I left San Diego to start my 8 night stay at Santa Monica, but first of all I need to negotiate the Amtrak train to LA Union Station and then work out how I get to Santa Monica itself. There are not as many train stations as i thought, but a fair amount of connecting buses put on by Amtrak, but not on this occasion. Luckily for me i can check my bag in which is a result, the rucksack hasn't got any smaller so the thought of trying to find somewhere to put it was a bit of a nightmare. I board the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner for the 2.5hr journey to LA. The views of the coastline do not disappoint, lovely beaches with lots of surfers. the train arrives at LA 40mins late, luckily for me my rucksack made it off the train before it continued up the coast.

Having got all my stuff i head off to find the bus, my god its hot and that is not fun with a massive rucksack and the rest of the stuff I'm lugging with me. Eventually i worked out where to go and got on the bus and a bit of a result the bus was empty which made it much easier for me given i take up about 2 peoples worth of space. We arrive in Santa Monica and its as lovely as i remembered from when we drove through on the tour with mum and dad, and the Hostel is very central and nice, except for the fact its about 100degrees in the room, the only air to be provided by a tiny fan which did literally nothing. Having had an amazing shower i went out to have a look at the food situation. On route i went to the pier which was absolutely mobbed, id forgotten it was Labor day on monday which meant a long weekend for everyone, good job I booked this hostel in good time for once! I also had my first Churro which was very yummy. It would be fair to say my diet since I've arrived in the US hasn't been the most healthy….hey ho. On the way back i found myself on 3rd Street Promenade, now i know why they said Santa Monica was a great shopping destination - this could be dangerous! Having relocated Joes Pizza i had yet more pizza and then went back to the hostel, i was exhausted. In my defence on the pizza thing, its cheap, i may well look like one by the time i come back at this rate.

After an incredibly hot nights sleep i wake up early courtesy of the two girls in my room packing at 5am, making as much noise as humanly possible - yeah cheers for that. Obviously not seasoned hostel stayers - always pack the night before if leaving early unless you want to hack off everyone in your dorm room, oh the joys of dorm rooms. However, the bonus of being awake early meant i was able to have a lovely Skype with Mum, Dan, Laura, Matt and the J man, who looked like he was trying to run at the telly. Am missing my little nephew massively, he'll be 1 by the time i get back…..poor thing has been sent back some really random stuff in the early days of this trip. Before i upset myself thinking about him…….Next…...

I join the hostel hike to a canyon that i can't remember the name of, other than it began with a T which is really helpful and meet some really lovely people which is great. You can generally tell within the first day if your at a hostel with normal sociable people that actually speak to you or if its like the one in Melbourne where no one speaks or they are just plain weird. This was a very good hostel yay!!!

The next day is skate day, the first of the skates in the US and it doesn't disappoint, the track running for miles and miles, awesome. You will recall the previous sand issue at Mission beach, well its even worse in parts here, but i thought sod it, if the inline brigade can give it a go so can i, blades dont seem to have the same sand issue as quads do. There was only 5 heart stopping moments where i hit lots of sand and stopped dead - cue running on skates in sand…..luckily I've had practise at this in southend where i have misjudged corners in the past and ended up running on grass……. i had a fab skate, first stop venice beach where muscle beach is, unfortunately for me again there was a lack on muscles on display, how disappointing i thought, so i headed off to the skate park, had it not have been heaving with skateboardists i might have had a go. Probably best i didn't.

I got back to the hostel and met Hannah another brit from Taunton, we decided it would be a good idea for a nice cold bevy and food given you couldn't stay in the hostel due to the heat. It was at that point we also met our Norwegian friend Sindre, so the 3 of us set off to the pier for food. I had the most incredible king prawns, yum! Then we found the Ale House……….

In the morning we also met another one for the growing group, Lyndon from Manchester. So our little group headed off for a spot of shopping, i should probably call it Skull shopping, Hannah has got a bit of a thing for skulls, so we were in search of the skull shop in Venice. I have to admit i never realised you could such a large array of skull souvenirs, but yes you can. Having wandered around the shops for ages contemplating what i shouldn't be buying it was time to call it a day. A nice day of chilled wandering around with new friends.

Sindre and I were very very excited, today was Universal Studios day! Where i said i was like a 5yr old at the zoo, this was worse. The tour bus was late leaving and then told us we were being picked up half hour earlier than scheduled…….errrrr……i don't think so Mr bus driver! Eventually we arrived at 11am, the LA traffic is horrendous. We set off straight to the movie set tour and joined the trolley bus thing, we passed through Jaws, The subway that had an earthquake, King Kong and Wisteria Lane to name just a few, oh and a flash flood in Mexico. From here it was to the Transformers ride, a car chase 3D experience, bloody brilliant!!! From here it was off to the Mummy roller coaster, cue a huge amount of screaming, a forwards and backwards roller coaster. i think i preferred the Transformers ride. And then my favourite of all, Jurassic Park, a big log flume, we got totally soaked, so we did that 3 times in a row! Luckily for us there were literally no queues, so we made it onto nearly everything in the short time, including the Simpson virtual roller coaster and the Despicable Me 3D ride, that was brilliant. All in all a wicked day!

The day after we jumped in Lyndon's Mustang, sunglasses on, roof down and we were off to Malibu! There wasn't much there to be completely honest (well where we were anyway) so had a quick walk along the beach and then it was off to Long Beach. 2hrs later we were there, paid for parking and left the ticket in the machine!!! Long Beach was lovely it had a nice little pier area with lots of nice restaurants, so we felt it was a good opportunity to refuel before the long drive back. In the evening we were back at the pier for the free gig, and then found an english pub.

A little bit tired today, somewhere along the way this week i decided it was time to take advantage of cheaper Apple products in the US! So having done all my research i was off to the apple shop to pension off the iPad which has been full up for months from all my pictures which has made updating these pretty painful. So the good news for you guys (or not depending on what you think of these) they will be more timely, fingers crossed. So having made said purchase i now had the joyous task of data migration, I hate data migration with a passion and with a pants wifi connection i was in for a long few days……..

But before i had even had a chance to get it out the box there was still more to be done in Santa Monica - more skating! Oh yeah and a nice glass of malbec at the rooftop wine bar…….oh how I've missed you Malbec, first (well 4) glass since i left in Dec :) The next day Sindre got a bike and i was on my skates, we went all the way to Venice and the all the way back past the pier for as far as the cycle trail went, we reckon we did about 10miles, which wasn't bad considering how hot it was, on the way back we found a nice beachside cafe and had the biggest caesar salad you've ever seen and ate the entire lot, good job we had a long skate back. This was the final day in Santa Monica and i was very sad it was coming to an end.

I have had an awesome time in Santa Monica, i have absolutely loved it here and have made some fab newfriends, Hannah & Lyndon i will see you both in the UK and Sindre see you in San Fran! Next up 2 days chilling in Monterey with my technogeek hat on!

laters xxxx