Day 1, Santa Monica.

Compared to every other tiny little wooden hanmmock-filled place in Central America, the massive H.I. Santa Monica came as something of a suprise - it was HUGE. Like a hotel. We arrived at about 10pm, and went to bed in what seemed to be the most boring dorm imaginable - two couples fast asleep and one other couple who seemed pretty intent on not sleeping. (It quickly became apparent though, when the guy dropped off into a land of thundering snores, that we would have preferred it if he had spent the night whispering sweet nothings to his girlfriend). We went down to breakfast in the morning and when we got in it turned out that one of the sleeping couples in the dorm was not only Welsh, but actually from Swansea Uni, and that Ben, the guy, had in fact spent 3 years in Chris's history lectures. We moaned for a while about the Argentinian snoring and got on right away, so we organised a night out for that night.

After this little encounter we headed straight to 3rd street, Santa Monica, where we had been told we could find people from all stretches of life - magicians, dancers, fortune tellers, singers, etc. etc. What we actaully found when we got there (amongst all these other things) was SHOPS. Real, actual, recognisable shops, with things that you might actaully want to buy inside them. We looked at each other. Then we went shopping.

Too many Starbucks and guilty buys later, we found the boys (eventually... they had disappeared off to the beach) we walked for a couple of hours down to Venice Beach. One of the maddest things about LA is how FIT everybody is. They have even made a special fitness 'road' down the beach, which is perfectly flat and has a special lane for roller bladers, runners, and cyclists, which you can't even walk in. Not to mention the outdoor gymnasium spread down the beach and the fact that everybody you pass is text-book beautiful. Venice Beach was lovely and packed with characters. We spent some time looking around before hurrying back to do a rushed pitstop for some dirt cheap litres of Chardonnay, met and quickly befriended the other couple in our dorm, Swedish, fed them some wine, and headed down to the lobby for one of the wierdest nights out of my, and probably all of our, lives.

We had opted for the hostel night out, on the basis we were only in LA for a two-day stopover before our flight to Fiji, and it would be the easiest way to get a taster of Santa Monica nightlife. That said, we hadn't banked on the organiser being a first class moron, or the group being a wierd eclectic mix of geeks, and people on a one-night schedule like ourselves. We started the night at a Comedy Club. It was amateur, but hilarious; we had free wine on arrival, and more a little later on when Chris disappeared to the toilet a reappeared with a full, warm bottle of Chardonnay that he had found from the table somewhere. Later, we went to a jazz club, Chris went to find a toilet, which never happened - on his journeys he ended up in some Circus dressing room and procured a Cirque du Soleil hat which has since become fairly legendary (it is quite something) and, a s*** magic show and several bars later, ended up being the reason none of us could get in the club - because "jokers" like Chris were bumbling around with plumes of feathers attached to their heads.

The next day got off to a bit of a slow start, but we made it back to 3rd street for some food before settling for the cinema and Alice in Wonderland before heading to the airport for our flight to Fiji.