Our bus to LA wasn't until 1pm so we didn't have to rush this morning (for once!). We got to the Greyhound station in time after a longwinded bus journey - we had to change buses at the airport since it was Saturday and the direct ones only run on weekdays. At the station Dave went off to buy supplies for the journey and I phoned my parents for a catch up.

We arrived back in LA after a straight forward, direct bus. The hostel we were staying at had instructions on their website that told us to get a taxi to Union Station and then take the bus to the airport and then ring them for their free shuttle to the hostel (and they would reimburse our taxi and bus fares!). So that's what we did, although the taxi driver wanted to take us all the way to the airport when we told him where we were going. We had to keep stressing that we were getting a FREE bus from the station to the airport, so we weren't going to pay him to take us!

The bus driver on the airport bus was a really nice lady called Angela. It made a nice change to have a happy, friendly bus driver as they're normally all miserable. Once we got to the airport we phoned the hostel for our free shuttle, which came in about 10 minutes. We had a nice chat to the shuttle driver on the way, mainly about her recent mouth surgery, and her inbred dogs...

When we got to the hostel we were impressed straight away, it was a lot different to the places we normally stay. For starters, it wasn't really a hostel, it's a hotel with a few dorm rooms inside. So along with the backpackers, there are families and couples staying in the much nicer suites! But the dorm beds were a bargainous $20 a night which is the cheapest we've paid so far. We were given our free vouchers for champagne and told about all the free stuff - food, cake, popcorn, cookies, breakfast! We went to the bar for our free champagne and ended up staying there til about 10pm drinking the $2 drinks on offer and eating the free food and cake. When we checked in, we got a safety deposit box to put valuables in. The boxes are behind reception so to get into it you have to take your key and sign your card to say you've been into it. Within the first hour I had to open mine twice, once to get my ID for the bar and then again to get our receipts out of my purse so we could get our refund for the taxi and bus. The guy at reception was a bit sick of me, but laughed everytime I asked to get into my box. I mentioned that it had been my birthday two days before and then later when they brought out the cake for everyone to eat it had on the top in icing 'LORA HAPPY BIRTHDAY'. I think we're going to like it here....