I thought it was going to be LA by the beach!

  Santa Monica, California, United States
Monday, July 20, 2009

Venice Beach

We left Santa Barbara early-ish on Tuesday morning and headed for LA, via a little pitstop at an outlet shopping city called Camarillo. It was similar to an out-of-town shopping centre in the UK, except you had to drive your car from one store to another rather than park up and explore on foot. A few hours later and a few dollars lighter we were back on the road and heading towards what Will thought was to be home for the next week... Venice beach.

Venice Suites

We pulled up to the apartment and were hit by a wall of sound -boom boxes on full blast, people shouting and bands playing on the street. Our apartment was in the middle of Venice beach, in between a tattoo parlour and a dive bar. The apartment building had a strong smell of (medicinal) marijuana and the lock on our room had been recently forced.

Santa Monica

Slightly nervously, we headed out and walked along the beach front promenade. After 15 minutes of walking along Venice beach we pretty much saw everything humanity had to offer. We took a left away from the beach up Washington, and found a nice looking Italian restaurant. We both needed a glass of wine... but unfortunately Luce was looking very youthful and not having her ID meant we had to move on and find a more relaxed establishment.
 

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Luce had played a small trick on Will, and in fact this wasn't to be home for the week. The next morning we moved a couple of miles up the coast to the Shangri La Hotel in Santa Monica (not actually a Shangri-La hotel but a knock-off nigel version!). That day we met up with Will's American cousin Lilli and headed off, via Malibu Canyon, to the Getty Museum. We spent a lovely few hours looking around the buildings, galleries and having lunch.

Will, Lilli & Luce

Despite being a moody Shangri-La, it was a lovely art deco hotel with a very nice pool. Santa Monica has a lovely sandy beach, with a path that goes all the way along the front (to Venice and then by-passes the Marina del Rey as we found out to our cost when exploring and getting lost on bikes on Friday). It also has great shopping along the 3rd street promenade and lots of nice cafes and restaurants.

Lilli, Sara & Cindy

On friday evening we headed out to Mbar in Hollywood to watch Cindy (http://www.myspace.com/cindykalmenson), one of Will's cousins performing in a singer/song writing contest and also met up with some more of his family. It was a fun evening and impromptu arrangements were made for a breakfast the next day at Jimmy and Valerie's house, which was wonderful.

Queen Mary

On Sunday, we headed south to explore Long Beach, Huntington and then on to fulfil one of Will's childhood ambitions... Disneyland! At Long Beach we headed over to see the cruise liner the Queen Mary. She has been docked in Long Beach since 1967 and has been turned into a hotel and maritime museum. Not thinking much of the $25/person fee to have a look round, Lucie managed to charm our way past the doorman for free and we went up and had a look round before having lunch on board.

Main St Disney

We continued our drive south into Huntingdon which is very much Surf City USA. They were holding the surfing US Open there that day and the place was packed, we got caught up in the gnarly traffic, so decided to head off via the scenic route to Disneyland.

Mickey!

Disneyland is amazing, official. We were only there for one afternoon/evening but saw the parade down main street, rode on the Pirates of the Carribean, Thunder Mountain, and the Indiana Jones adventure (plus Will managed to sneak onto the Star Wars inspired Star Tours ride). 

Toad of Toad Hall!

We also managed to see most of the fireworks display and not get caught up in too much traffic coming home. I would definetely recommend going in the evening and the most popular rides had Fastpass tickets available meaning you were allocated a time to ride which drastically reduces the queuing time.

Main St Parade

Monday was our last day in California...Will snuck in a quick trip to the driving range while Luce hit the 3rd st promenade shops one last time and then we both spent the afternoon relaxing by the pool!

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