We got more bounce in California than all yours combined

Sketchy, sketchy, sketchy was the initial impression of LA, and although they say your first impression is more often than not your lasting impression, I was determined to not let this be the case.  To be fair, choosing to arrive after dark via Greyhound, which is situated on the notorious Skid Row, was not our best idea.  We were all a little bit scared for life after a bus where we were the only white people on the bus, all being given death stares, followed by a subway ride ending in witnessing a girl stealing an attacked homeless man’s last $3.  Banana Bungalow Hostel was as much of a relief to see than if my mum had turned the corner at that point, and our moods were instantly lifted as we were given a cool private room, and we saw the bunches of people laughing and drinking in the open courtyard where all the rooms face on to.  Although we were being heavily persuaded to throw in $20 and join the party, we resisted and after catching up with some others we knew staying in the same hostel, decided to head for a full day at Universal Studios the next day.

This was probably my favourite tourist attraction to date, and upon realising the price was almost identical to that of Seaworld, I would say it is such incredible value for money and would absolutely recommend it to anyone in the LA area.  The studio tour was unbelievable, we toured the film sets and studios, experienced an 8.7 scale earthquake, a flash flood, a shark fly up out of the water inches from me, a simulation of King Kong attacking the car, car chase and explosion choreography plus so much more.  Basically, it was just fucking cool.  The rides were not your average rollercoasters and often included clever simulations and effects, my personal highlight unexpectedly being the Simpsons ride.

At this point we took three days out of LA to do a tour to Vegas and the Grand Canyon which I've written about on another blog post.

Our hostel put on a fantastic city tour of Hollywood for cheapy cheap, with a little excitable man in a diamonte Hollywood hat taking us round all the big touristy spots; Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, Sunset Boulevard, the Hollywood sign, the Chinese and Dolby theaters, and finally along Hollywood Boulevard.  We all got far too excitable putting our hands and feet in the stars’ seeing who we fitted; mine fitted Emma Watson creepily perfectly whilst Steph’s fitted Rupert Grint (lol).  A couple of men were trying to grab our attention, but being sceptical as the majority of men who try and speak to you in Hollywood are wannabe rapstars trying to sell you ‘de best reggae tunes a white ass girl like you ever gon’ hear’, we tried to fob them off and run away.  Turns out they were giving out free tickets for the audience of TV shows being filmed that day.  The only one which fit with our schedule was the Late show, not that we’d ever watched it but we thought meh fuck it why not.

We were directed to the front row of the audience and given waiver forms to sign, unlike the rest of the 120 strong audience.  Turns out we were being filmed the entire time watching the show being filmed for our reactions, I’m yet to look it up on iPlayer but I’m sure my burnt shoulders, unbrushed hair and unsuitably short shorts will look fantastic on American TV.  However it was a surprising amount of fun, with a hilarious host, a very different experience from anything I’ve done before, and to top it off Ice-T gave us a free copy of his book.  Score.

Unfortunately that night we said goodbye to Banana Bungalow which was so sad, and began to drag our suitcases the four blocks to our bus to Santa Monica.  At a junction we hear someone in a car yell ‘STEPH!’… turns out Steph’s friend from back home spotted us, recognised her and pulled over.  Long story short, we squashed five cases, four backpacks and five people into the tiniest car in life, drove an hour to Santa Monica and ditched our cases to join the bar crawl leaving the hostel as we arrived.

The night out was sooo much fun, including climbing dinosaur-scale hedges, awkward karaoke and meeting Beth Ditto, and with a disgusting hangover and the sun shining we spent the day lounging on the beach and exploring the pier and town.  I took to Santa Monica instantly and loved the place, it had a similar vibe to San Diego, and our hostel had a sort of garden in the centre with sunlounger beds, palm trees and loads of beanbags, with a barbeque in the corner where everyone sunbathed and chatted.  That evening a free barbeque and free beers meant we were full, happy, and drunk yet again, we added Ned to our group to become a six, and got roped into attending the most horrific comedy show to exist in life.  Not willing to stretch our budgets to another night out, we played largely entertaining rounds of games and ended up not in bed until gone 3 yet again.

Our final day in LA consisted of brunch and bike rides along the California coast to Venice Beach.  Charlie rented rollerblades which made me unbelievably jealous, although ended up clinging onto the back of Ned’s bike half of the way; not easy to keep up with five cyclists!  Venice Beach is too cool and weird, with a mix of basketballers, quirky shops, street performers and freakshows (literally saw a turtle with two heads).  After picking up some souvenirs we grabbed the last bits of sunshine sunbathing on the gorgeous beach appreciating life, before leaving ourselves five minutes to get back to the store and pelting back down the coast.  I actually enjoyed going as fast as I could rather than being completely leisurely… not sure others who were a little stressed out felt the same though.

Yet another barbeque supplied our final supper, before Ned joined us on the hour long trip to the coach station like a proud parent waving his children goodbye.  On the bus I also made best friends with a Chinese lady wearing a medical mask who did nothing but smile and laugh at me as numerous passengers for some reason kept tripping over and falling right on to me.  For New Girl fans, think the scene where Nick meets the Chinese man in the park.  THAT EXACTLY.  She’s my favourite person in the world and shouted ‘YOU ALL MAKE ME VERY VERY HAPPY PEACE AND LOVE’ as she hobbled off the bus.  Love you Los Angeles you weird and wonderful place!