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Saying goodbye to Texas meant the start of my road trip with Dan, and my adventure taking on a whole new dimension. I don't recall ever having to fend for myself in the USA before, because I usually stay with friends or family, so this trip was going to be interesting.
We started out with 3 nights in LA. The first night was pretty chilled - a spot of dinner at the dinner next to our hotel and a peppermint tea at the Starbucks over the road, followed by an early night to recover from flights and time differences (obviously Dan's jet lag was much worse than mine as he'd flown from the UK via Germany. I just hopped across a few states).
Our first day in LA was similarly chilled out. After picking up our rental car - a shiny silver Nissan Sedona, we came to call "Senna" as it was always trying to go faster than it should... - we headed to Venice Beach. Quick note on rental cars here, collecting the car was a but strange. Instead of being given the keys to a specific car at the desk you are sent out to a lot where you basically pick which ever car your would like in the class you have hired. No-one does a walk around with you either so try to remember to do that yourself (we forgot but we have cover for everything under the sun so should be ok).
Venice Beach was interesting to say the least. My first impression was that it was a lovely sandy beach with a few shops around - perfect for relaxing for a bit. It wasn't until we had a walk along the shops that we noticed all the interesting characters around. It was actually depressing to see the amount of homeless people there. You feel absolutely helpless because you want to do something for every single one of them but you can't.
The shops seemed to fall into one of either a cheap food store, souvenir store, convenience store or a "Green Doctor" - need to be diagnosed so you can buy medical marijuana? That's where you go, apparently...
Needless to say, after a bit of a walk around we hot footed it out of Venice Beach. Our next stop was Santa Monica. The contrast was striking. Santa Monica is obviously a far more affluent place. The beach here was beautiful too and we spent the afternoon lazing on it, enjoying the view of the ocean and Santa Monica Pier.
Our hotel that night was the Crowne Plaza. We guessed that this would be the best hotel of our trip, and would recommend it to anyone visiting LA. The beds were really comfy, the pillows were so brilliant I'm going to buy some, and the room was a nice size and nicely lit. A brilliant place to call home for a couple of days.
We ate in the hotel restaurant that night and managed to score some free calamari because the waitress messed up our order. Apparently "buffalo wings" sounds like "calamari"... Anyway, free food is always a result in my book!
PHRASES COINED TODAY: "You want <insert anything>? $5": Use whenever someone wants you to do something or use something that you own.
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