First thing we needed to do this morning was get a travel plan together for our final weeks in America. It gets really frustrating trying to work out what the plan is all the time, so it's better to just sit down an spend some time getting sorted. Plus it's more expensive just turning up to motels, cheaper to book online beforehand.

Actually, we had plans to go to Yosemite National Park and possibly Lake Tahoe, but because it's still winter, it's risky with bad weather, especially seeing as in Lake Tahoe it's thick with snow!

Once we got that sorted, we made our way to Hermosa Beach. We got talking to some guy on the coach to the Grand Canyon and he recommended it to us.
Really glad he did, because it's a pretty cool place. There's like a waterfront area, with bars and restaurants, then a pier which we walked along, and a lovely really long beach. There were people playing volleyball, sunbathing and out swimming. It is actually pretty warm here at the moment, but only in the sun. As soon as you are in the shade, it's cold.

There seems to be a lot of Irish influence here. All the road signs have Gaelic writing and there's quite a few Irish bars. We had lunch in Patrick Molloy's because it was 2 or 1. Pretty good food as well. But something had to go wrong didn't it. Therese ordered a feta salad wrap, but there was no feta in it. So she sent it back. Nothing is flipping straight forward!

For afters, we had FroYo - frozen yogurt. Can't believe how big it is over here, and there's loads of different chains. They have about 10 different flavours and loads of toppings to choose from, then you pay for the weigh.

Really nice in Hermosa. We had a walk along the side of the beach looking at all the amazing houses overlooking the beach. Would love to live in one of those!

Another tip we were given was to visit Manhattan Beach. Well, that place is much more upmarket and the houses are even nicer. They're all so different from each other too. Incredibly nice. Lots of flashy cars around too, including a brand spanking new Aston Martin.

We were booked into a hostel tonight and didn't fancy going there straight after Manhattan Beach, so on the way we stopped off at Century City AMC Cinema. We booked tickets for Battle:LA, then went to the Apple Store to kill some time on the free Internet. Good job we did as well, because I suddenly realised that I'd booked our motels for the next few nights wrong! I'd got my dates slightly wrong. I jumped on Skype and rang the motels and luckily was able to change a few of the dates and cancel one of them. Farce.

The film was alright by the way, not great.

Time to make our way to tonight's accommodation, Duo Housing. It's our first time in a dorm for a couple of weeks now. We arrived on the street but couldn't find the building at first. That was because it just looked like a big residential house. We parked up and walked through the gate and went into the house. There was no reception so I just asked someone where we check-in and they went and called someone. This young lad came down and checked us in on this PC in the front room. It's a bit odd, but I think it's more like a place that people stay long term. Few English people there too. Probably trying to make it as an actor or something. We got taken to our 6 bed dorm room around the back of the building. It had it's own big separate kitchen, but only two bathrooms between a few 6-bed dorms. There was someone asleep in our room too which is always a pain in the neck. It was about 11pm by that time though, so straight to bed for us too.