The house in LA was pretty cool and I was incredibly happy to be in LA, I'd been looking forward to is the whole trip.
Pretty self explanatory right?
We were staying in Santa Monica, right in between of Santa Monica Pier & Venice Beach.
That night, we celebrated my A-level grades with the most amazing sushi at Hama Sushi in Venice Beach.
We shared Salmon Sashimi and I opted for 'Strawberry Roll' -Shrimp tempura, cucumber and avocado topped snow crab and strawberries. Topped with a sweet sauce and sesame seeds.
After a whole plate of it, it was a little sickly, as I'm definitely someone who likes a little bit of everything, but it was delicious!
Our first full day was spent lazying on the beach, topping up the tan, splashing in the sea and roaming around Venice Beach, all topped off with a BBQ and some champers. (We were really dragging out those A-level result celebrations)
Venice Beach is crazy.
It's like Camden on a hell of a lot of drugs.
Crazy people, fantastic artwork, quirky shops, skaters zooming past you and zipping up and down ramps and in and out of bowls, just everything going on.
The next day we had another beach day, then headed to a view point to see that iconic Hollywood sign.
Our next stop that night was The Grove. I'd seen it on The Hills and been told to go, but I have to stay I was a little bit disappointed with the selection of shops there.
But I didn't let it spoil anything. I picked up the bits I wanted to from Anthropologie and we had a fantastic Greek Dinner in a lovely little restaurant there.
We headed back to the villa to catch some Zzz's for the big day to follow.
IT WAS DISNEYLAND DAY!
I had begged for us to go to an iHop during our trip, so we went to one just around the corner from Disneyland in Anaheim.
The Red Velvet pancakes were super yummy, but the service wasn't as great as Denny's, I have to say!
Full up on pancakes, teas, coffees and sausages we got on a shuttle headed for Disney!
Entering a world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy sounded perfect to me.
It's so magical in Disneyland. I'd been to Disneyworld, Florida before, but not the original Disney in LA.
You just enter this world were fantasy is reality.
The characters you loved and felt you know as you grew up are roaming around with you.
I was on the hunt for some Minnie Ears, but I could only find sequinned/glittery ones. I wasn't settling for those, so I ran half way across the park to get the original ones.
Minnie ears on my head and a smile on my face we hopped on to some rides!
Ethan's Stars Wars obsession being fulfilled!
I felt like a big kid the whole day!
Due to the inane-ness of 'It's a small world' my dad and I decided we had to go on it.
Ethan asked 'Is it fun? and Is it fast?' Both answers being no, so he declined the offer and went off to look for something slightly more thrilling!
The sun started to set and the streets started to fill with excited Disney-goers getting ready for the fireworks.
Ice cream and cameras in hand (which is actually quite a tricky thing to multi-task may I add...)
The fireworks, the music, the flying Tinkerbell & Dumbo and the beautifully lit castle made me feel quite emotional.
This is one of my favourite photos from the trip.
All excited (and feeling slightly sick from a very sickly ice cream choice. Note to self: Don't opt for hot fudge sauce on to next time. Bleurghh.) we decided to go on Space Mountain one last time.
Don't do it kids, just don't do it.
After a long journey home of feeling very, very sick, It wad bed time!
It was our last full day in America and I spent the morning exhausting my purse strings.
I discovered Brandy Melville, fell in love with it, spent the last of my money and admired (and still admire) the items I purchased.
Have a little look at a few things I purchased here in my America Haul!
The shopping in Santa Monica is great, every shop you could want is there. So we returned there that evening for even more shopping and the best dinner at Blue Plate Oysterette, near Santa Monica Pier.
Our last day of the holiday, we lunched in Venice Beach, we swam in Santa Monica & we headed to LAX to fly home, first class.
Flying first class was such a luxury and definitely something I could get used to...
11 hours later, we were home!
It was the best trip, unforgettable, amazing, incredible.
I really hope you enjoyed reading about my adventures!
2 comments
We flew from Arizona to San Francisco.
I was so happy to be back in California, as it was definitely my favourite place we'd been to so far.
We arrived at our colourful & quirky hotel, Hotel Del Sol!
Desperate for some great food we wandered the steep streets and found the lovely Osha Thai Restaurant.
Incredible food, presented absolutely beautiful with flowers on everything (So naturally they turned into accessories!)
San Francisco is stunning and I wish we had more time to explore.
Beautiful houses, row after row. Steep streets everywhere you look!
I regret not researching a little more to find out where the best places to go are, we just wandered, but loved everything we found.
The Golden Gate Bridge is pretty spectacular to see, with Alcatraz opposite.
Roads that just go up and up and up!
After filling up in Lou's Diner for lunch, taking silly photos, then gorging on ice creams we made our way to the queue for the Cable Car.
My Dad told me he took a photo of my Mum when they were in San Fran years back, in the exact queue and place we were in, so he insisted on getting one of me too!
We queued for nearly an hour, but there was street entertainment galore to keep us entertained.
My little brother and I also killed some time by taking a million and one photos...
He is my favourite unimpressed cowboy, ever.
We hopped on, what felt like, the rather un-safe mode of transport!
It's crazy, people just hanging off the sides and it clambers up and down the hills of San Fran.
We passed the ever so famous zig-zag road, but didn't stop to walk down it, as we were already on our ride, and let's face it, it's just a road!
We reached the end of our journey and we were dropped into the centre of all things shopping.
The family left me to do my thaaang and get my shop onnnn!
The next day, we were up & ready for the drive to Three Rivers.
We went to the Brixton Pub for lunch, were I had a pretty spectacular burger. I loved the glass bottles of water.
We went to the Brixton Pub for lunch, were I had a pretty spectacular burger. I loved the glass bottles of water.
We thought we'd stop and check out the Golden Gate Bridge one more time.
If it didn't cost to drive over it, we would have but seeing as we didn't need to cross, we didn't want to pay for it!
Checking out our 'Colour Changing Nail Varnish' in the sun!
We took some photos and bought two capri-suns from the cutest little boys who had set up a little stall and clearly been there all morning with their Dad, eager to sell some and make a little bit of pocket money.
We put a smile on their faces and jumped back in the car to start out long journey!
San Francisco is definitely somewhere I want to visit again, I didn't get to see anywhere near enough of it in two days!
San Francisco is definitely somewhere I want to visit again, I didn't get to see anywhere near enough of it in two days!
Next Up: Sequoia National Park.
The worlds largest living things and some stonking, great trees!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)