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We were going to go to a theme park today but had to change our plans because it's only open on weekends at the moment. So, instead we decided to get a bit more LA sightseeing done in the nice sunshine.
As the Oscars have now finished, all the stage etc has been moved from the road and outside the Kodak Theatre etc, so we went down to see it all properly. Took a look at the Chinese Theatre and all the Hollywood actor handprints.
We picked up some fruit from a store called Fresh n Easy - it's actually Tesco's attempt at cracking America. We got some free samples of soup with a chunk of toast in. Don't need any lunch now, sorted.
We picked up a movie stars homes map and set out on a self guided tour to save $40 each. What a shambles the map was. Load of rubbish. Nothing ties up. So, we just decided to drive around the streets of Beverly Hills ourselves. The houses around there are unbelievable! They're incredibly nice. They're huge and they're all different styles. We drove around for a while, getting more and more jealous! There were loads of nice cars driving around as well. This is the flashy side of LA.
After checking out which houses we'd like to buy, we went down to get a picture at the Beverly Hills sign, then drove down to Rodeo Drive. There's plenty of expensive shops there like Louis Vuitton and Dior etc, and the area is really nice and compact with lower-rise buildings. All we could afford was a Starbucks coffee. That was our treat rather than going into Gucci or something...
There was another really nice old-style street with big name shops like Tiffany too. And we saw some nice cars including a Bentley.
We couldn't afford the shopping on Rodeo Drive, so we took a drive to Universal City Walk. We've been to the one in Orlando, which is really good, so thought we'd go to this one. We forgot that they charge for flipping parking at $10 (£6.50), but then the attendant told us that if we're not staying long that it'd be cheaper to go to the valet. So we went to the valet. Check us out, flashy or what. But then once we'd left our car with the valet we read our ticket that said we had to eat at certain restaurants! We had a look at a few but they were a fortune. We went to look at the menu in Hard Rock to see if they had any deals and the woman noticed my valet card and stamped it for us...as soon as she did that, we walked out to go find the cheap food court! We went to a salad place, which was really nice and we got free samples of soup! I love these free samples.
The other thing was that we had to be out within an hour to get the cheapest Valet rate at $2 (£1.40). We went to the valet and watched the guy run across from the valet booth to pick up our car. What's the point in that? These valet services are everywhere though, so a lot of people must use it.
We like City Walk though, it's really cool down there. It's all big flashy lights, restaurants, bars, sweet treat shops etc and has a really good atmosphere.
Then we started our road trip down to San Diego. The motorways are ridiculous. At one point, there were 8 lanes on each side of the road! Glad we have the Sat Nav though, makes it all much easier, although it's still confusing with that at times. There's a lot of those 2+ passenger lanes too, so we missed a bit of traffic using those.
As we got closer to San Diego, we got a nice night view of the San Diego city skyline. We didn't realise it's as big as what it is.
We got to our hostel but had to circle the block for a while as there was nowhere to park. I dropped Therese so she could go in and find out where the parking lot is. It then turned out that there was no parking even though it said on the website there was. Really annoying. So we had to drive a few blocks up the road to find free street parking, but we'd have to move the car at 7am! Joke.
Some of the roads are one way and some are normal and it's really confusing. So confusing that I started driving up a one-way until I saw a car coming towards me! I had to swing the car really quickly back on to the road I was on, then was driving on the wrong side of that road...we managed to get out of that situation ok.
And we found a space after driving around for a bit anyway.
I complained at check-in about the parking but they just said that the website I booked through had the wrong details.
Anyway, we got to our room which is a private double and is the same price as staying in a dorm which is good. It's a YHA (HI they call it in USA) as well, but it's not as clean as the ones we were in in NZ.
We're staying in the Gaslamp Quarter which is really cool and a lot nicer than I expected. There's lots of nice looking restaurants and some really busy bars. It's a tuesday as well and it's really busy - Fat Tuesday! And there's gas street lamps as well. Only problem is, our hostel is in the middle of all the action so we can hear it all in our room. Fortunately, we're so tired, it really won't matter!
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