US 2017, Los Angeles (Day 4, Part 1) - AVIS Car Rental

The first thing we had to do before we start our first full day in Los Angeles wasssssss... to collect our car rental!!!!!!!!!! This was monumental for us because one of the major decisions we had to make before coming to Los Angeles was: whether we wanted to whack Uber all over LA OR rent a car and drive around ourselves.

We agonized over this decision for MONTHS ok! 

We'd read online articles and watch videos comparing the two options, and we'd bounce from let's yolo and drive around LA!!! to maybe we're in over our heads... to how can we miss this opportunity to drive around LA seh??? to isn't it more convenient to just book Uber everywhere we go................ to if not now then WHEN

Eventually we decided eff it - we're going to rent a car and drive all over LA!!! YOLO!!!!!!!!!!

Although being the penakut cautious people that we are, of course we checked with the rental company first whether we can get a refund if we decide not to drive anymore and want to return the car after 1 or 2 days HAHAHAHA (The answer is yes, btw. That was probably the part that helped us make our decision hur hur)

(Disclaimer: We were also open to hopping on buses or trains if we decided to go the Uber/public transport route. Public transportation in Los Angeles is available and functional but from what we've researched, their infrastructure isn't as seamless and convenient as those in cities like New York, London, Tokyo and Singapore. But since we chose to drive instead, we didn't get the experience ourselves and can't comment on its pros/cons)

Once we made our decision, we had to choose a car rental company next - we considered Hertz and Avis but eventually picked the latter because (1) Our friends rented a car with Avis when they were in LA; and (2) AVIS website layout and design macam more appealing to us hahahahahaha

Online reviews pulak are more or less than same la:- half are negative, half are positive, a sprinkling few cried foul about stupid car companies trying to scam them and cheat them of their money hahahaha so it didn't really matter la since kita memang dah decide to #yolo. Kalau kena scam terpaksa terima je as part of the experience lolol but Alhamdullilah everything worked out great for us! Takde hidden charges all that nonsense.

And that's our reservation!!!!!!! Ford Mustang convertible beybeh~~~

Another thing we had to decide was what kind of vehicle we (by we, I really mean Saliheen hahaha) wanted to drive in LA. We knew the touristy decision would be to drive a Ford Mustang convertible around LA and since we were tourists, that's exactly what we did!!! Hehehehehe. Anyway bila lagi kan kita nak dapat naik Ford Mustang convertible kat Singapore?! No actual pictures of the whole car because we forgot to take lol but you'll get to see it la nanti in one of my entries. AVIS rented us one in silver!

Collection was fast and easy - nobody else was around when we collected our rental car at 8.00am (opening time) so we didn't feel rushed at all. Thank God we decided to collect our rental car at a smaller collection point within walking distance from our hotel instead of collecting it at the airport outlet which we've read can get stressful and crazy overcrowded! Nak kena naik shuttle bus lagi (because it's 5 minutes drive away from airport), very the leceh.

Total costs already included the Loss Damage Waiver (LDW) insurance so we didn't add any other extra stuff to our rental. Also skipped GPS rental because it's over USD100 per day, which is pricey af - we decided to make do with the Google Maps / Waze apps on my iPad mini, which worked ok... well, for most parts la at least, and only after we got the hang of driving around in LA hahahaha in case you couldn't tell, we were off to a rocky start 

You see, before we collected our rental car, Saliheen already said he wanted to avoid the expressways (kat sana they're called freeways) until he has stabilized his left hand driving and familiarized himself with local streets and traffic rules in a day or two. But as our luck would have it, a few minutes after we drove out of the car collection point, GPS guided us straight into a freaking freeway without us realizing until it was too late 

I glanced over to Saliheen as our rental car thundered into the opening of the freeway but he looked very calm and very pro so I didn't think much of it (Saliheen has this very funny contorted facial expression when he panics) but he told me later that night that he was actually scared out of his wits hahaha ya Allah kesian nya laki aku hahahaha

But he knew himself, and he knew that if he allowed himself to go into full terkencet panic mode, we might get into trouble in the middle of freeway traffic! So he calmed himself down and very confidently handled the car all the way to our first destination of the day! Needless to say I was (am!) very very very proud of him for not shitting his pants losing his confidence even as his "jantung macam nak terkeluar kat tekak" while other vehicles were zooming past him at more than 100km/h on the freeway hahahaha. But the fast-moving traffic on LA freeways really quite scary ok! Felt sooooo much faster than our local expressways!

Tapi takpe, yang penting we were safe and sound, with me being oblivious to Saliheen's rasa ketakutan hahahaha but you guys don't worry la he got over his fear and worry pretty quickly and happily engaged the Ford Mustang into race mode a few times while we were travelling on the freeway over the next few days