We arrived in LAX in the afternoon. We went straight to our hostel on Hollywood Boulevard. It was in the perfect location for seeing Hollywood. Hollywood is just as you would imagine, totally over the top american! We spent a few days there and that was all we really needed to see the sights. We did the walk of Fame, visited all the celebrity homes in Beverly Hills and Belair. Saw so many, I cant remember which is which in all my photos! We also visited Rodeo Drive where all the posh shops are. Of course we had the token photos taken with the infamous Hollywood sign! We spent one day at Universal Studios. That was a great day out. We did all the shows and rides. My favourite was definitely the new Simpsons ride, it was great fun. The Mummy ride was fun too and we got soaked on the Jurassic Park one. We stupidly went on it as the park was closing and it was dark and had to walk around soaking wet. We went for dinner and got some really funny looks, of course with it being LA everyone else was all dressed up to perfection! Still it was a really good day out. We also got to see all the studios and some of the sets used on tv and in the movies. We got to see Wisteria Lane where Desperate Housewives is filmed. That was pretty exciting.

One day we ventured out on the bus to Santa Monica. I´m sure we stuck out as tourists like a sore thumb. It took quite a while but we eventually got there. We had a look around the shops the went out onto the pier. There were some fairground rides and amusements. The beach was absolutely packed. On the way back to Hollywood we stopped off for my very first Taco Bell. It wasn´t bad.

We were in Hollywood so made sure to look out for celebrities at all times. We saw a few. The first one was a girl form the cast of High School Musical. She was handing out lunchboxes and getting people to help her pack shopping bags. We packed a back and were first in line for a photo with her when she got taken away. Typical. Anyway one night we got onto a popular American tv show, Live with Jimmy Kimmel. We queued up in standby in case some of the audience didn´t show up. Luckilly for us they didn´t so we got in. The host was reall funny and interviewed an actor in the upcoming film Tropic Thunder. There was also a band called Tyga in who performed. It was great. All we had to do was cheer when indicated to and enjoy the show.

After a few days in Hollywood we moved to a different part of LA. Well.... we were actually forced to. We had planned to get the bus to San Diego but the hostels wouldn´t allow us to book in advance. Then when we did try to book they had no room. All hostels in San Diego were completely booked up. There was no space in the one we had been staying in so we had to leave it. All the hostels in Hollywood, Santa Monica and Venice Beach were all booked out too. It was very stressful but eventually we found beds in a hostel by the airport. In fact it worked out quite well. It was a really nice hostel, it had a pool and a nice dorm, free breakfast, dinner and tea and cookies in the afternoon. We also made some friends here. As it was in a kind of dodgy area we stayed in in the evenings. Luckilly there was a heated pool so made use of that. We still manged to get a bus out to Venice Beach for the day from there. It was a crazy place. It was really lively with loads going on. Lots of music and street performers. We even went into a freak show. There was a 2 headed snake, a cyclops pig and a dog with 5 legs! Strange! We took a wonder over to muscle beach. It was full of posers as could be expected.

After a few more days in LA we were ready to leave. It had been fun and I enjoyed seeing all the sights but as I have been told before you really only need a few days in LA. Next we were off to San Diego.