A week in L.A

We arrived in L.A on a monday afternoon, after realising that Dan had left his International Licence back in New Zealand we sat in the airport for a good few hours trying to sort out our U.S sim cards and then trying to get hold of our rental company to ask for advise on what we should do.
In the end we decided to catch the shuttle to our rental car company with all our luggage and try and sort it out there. It turns out you don't actually need an International Licence to drive in L.A and we could get our car just fine, phew! A bit of a stressful start.
Dan picked up the driving on the opposite side of then road pretty quickly, thank god! I would defiantly recommend getting a rental car if you are visiting L.A, the roads are not that scary and it's just so much easier to get around this very spread out city.

We stayed in a place we found on Air BnB in West Hollywood, quite close to the Hollywood walk of fame, it was a cool studio apartment, really clean and safe! We decided to take a drive down Hollywood Boulevard and find somewhere for dinner. We ended up going to a Mexican restaurant called Loteria. 

The serving sizes are epic and food is really cheap, until you add on tax and tips! We had our first tipping experience, lucky for my tipping app we managed to get through the whole trip without offending anyone.

The next day we walked the Runyon Canyon, I was reading reviews about how the canyon is super busy with lots of aspiring actresses exercising in skimpy workout gear but when we arrived there were so few people we were wondering if we were in the right place. It turns out that California is having a heat wave and not many people attempt the Canyon in near 40 degree temperatures!  The walk itself is really easy, it has nothing on the Rapaki track in Christchurch, but the heat is the real killer. 

I have consumed so much Ice coffee the last week, too hot for regular coffee. A lot of the time we were going into Starbucks to use the wifi, not once did they get my name right. I got Tess and Kate a few times haha.

We went to the farmers market in the Grove Shopping Centre. The markets are really different to the markets in New Zealand, they are fixed stores that are open all week. It was cool to see a different type of market but we were a little disappointed. The Grove shopping centre however was amazing! All outdoors with lots of shops. Nordstroms was having a sale, if my luggage weight wasn't an issue I would be very poor right now!

One of my favourite places to eat in L.A was Urth Caffe, we went to the one in West Hollywood twice and tried but failed to find the one in Santa Monica. The drinks here are huge!! while we were sitting outside Kim Kardashian drove past in her giant black Range Rover. We didn't see but the people next to us did. Thats as close as we got to celebrity spotting. 

Disneyland was so so much fun! We managed to stay for around 10 hours until it closed at midnight. It was a super hot day so we arrived around 2pm, Im so happy we arrived later because even then it was mid 30 degrees with little shelter from the sun so we basically melted until the sun went down about 8pm.

We didn't manage to fit in any of the other parks such as Universal Studios, we will save that for next time :) 

I didn't get many photos at disneyland but dan got some really cool videos on the Go Pro Camera! 

The next day we set off for Venice Beach, both Dan and I really liked the Venice Beach and Santa Monica areas, we stayed in another place we found on Air BnB. 

Venice has a really cool street called Abbot Kinney, its quite hipster with boutique shops and really nice cafes and restaurants. we arrived on a Friday afternoon and ventured down to find that it was food truck Friday and the street was lined with as many as 50 food trucks offering up all sorts of different food, We went for Mexican Burritos which were delicious! Apparently they do the food truck friday on the first friday of every month. 

One of the food trucks somehow managed to catch on fire and caused quite a scene with police and fire engines! it was luckily contained but looked pretty scary! There are lots of fires in California and there seems to always be sirens in the distance. 

We went for dinner at the very popular Gjelina restaurant on Abbott Kinney where they have giant tables that everyone sits at. It was impossible to get any photos inside because of the low lighting but was a really cool restaurant.

After dinner we stumbled to another restaurant for cocktails in the courtyard, I cant remember what this place was called unfortunately.. 

The Muscle beach gym

Candy Store!

Dan got to see Tesla car.

Venice Boardwalk is crazy and very crowded, we walked down the boardwalk once but mostly avoided it as it was filled with crappy souvenirs, homeless people and freak shows. We grabbed some bikes and biked all the way to Santa Monica. Its not actually that far, about 15 minutes. The Santa Monica pier is quite cool with the rides but once again very touristy. We headed into the city for a look around and some shopping! Santa Monica had the best shopping in my opinion and I could have spent all day looking in the shops, poor Dan. I was very restrained until it came to Sephora... that place is heaven.

We are now sitting at LAX waiting to board a flight to San Francisco and then on to London. We are only spending a night in London before we head off to Italy for a week, first stop Venice! 

See you soon Italy! xx