So after the rather interesting train journey we arrived at our hostel which was really central to all the touristy areas of Hollywood, it was actually across from the Chinese Theatre where the oscars are filmed so it was fab but slightly grubby! The first day we got booked on a tour which took us closer to the Hollywood sign (cue lots of photo taking!) and then onto Beverley Hills, Rodeo Drive, Sunset Boulevard and houses of major celebs...of which we only knew a few! Me and Hel were most excited by David Beckham's house which we were the only ones who knew who he was and we were very dissapointed that Robbie's house didn't feature on the tour...those Americans don't know what they are missing! After that we had a wander round, did a little bit of shopping and took some more photos of the handprints/stars that are scattered around Hollywood. We were very dissapointed not to see any celebs but we may have embarrassed ourselves anyway! The next day we headed to Santa Monica beach and Venice beach. A lovely lady helped us master the complicated three buses that it took to get us to Santa Monica beach and we did also meet a rather strange man who recognised we were foreign by our 'white glow' as he called it! He was friendly and normal until he offered us a Gigilo service for the night...seriously! However the bus with the crazy man was well worth it. Santa Monica beach was stunning but it had severe consequences for us as the wind deceived us...oh how we wished we'd put more suncream on! We paid for it in later days as you will be shortly be hearing about! After sunning ourselves on the beach we walked to the pier and got dinner and sat and listened to a really good musician....chilling time was good after the bustle of Hollywood! Next we moved on to Venice beach which had a different, more hippish feel to it (the air was green with the smoke of all the pot hovering around!) and it was here that a man stopped us for a chat to say that he had seen us on a bus 6 hours previously and wanted to see how we were...he commented that he would have loved to have spoken to us on the bus but that we were already in conversation with someone else...obviously we are a very interesting tourist attraction ourselves! So...Venice beach was also gorgeous and we sat and watched the sun set and then ran to find a bus as a huge amount of homeless people were camping out for the night on the beach, very sad. It was here that we met another man at a bus stop who we chatted to for about an hour as we waited. He was a typical version of a Californian man, long hair, great tan! He was really helpful and we were very surprised to find out that he was 50...they age well over here! Onto to Vegas......!! xxx