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Published: September 5th 2011
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After a long and exciting week at Hollywood the time came for us to leave Sunset Boulevard behind. We got up early (about 6:30) to pack up all the stuff that we were too lazy to do the night before. We headed downstairs for our last breakfast at the Travelodge and filled up on toast/cereal (and 2 more blueberry muffins for Craig!).
When we'd had our fill, we headed back to the room to grab our bags and cases and checked out at reception before walking to the bus stop about 10 seconds away. As it's a Sunday (and a bank holiday weekend) the buses ran a little less frequent today so we waited about 10-15 minutes for the number 754 that would take us the first leg of the journey. It takes about 30-45 minutes to get from Vermont Street to Venice Blvd where we got off to get the connecting 733 that would take us along Venice Blvd all the way to Venice Beach.
After about an hour on our second bus, it was time to get off and sample the delights of early morning Venice! We knew from yesterday that our Hostel was just across the
road (near the only road island we've seen in America!) so we dragged our cases to the entrance (up a flight of stairs!) so we could check in. Unfortunately, we were a little early as it was only about 10:30am at this point and the receptionist told us that we weren't able to get checked in until after lunch at about 12:30pm. Thankfully, they had a luggage room to store our cases so we dropped these off and had a nice stroll to the beach.
As it's right near the entrance to the beach, we took another look at the skateboarders on the skate park for a couple of hours and saw a few more really good skaters. There was one kid who must have been 8 or 9 at max going at it like Tony Hawk, and another guy who was about 15 recording a promo video of some of his bigger tricks (we'll try and upload some of his videos soon). By this point it was almost 12:30 so we took a walk back to the hostel to check in.
We won't bore you with the details of checking in, but everything went smoothly and we
finally got our room key. As this was our first 'hostel' experience, we weren't entirely sure what to expect of the room so we were a little dubious to say the least. However! We were more than pleasantly surprised when we opened the door to find a really spacious, clean and inviting room! Since we usually have bad luck when it comes to views from our rooms in past experience, the first thing we ran to was the window. Wow. We were shocked to find out that we had (literally) the best view our hostel has to offer! There are two sets of windows in our room which give it a really cool dual-aspect view of the bustling shops and stalls of Venice Beach AND the beach itself! As we are on the top floor, and on the corner of the building, our room is the only one that can boast this brilliant view.
We have a computer in the room, however, after testing it out, it's become apparent that they have blocked any useful features other than the web browser (internet explorer 😞 ), so we got the netbook out to upload a picture on facebook and also
sign into Skype to talk to our parents. We gave them each a quick tour of our room on the webcam and chatted for a while before deciding to head out as at this point it was almost 3pm and we were starving as we hadn't eaten since breakfast.
From our scouting mission yesterday, we knew there was a food place on the corner that seemed to do the single biggest pizza slices we had ever seen in our lives. We each purchased a slice (Craig had BBQ chicken, Emma had garlic chicken) and we settled down to eat them on a grassy bank near the beach. A few seagulls started to wander over to us tentatively, but we were not willing to share! >😞
Once finished, we went for a walk along the beach. Emma tested the temperature of the Pacific Ocean by dipping a single toe into the water before deciding that it was far too cold (and too rough - the waves are pretty big here) to paddle! We walked along the shore for about 20 minutes before deciding to set up camp and relax on the sand for a while. It felt great just
being able to lie there and relax in the sun after spending a week walking around the busy boulevards of Hollywood. After almost falling asleep in the sunshine, re-energized and ready to go, we took a short walk over to the boardwalk from the sand and walked through the many stalls, entertainers and artists that line the beach (literally for miles in each direction). We also passed a 'Freak show' exhibition that apparently had many freakish animals with two heads/five legs/etc. It was $5 to enter, however they had a two headed turtle on display outside to view for free. Unfortunately, we had forgot to bring the camera out with us, so didn't manage to get a picture, however it seems to be a permanent fixture so we will try again tomorrow.
After walking ten minutes back the way we came (which was much quicker when our feet weren't burying into the sand with every step), we arrived back at the hostel at around 5:30/6:00ish and went to the room to unpack a few things from our cases. We realised that our room hadn't actually been tidied (the bins had some rubbish in them, etc) and we heard the
maid on her rounds, so we left the room and went down to the common area. We had a little peruse through their book selection and had a quick look in the recreation room, which has a pool table and a movie area. By this point, the staff at the hostel had put out some spaghetti and pasta sauce for guests to cook in the kitchen for themselves. We were feeling a little peckish by this point, so we boiled up some spaghetti, added the tomato sauce with a few herbs and spices from the racks, and enjoyed our first home cooked meal since arriving in America!
We washed up the plates and pot we had used and went back to the room to let it go down. As usual, Craig had gone overboard on the spaghetti and we were both quite full, plus the tomato sauce was really rich. After a little rest, we both had a craving for something sweet and took a short walk to the general store below the hostel to get some chocolate. This would mark the first time we'd treated ourselves to anything chocolatey since coming to America so we made it count,
and both indulged in a Hershey's Cookies 'n' Creme bar. YUM! We walked down the boardwalk as we ate but it looked as though the entertainers and artists from earlier in the day had all gone elsewhere (plus there were a few 'questionable' folk around) so we headed back to the room.
We're now just chilling (Craig's nursing his sunburn from our brief time on the beach), and are really looking forward to a nice lie in tomorrow morning!
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