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July 13th 2009

Published: July 13th 2009

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Matt and Dianna Hoskins

Hollywood

The famous sign

Well, after an emotional farewell, we found ourselves on the plane headed for Los Angeles on Monday 15 June 2009.

We were met with amazing surprises at the airport - not only Dianna's nephew George dressed as Batman and her Brother in Law dressed as Superman but also Matt's best friend Dean had managed to get an upgrade for us through his Dad. We flew 'World Traveller' which was brilliant! Big seats, foot rests, TV's on the back of the seats, amazing food and complimentary drinks throughout the flight. We definitely did not feel like we were backpacking on a budget!!

A BIG thank you to Dean and his Dad for the upgrade and thank you to Mum, John, Claire, Sharon, Mark, Karla and George for coming to the airport to see us off.

We landed in Los Angeles around lunchtime on Monday 15 June and it took a while to get our bearings. Once we knew what was what, we jumped on a bus and headed to our motel. We had pre-booked the first 2 nights at a place near the airport called the Royal Century at LAX. It was a nice motel, basic but clean and

Downtown Hollywood

One of the shopping centres

it gave us a chance to rest, relax and decide on a plan.

As we were spending 12 weeks in the USA and flying in and out of Los Angeles we decided to just spend a few days there and then move on - seeing as we would be going back there to fly out. We spent 2 nights in the Royal Century and then booked into the Sea Rock Inn for 3 nights, another cheap motel in Inglewood.

From there, we spent a day in Hollywood - saw the famous 'Hollywood Sign' and walked in the Hills - saw some AMAZING houses. We also went to Gauman's Chinese Theatre and saw the hand and foot prints, saw the stars on the the Walk of Fame, went to the Kodak Theatre (where the Oscars take place), walked down Sunset Boulevard and went in the LA Ink Tattoo shop.

Dianna is a huge fan of the LA Ink and Miami Ink TV shows and saw Kat Von D (who runs the LA Ink shop) in the flesh inside the shop which she was very excited about. They were filming for the show at the time and when we

Kodak Theatre

went inside we were told that we were not allowed to look directly at the cameras - we popped in for a quick look around which was great.

The next day, we decided to spend a day at the beach and decided to head to Manhattan beach. The weather was OK, overcast but warm. We jumped on a bus and within 10 minutes we were there. As soon as we got there and looked out to sea, we could see something in the water amongst the surfers. It took us a second to realise that there were dolphins swimming with the surfers! It was amazing, seeing them jump and splash about so close to the shore. We walked along the beach and along the pier and then Matt decided to bury Dianna in the sand. Once he had done that, we played Frisbee, grabbed a drink and then headed back to the motel on the bus. We didn't realise how burnt we were until we got back. As the evening drew on, our skin got hotter and pinker!

After 5 days in Los Angeles we decided we didn't want to do too much or see too much as