that he was West Indian and in Britain for work, rather than a U.S. citizen and skilled social worker so thinks the attitudes that he experienced then were partly as a result of that. We put the world to rights for a couple of hours before turbulence meant that we had to return to our respective seats. I arrived at CDG late morning and spent a couple of hours asleep across three seats in terminal 2E waiting for my connection to Edinburgh. Before midnight on the sunday I was home, having started travelling at around 4PM the previous day. It's good to be home.

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Caliornia Odyssey Day 7