Los Angeles, city of Angels...

As I mentioned I went on a trip to Los Angeles last weekend and I thought that would deserve a separate post. I had a great time and we saw many things like; the walk of fame, Hollywood sign, charmed house and Venice Beach…

Selfies with Martyna :) I will link her blog below

On Friday I had to work till 5.30pm and I was meeting the other girls around 7.15pm at the Safeway (supermarket) in Redwood city. It was a little bit stressful, because I had to take a train at 6.33pm to get there, but it would take me another 30 minutes to get to that train station. Luckily I made it and we met at Safeway, where I got something to eat, because I didn’t have time to eat dinner before I left. After we all got some snacks and drinks for on the way, we got in the car and started the 5 hour drive to Los Angeles.

We got to the hostel at 2.00 am and couldn’t find parking, so we parked at a parking lot behind the hostel and asked them. We couldn’t park there because it would be towed, so we had to park somewhere else, but they didn’t know where. That was kind of weird, I would think people working at a hostel would at least have a suggestion of where their guests can park. They said there wasn’t anything close, well we found something like 2 minutes away in a parking garage, so that was nice. It wasn’t too expensive either, $20, for the night, and we split it by 5, so not too bad at all. The location of the hostel was great. If you stepped out the door you where on the walk of fame! It was also clean, and it was very cheap, I will post a link of the bottom of this article. We took a 6 person dorm-room, and it was 5 of us, we didn’t get a roommate so we had the whole room to ourselves, which was really nice.

The next morning we set an alarm at 9.00am, so we could leave at 10.00am. We had some breakfast and then we walked over part of the walk of fame. We didn’t do everything because we didn’t have that much time and didn’t want to spend all our time on one thing. We did one side, and crossed the street and did the other side till we were back at the hostel. After that we wanted to see the Hollywood sign.  Across the street from the hostel was a mall where you could see it, so we went there, but we thought we should be able to get closer. One of the girls found an address where the view should be good, but it was a little disappointing, so we tried to find a better place. We decided to just drive up and ask some people, and we found the best view ever. It was in a residential area with a lot of small streets, so it was difficult to park, but we managed. Imagine living in one of those houses where you can see the Hollywood sign up close just by looking out of your window!

We also went to the ‘Charmed’ house which was so cool! I think I mentioned in one of my other articles how obsessed I used to be with the tv show ‘Charmed’, well I finally saw the house. It was on a normal street, but I found the address online so we went there. The whole street had houses in the same style, but it was also a little bit creepy. Some of the houses where really old and looked just like haunted houses haha! But the house from the tv show really looked like I expected it to, another thing to cross off my list.

 This took us pretty much the whole day and after the ‘Charmed’ house it started to get dark, so we decided to go back to the hostel and go shopping. We all wanted to get different things, so we split up and where going to meet at 8.00pm at the Hard Rock Café. I wanted to get some shot glasses, because I want to get one from every place I visit, and I saw some nice pants when we were in the mall earlier that day.  It was crazy how expensive some of the gift shops where, so we decided to look around and then at the end decide where to buy. That was a good idea, because I found the shot glasses for $3 each, instead of $6, and the pants where $25 in the gift shops, but I found the 2 for $21, so I got two haha, I also bought some postcards, to put on my wall. We met at the Hard Rock Cafe at 8.00pm, and had to wait for a table for 20 minutes. Then we got a table in front of the door, which was really cold, so we moved. We were really hungry because we didn’t eat any lunch, and it took forever before the food came out. I ordered I huge burger, and I still can’t believe I finished the whole plate! After that we went back to the hostel and went to bed quite early, because the next morning we would have another early start.

The next morning we got up early and left around 8.00am, we had some breakfast and then we drove to Venice Beach. We took a lot of pictures and we went to the Santa Monica Pier, where we had something to eat. After about 2/3 hours we walked back to the car, but we weren't sure where we had parked it... Luckily we found it and off we went to the next beach. Malibu! It was really hard to park, but eventually we found a spot and we hang out on the beach. We were at a lagoon and the beach wasn't that nice, but we decided to just hang out there for an hour or so before starting the drive back. We left around 3.00/4.00pm and had a six hour drive ahead of us, so it was nice to spend some time on the beach before sitting in the car that long.

We got back in Redwood City at 10.00pm, and we planned on taking the Caltrain. Until we realized the last Caltrain left at 9.00pm. So we called the girl who drove us, but she couldn't pick us op, so we were kind of stuck there. We already bought a ticket, so that was a waste of money, luckily we found a bus, but it would take us about 3 hours to get home from there. We took a bus at 11.00pm, which took us to Milbrae, it took almost an hour. Then we needed to take a BART (kind of a train), and we had only 10 minutes to get there form the bus stop. If we missed it we had a problem, because it was the last one for the night. Luckily we made it on time and then we had to take a MUNI (public transport in SF) to get home. Eventually I was home at 1.30am and I checked my email before going to bed, to find an email from my host dad asking if I could start 30 minutes earlier the next morning... Yes, sure no problem, back to reality ;)

I had an amazing weekend and am glad I went to LA again, and be able to see some more of the city. Last time I was there for only one day, so we didn't have a lot of time. We did a celebrity houses tour, which I wouldn't recommend if you don't have a lot of time. It takes 2 hours and you just sit in a Van, and by the end you have tons of pictures, but don't know which house belongs to which celebrity haha!

Sorry, this got pretty long, I hope you enjoyed reading it. If you could go to LA what would be the number #1 thing you want to see/do?

Hollywood Youth Hostel

Martyna's blog: Cinderella's Midnight