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Published: September 9th 2011
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So today we decided that as we got a bit burnt at the beach yesterday, we would avoid lying around in the sun and go shopping (or window shopping anyway) in Santa Monica.
We got up at around 8:30 (pretty late for us these days!), got dressed and went down for our usual waffles for breakfast. We came back up to the room to check on the netbook where we would need to get off on the bus to get to Santa Monica's Third Street (a fairly well known place around here to go shopping - it's basicaly a huge pedestrianised high street full of different kinds of shops. Luckily, the stop was the same one as the pier, it was just around the corner, so we already kind of knew where we were going. We got our stuff together and caught the good ol' 733 down to Santa Monica.
Once there, we walked around the corner and found a large shopping prescinct full of shops that we definitely could not afford (Louis Vuitton, Bloomingdale, Tiffanys, etc), so we swiftly moved through here and out onto the promenade where the much more affordable shops were! We had a browse
around a few of the clothes shops, such as H and M and Forever 21 (the clothes prices here are basically the same in dollars as what they are in pounds in the UK, so everything is a lot cheaper!), but decided that we wouldn't buy anything as we would then have to carry it around for the rest of our travels. We instead said that we may buy some later on, when we're in New York or something.
Craig wanted to have a look in some of the skate shoe shops as he has been wanting some new DC's for a while, so we had a look round, but again he will probably wait until later on to get them. We went in a toy shop called 'Puzzle Zoo' to have a look around, during which Craig picked up a foam sword and was attempting to attack Emma, when this guy (who we think had a bit of a screw loose) grabbed a wooden gun and wanted to start some kind of battle (which would have clearly been unfair as gun>sword). He then proceeded to hide around a corner military-style and jumped out on one of the employees,
who looked slightly bemused and gave him a solemn/dismissive shake of the head before walking off.
We spotted a "T. J. Maxx" - which is exactly the same as T. K. Maxx, they just use a different letter for some reason - and had a look inside. They were giving away free cupcakes, which looked delicious so Emma grabbed one (Craig wasn't too sure about all of the buttercream, as his tummy has been feeling a bit funny recently, probably due to the breakfasts here) and we took a couple of pictures before eating it. It was just as tasty as it looked!
By this point it was around 12:30, and we had arranged with Emma's family to go on Skype at around 1:00, so we went over to a McDonald's over by the bus stop to use their free wifi. Emma had a little chat with her mom on there (after a while of trying to sign to her that she needed to turn up the volume on the netbook to hear her!) and we got a couple of McDoubles and fries to split for our dinner while we were there.
We had noticed that one
of the Cinemas on the street was still showing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two, which we STILL hadn't seen (much to Emma's frustration, as she loves Harry Potter, plus the fact that we had watched all of the Harry Potter films in a row just before we left the UK) so we decided that we would go and finally watch it! We went in to check on the ticket prices ($9.75: fairly reasonable but a bit steep I guess) and the show times, and the next showing was at 3:00pm. We had a bit of time to kill so we walked around the shops a bit more, at one point being handed a free can of 'Sierra Mist' from a stall, where people could play one round of a crazy golf course and try and get a hole in one.
We sat on some benches for a little while, and at about 2:30, we went back over the cinema to buy our tickets, and went to sit in the theatre room. At first, we were the only people in there, but by the time the film started, there were six other people that had turned up
(including one clearly fanatical girl who kept clapping and cheering at certain moments in the film :S). The film was amazing, as expected (although Craig didn't seem as impressed as Emma), and by the time we got out it was around 5:30pm. We got back onto the 733 (which was packed today for some reason!) and went back to the hostel.
We weren't really hungry yet, so Craig watched an episode of 'Falling Skies' on the netbook, whilst Emma read a bit more of her book. By about 7:00, we were getting a little hungry so we went down for some rice and vegetables. Unfortunately, they didn't have any ketchup left (which we used last time to give it a bit of flavour) so Emma tried to substitute with a bit of salsa sauce, a bit of soy sauce to take off the edge of the chilli's, and a bit of bbq sauce to give it a bit more flavour. This resulted in it tasting DISGUSTING so she didn't really eat much (which she blamed on the soy sauce tasting horrible). Craig was more sensible and put a bit of ranch and a bit of bbq, which was lovely.
We came back up to the room, and Craig watched a further episode of 'Falling Skies' and Emma read some more of her book (she needs to try and finish it by the time we leave). Emma then had the netbook back to carry on the theme for the day as she had finally got her welcome email for the beta version of 'Pottermore', so she geeked it up on there for a couple of hours whilst Craig fell asleep, and we were both asleep by around 10:30.
We're not too sure about what to do tomorrow, as our burns haven't quite healed yet, so we're dubious about sunbathing again, but I'm sure we'll find something to occupy our time!
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