Day 3 - Santa Monica

---

Hollywood and Santa Monica 28°c

Up and at ‘em nice and early again this morning! Trying to maximise every single hour of the day to get the most out of our time. After sending a couple of emails back home this morning, I ventured out down to meet the girls around 8:30am, where we went and did the hand and footprints over at the Chinese Theatre before too many other tourists people arrived. However even at that time it was busy, but we managed to get some really great shots of the prints and us each putting our hands in them. It’s pretty amazing in it’s way that there are hand and footprints there dating back over 70 years or more, of celebrities both still alive and those who aren’t. The prints were really impressive and you got a good sense of the character of each celebrity with some funny messages scrawled in the cement, and covered a broad spectrum from the likes of Marilyn Monroe right up to the three main stars of the Harry Potter films with their signatures, hand prints and wand prints!

We arranged to meet Joey outside the hostel this morning, and once we did we all headed down to McDonalds for a spot of breakfast. Michelle’s cousin Marnee then arrived a short while later off of her shuttle bus from the airport and after she left her bags at the hostel, we all walked over to Hollywood/Highland and picked up the subway to Santa Monica Boulevard, where we then picked up the bus for the hour-long journey down to Santa Monica beach. It was really cool sitting all together on the bus, chatting and getting to know one another all over again now Marnee had arrived.

Once we got to Santa Monica, we headed straight down for the beach, and what a beach it was! The sand came so wide back from the shore and was a beautiful clean sand with no pebbles or stones unlike back home, and with the blue ocean and the Hollywood Hills in the distant background, it all made for quite a picture perfect surrounding. We then went onto the pier where Michelle, Marnee and Joey went on a roller coaster, whilst Karen and I stayed back and held the bags! I would have gone on as it didn’t look too high or scary in that way, but there was something about a massive roller coaster like that sitting on a pier made of wood above the ocean that kind of made my decision a whole lot easier!

After spending an hour on the pier and enjoying what was possibly the world’s biggest ice cream, we walked down to Muscle Beach where all the body-beautiful Californian’s were working out, flexing and generally showing off and making the likes of me with my podgy stomach extremely jealous! I managed to lift myself up on a few of the bars on the frames down there, for some funny photos, and then we all went out to the lifeguard station and had our photos taken with the lifeguard down there, who after meeting 4 girls and an over-excited guy to each took turns in holding onto his life-buoy and posing with it, seemed to think he was some kind of local celebrity! He probably gets it all the time, and it was clear that he loved the attention!

We walked a bit further down to Venice Beach, before heading into Santa Monica shopping district, where I found my first Abercrombie and Fitch store, after a quick browse in there and buying a couple of items in their summer sale, we went into a high-end pet shop Michelle wanted to check out incase she could get a souvenir for her dog back home, Cleo. In there were these little puppies running around and they were just unbelievably cute! There was on puppy up on the desk by the till who loved the attention, and every time you put it down after a cuddle, would put it’s front paws up on your chest and pretty much beg for more! It sat so comfortably and still in my arms and rested it’s little head on my shoulder and if we hadn’t have left, would probably have stayed there for some time! I know I would have let it too; it was adorable and made me miss Roxy back home even more.

Once we’d been in Santa Monica for several hours, we headed back on the bus to Santa Monica Boulevard and caught the subway to Universal City with the intention of then picking up a bus out to Disney Studios. After waiting out there for over an hour for a bus and asking several of the other bus drivers when the one we needed was due to arrive and nobody seeming to have a clue, eventually after an hour it was established that it wasn’t running! A total waste of time and I felt bad for taking everyone out there with me, but they each said that it wasn’t my fault, as the map and timetable I’d got had said it was running but must have been out of date.

Once we got back to the Hollywood/Highland shopping center, Michelle, Joey, Marnee and I had a beautiful dinner at California Pizza Kitchen, whilst Karen headed back to the hostel as she had a headache. Admittedly even I had had a bit of a headache throughout the day, possibly too much sun, possibly from not drinking enough water, so made a mental note to drink much more from now on.

After that, I headed back to their hostel with them to pick up my shopping since I’d left it there earlier as my hotel was 4 blocks out of the way, and stayed there a while for a chat and a giggle, and then headed back to my own hotel arriving back around 11pm so I could pack and get ready for our journey over to Anaheim tomorrow evening, get some rest ahead of our 7.5 hour tour of LA and celebrity homes, and write some emails for back home.

Had a shower before bed, and once in the bathroom it was the first time I’d really seen myself in a mirror all day, and I’d picked up the sun very much today! I must admit it was quite funny taking off my white top at the end of the day, only for it to look like I was still wearing it! haha

---