Today had been affectionatly renamed 'Beach Day' as that was teh location of choice for the day. The hostel rather helpfully offered a free minibus to both Santa Monica and Venice beaches so we had grabbed ourselves a spot on it when we arrived the morning before and at 10am we were waiting in the courtyard with childlike excitement.

Our morning had been pretty uneventful to this point, breakfast was less exciting than in San Diego, mostly because the pancake batter was thick enough to be cake mix, so we filled our bellies with Lucky Charms and bagels. We also made ourselves sandwhiches seeing as we had no idea what food we'd find at the beach.

So, we return to us waiting for the bus, which once we got going didn't really take all that long to get us to Santa Monica. We were the only ones who decided to get out there with the intention of chilling out for a while before walking along the coast to Venice. We had been dropped off at the top of a cliff (?) overlooking the coast and the veiw was amazing, as far as you could see was coastline and the clearest, bluest sky you could ever imagine. It was stunning. Once we got over the view we found a path and bridge that would take us down to the beach level and over the Pacific Coast Highway, there was much bouncing from Noms as we decended the stairs. Soon enough we were standing on real Californian sand and slowly (and quite clumsily) making our way towards the sea.

Walking on sand is not as easy as I remembered it to be, we kept sinking into it so I took to literally walking in Noms' foot steps which made it slightly easier. It took a while but fairly soon we had found ourselves and empty sopt and flopped onto towels to enjoy the sunshine. Noms and Alive ran off to paddle and I settled down with music in our own worlds oblivious to the growning number of people arriving on the beach around us. I once again managed to find I'd spent most of my time dozing after finishing writing postcards, and before we realised it, it was afternoon and we decided it was time for a wander, with Venice being our general direction. We decided to walk along the water until we reached Santa Monica Pier, so we walked a little further down and paddled along as the waves washed in and out. One wave was a little higher than we had expected which was amusing, but mostly only our feet felt the water. The pier wasn't too far away so we reached it pretty quickly, it however took us a while to reach the stairs to it as we had to make our way back through the sand that wanted to both eat and burn our feet. When we reached the broadwalk we found a shower like thing to wash the sand off our feet and then headed up the stairs and onto the pier.

The pier itself was less excitign that how I imagined it to be, it was pretty much like any sea side pier in England, some shops, some rides, people fishing. We did find ti amuseing that there was only tiny sections of the pier that people were allowed to smoke on, a couple of metres by half a metre - seriously. We headed to a shop to grab a drink and then went in search of toilets. The ones we found were mega busy and after being told there were more along the pier we headed off in search of them and to see what else the pier held. There wasn't really that much to excite us so once we discovered the ferris wheel was stupidly expensive to ride we headed towards back towards the broadwalk keeping and eye out for somewhere to sit and eat. As we reached the end of the pier we discovered a covered area with tables and chairs so we sat down and filled our stomachs on our packed lunches that had survived heat and sand free. While sitting there I noticed a building that looked really familiar which I eventually worked out was a hotel used in Criminal Minds - once again my inner geek got a bit excited by this, cue much eye rolling from Noms and Alice of course! When we'd finished we headed back towards the broadwalk and then began our walk to Venice.

As we walked we were passed by a lot of rollerbladers and cyclists which we had considerd as an option but after the craziness of Central Park by bike we, and those around us, were probably safer on foot! The walk didn't take all that long and it was interesting how the surroundings changed as you moved out of Santa Monica (the more upmarket area) and into Venice which was clearly a bohemian and much more relaxed area. By the time we reached Venice broadwalk it was mid afternoon and heaving with people. The walkway was lined with traders selling hand made clothes, acessories and artwork as well as offering henna tatoos and various forms of fortune reading techniques. It was a bit old style Camden mixed with music festival traders. The difference from a little way up the coast was insane. Venice I think was a little much for us at this point in the day with too many people and things to look at so we headed towards the beach again to lie in the sun a little longer before making our way home. The beach here was also packed so we found a half beach half grassy spot and crashed for a little bit. It didn't feel anywahere near as hot as earlier but was still nice to just laze about.

Around half four we all agreed it was probably time to start heading back so we gathered ourselves together and headed towards the bus stop that would take us home. As we walked we discovered a post office and so, after the crazy lack of post boxes in San Diego, we stuffed our postcards in wondering if they or us would get home first. The bus stop was supprisingly easy to find and so, after getting change, we settled to wait for our bus. It was at this point we noticed that Noms and I had caught the sun and were looking a little burnt. We were a little supprised by this seeing as we'd put s***loads of sun cream on throughout the day. We borrowed Alice's aftersun and didn't really think much about it as the bus arrived and we jumped on and spent the journey trying to work out where to get off. As we journey'd home I noticed a location sign for 'Doll; and wondered if it was Dollhouse, but didn't get off to investigate. Eventually we reached the stop we needed to change buses at and hopped off. It was about then that Noms and I started to realise just how sunburnt we were, and it was pretty bad! We also had to get change for the bus (again) so popped into Taco Bell and discovered amazing cracker twisty things that taste of cinnamon, which when bought on their own is apparently wierd from the looks the guy serving me gave me!

Standing in the sun waiting for the bus was painful as our sunburn was really starting to hurt now, thankfully the bus turned up pretty quickly and soon enough we were back at the hostel. It was only then we realised just how bad the sunburn was - eek! The rest of the evening was pretty dull, we showered, felt sorry for ourselves, had some dinner and settled into bed with the TV to entertain ourselves until we all fall asleep!