LA, San Francisco and Vegas
Where did the last two weeks go?! We arrived in LA after a needlessly long journey via Tahiti. With both of us vowing to "never again" take an 8hour layover for the sake of a few dollars we arrived in L.A. We got on the longest shuttle journey known to man to our hotel and arrived just 27 short hours after leaving Auckland (!). We both welcomed the amazing weather and took straight for discovering Hollywood. L.A. was a very brief stop for us and we wanted to make the most of it so within 3 hours of arriving we were on Hollywood Boulevard, had eaten the worlds largest slice of pizza, started and finished a tour of Hollywood and admired the craziness that is LA.
The next day we headed off to Santa Monica on a very very long public bus that came with a whole bag load of entertainment. The bus trip was 100% worth it. Santa Monica pier was amazing and the weather was beautiful. We took ourselves down the beach and headed towardis Venice beach and watched all the wonders of Muscle Beach. There were some incredibly strong and agile people along our walk and some interesting characters once we reached Venice. Back on the bus we decided to go back for another crazy piece of pizza before getting ready to set off to SF.
The beginning of our journey to SF was jumping on a Megabus up the coast. Having survived 8+ hours in a totally closed Tahiti airport we are now pros at filling long periods of time! We got to San Francisco and were welcomed by an AMAZING hotel room all thanks to Aunty Donna and Uncle Mark. We got ourselves a hot shower and some grub before making plans of what to see. We were all set for Alcatraz the next day!
Walking is is definitely something we've gotten very good at so far this trip and San Francisco was going to be no different. After an epic climb up Lombard to see the curvy street and down into little Italy we had some Ben and Jerrys ice cream and jumped on the boat to Alcatraz. The island and its audio tour are incredible. Full of incredible history we also got to go and see the hospital wing which is rarely open. We got back and wondered around pier 39 finishing the day with a Bubba Gump Shrip dinner! Our hostel for the night was quite different from our accomodation the night before with Rob swearing we would have been better staying on Alcatraz!
The he next day took us to AT&T stadium and a walk down the Embarcado finishing up with a bike ride to the bridge. My feet were eternally gratefull for the rest. An hours cycle later we wandered along Fishermans warf and ended up in Fiddlers Green Irish bar just in time for happy hour. $4 pints of decent beer and Magnears cider and we were in our happy place! Josh from Miami offered to take us to his grandma's house for dinner when we get there - excellent! San Francisco had treated us well with the locals giving us great information and tips, many in shock that we are on the road for 4 months.
The next day we flew to Vegas! Vegas was exactly what we expected it to be loud, bright and full of people! The plan was to walk less but we still managed to crank up about 10km each day! We found amazingly cheap drinks and people watched for the majority of the time!
Now we are back in LA getting ready to head off to Peru tomorrow! I will say that cheap is probably not always best when in LA(!).
Ciao for now,
Fern and Rob
