I'm glad I've been to L.A. before or I would think that they have the ugliest air in the world. Granted their air usually isn't the best, but thanks to the multiple fires around southern California the air is smoggy and smokey. It's really really bad. Every now and then you can smell the fire, but for the most part the air is just smokey. We flew over part of one of the fires on the plane. It was HUGE!! It took us quite a while to fly through the smoke and you couldn't see anything at all. I can't even begin to imagine what it must look like from the ground. I really haven't done much at all today. The hostel where I'm staying is less than a block from Hollywood Blvd. so I walked around a little bit and went to the Chinese Theater. I need to do some homework that's due Tuesday, so I will probably stay in a do that. I'm pretty tired since I finally just ate for the first time today. I got lucky and found some street parking right outside of the hostel, but it's two hour parking starting at 8. Since there won't be any money in the meter by then I'll have to get up early to move the car. I figure I might as well just leave for the day, so I'm going to get up bright and early and go to Malibu and probably Santa Monica and Venice Beach. I also want to find the Hollywood sign cause I've somehow never seen it. Then Tuesday I will be driving to Monterey, which is what I'm really excited about. Hopefully it goes well...they shut down highway 5 (which is the freeway I'd be using to head north) yesterday for a while thanks to the fires...it's open again, but we'll see. One of the fires is headed towards Magic Mountain, which I'd be passing if I take the 5. Oh well, there are plenty of freeways to get me up north, they just may be a might more congested than normal. Well so much for my early night. I met all 5 of my roommates at the hostel. Four of us really hit it off, so we all decided to go to some clubs. The hostel is in a really good location, only a block from Hollywood Blvd and a block from Sunset Blvd. We went to a few places. We walked around forever looking for the club LAX. Turns out it's too cool to have its name outside. We finally found it. We also went to a comedy show at the hostel. The girls are really nice. One is from Australia, another from New Zealand and the other is from the Netherlands. All of them except for the girl from the Netherlands will be around for a few days, so we might go out again tomorrow night after I see my friend Rachel for a while.