Hey guys, checking in from LA today. And another mad couple of days! We left Santa Barbara pretty early and started our drive south to Santa Monica. Thank god we had the sat nav unit in our car - we would have been lost without it (literally!). Found Santa Monica and checked into a hotel right by the beach. We went for a walk down the pier where there are rollercoasters and ferris wheels right by the ocean. All pretty tacky and dirty though. The beach goes for as far as you can see, yet there's no one in the water because it's so polluted. Ironic. Little baywatch surf lifesaving thingies all the way along which were kinda cool to see though :)
Seeing as it was Matt's last day with us, we decided to go on a guided tour of LA in a little bus. The driver was crazy, laughing at the most inappropriate times with an infectious cackle. Funny man. We did a big tour of all the spots you hear about. Started at Marina Del Rey, then on to Venice beach. We got about a half hour in each place to get off the bus and look around. Venice beach was pretty cool. Was such a beautiful day, but still not heaps and heaps of people. Saw muscle beach but there were't alot of guys working out, so it wasn't quite like you see on TV/in movies. After Venice, we drove over to Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Drove up Rodeo drive which was really pretty. The street lights down there are chandalliers in glass boxes!! Next we drove down Sunset strip. This was totally the highlight for me (no surprise there right? Hehe). Driving past places like the Rainbow, Whiskey a Go-Go, Viper Room, Red Rocks etc etc was so awesome!! We went up on to Hollywood Blvd next, and got out to see the hollywood sign and Chinese Theatre. The theatre was really impressive. Looks great all lit up. Will Smith had been there the night before for his new movie's premier so his handprints were fresh in the concrete and roped off. Neat to see all the stars out the front and some of the impersonators were really well done. I got a photo with a Jack Sparrow (pirates of the caribbean) guy that looked amazing!!
After the tour, we went back to Santa Monica and out to dinner down the prominade which is a great little pedestrian street with shops and restaurants. We had a few drinks after dinner in a british pub, then it was home to bed.
Friday Matt left us at 11am, and Xtian and I took a walk down the beach to Venice again. We had some brunch, then headed back up to the prominade for another look at the shops. Had a nana nap back at the hotel then went out to Hooters for dinner!!! Haha, it's exactly like you'd expect too, girls in teeny tiny shorts and busting out of their singlets, pretty funny. We had some disgustingly fat soaked chicken wings, (which Hooters are supposedly famous for) and some awesome cocktails. That was pretty much it for Friday!! I think we were feeling pretty exhausted from the past week.
Yesterday we drove in to West Hollywood to check in to our hostel and drop off the rental car. We checked in and went for a walk, thinking Sunset would be relatively close so that we could go check out the Rainbow up close. Ended up walking for close to two hours before we realised we were going in the opposite direction down sunset! Still, by chance we managed to stumble across guitar centre, which has all the great musician hand & footprints out side. Checked out the guitar store too, it's massive - you would have loved it Carl! The guitars were all pretty cheap too. And Sunset tattoo is just accross the road! Tiny little place, not what we expected at all!! So, once we realised we were going in the wrong direction, we grabbed a cab and got up to the Rainbow, only to find it doesn't open for lunch. Should have known really. We went to Red Rocks instead, then back up to Hollywood blvd to do a spot of shopping at Hot Topic :)
Last night we caught a cab with a couple of other guys who are staying here at the hostel, out to Rainbow. We had the greatest time, it's such a wicked bar! Lemmy was supposed to be there, according to one of the guys that we went with (who told us he knew him), but he must have had something better to do because he was nowhere to be seen. We stayed until closing (2am? Wtf isn't this supposed to be LA? City of partying?) and came back to the hostel for some more drinking with our new friends.
Needless to say, we were feeling a little worse for wear today, so took the day to rest and relax and tomorrow we have universal studios!
So! Once again all up to date. Will write more soon!
J & X
xx
