This is the second part of the three part trip in america, that me and my husband went on. So in the first part I left off at me and my husband boarding the plane from San Francisco to our next destination, which as you can see is Los Angeles.

Day 1 -
We arrived in LA at 2.45pm, we thought we would arrive at the hotel by 4pm. But this was not the case! Something I was not expecting in LA was the crazy, crazy traffic. Everyone needs a car in LA as there is no good public transport and places to visit are dotted all over LA. We didn't end up getting to the hotel until around half 5. We stayed at the Garland, which is north Hollywood and very close to universal studios. The hotel was beautiful, its probably the best hotel we stayed in out of the three. The room was very spacious, had a mini fridge, a medium sized bathroom. The room décor was very modern with lots of orange accents, which I really liked. Orange is one of my favourite summer colours, its also a happy colour.

After we had checked in and unpacked we caught the free shuttle bus that the hotel provides to universal city walk. We had a walk around the shops and stopped at one of the many restaurants that are available. We had to catch an Uber back because the free shuttle bus only ran to a certain time (the time we went was also still classed as there winter period, so they didn't run as much as they would in the summer). Uber is the best way to get around LA if you haven't hired a car, i would recommend that you check it out if your not up to the driving around like us. The Uber from universal city walk back to our hotel only cost about $5.

Day 2 -
This was my husbands birthday and our 4 year wedding anniversary. For his birthday i had booked us front of line tickets to universal studios. This meant that we got early access to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Because we wanted to get there for the early access the free shuttle was not available to take us, so we caught an Uber instead. We picked up our front of line passes at the front gate and went straight to the harry potter section. If you've been to Florida you will feel a sense of deja-vu, as its set out exactly the same, the slight differences are that the duelling dragons ride and none of the newer developed parts like the train or Gringots ride are not in this park. Because we were here so early we ended up getting breakfast, lunch and a snack from here which you will have seen from my foodie Friday.


After breakfast we hit up all the rides, my favourite has to be between the transformers ride and the fast and furious ride. My least favourite was the Shrek ride, to me it was quite boring and outdated. The universal studios tour was probably one of the best things about the park, it was so cool to look at the different sets and there is two 3D rides on the tour which are pretty amazing. There were three shows that were running, water world, a stunt show and animal stars. We only got to the water world show which was amazing, I've never seen the film and its made me want to watch it. The stunts were so cool and with front of line and V.I.P you got to stay behind at a certain time and ask them questions and find out how they did the stunts. We decided not to go to the animal one as Paul wasn't that bothered about it. However we really wanted to go to the stunt show and we were going to go to the second to last one but it was cancelled due to a problem. Then the last one that we waited around for and tried to get into ended up being full by the time we got there,so that was a little disappointing. But the rest of the day was great. Having front of line tickets really made the day so much more fun. Paul hates waiting in queues, so that's why I treated him to these tickets. For every ride you get to basically walk on with no waiting time, once per ride. All the shows there is seating saved for front of line and V.I.P's usually at the back away from the splash zones! I't was a great day, Paul really enjoyed his birthday and I would recommend a visit if your in LA.

Day 3 -
Today we decided to get an Uber from our hotel to Santa Monica pier. Santa Monica is so pretty and clean. We walked all around the pier, checked out the usual rides and the little stalls on the pier. There is also a great shopping bit located about 5 minutes from the pier. We had a good look around the shops and made sure we stopped at our favourite frozen yoghurt place (Yoghurt Land) to fuel up before walking the hour walk to Venice beach. We stopped a couple of times along the way to Venice beach, once to watch the guys showing off there skills on muscle beach on the rings and the second time we stopped to watch a volleyball tournament that was happening. Quite close to Venice beach we had to walk through this strip that had lots of shops and stalls. I will warn you this area isn't the greatest to walk through, it made me a little bit edgy and uncomfortable as this area was just a line of homeless people. It was quite a shock to see that many homeless people,we just wasn't expecting it at all. You often see a few homeless people wherever you go in america, but the amount that there is in LA is just crazy. When we had walked passed all the shops we finally got to the beach, we had a little sit down and took a few photos. We decided to get some dinner while we were in the area before heading back to the hotel, which took well over an hour due to LA's annoyingly large amount of traffic. We didn't spend a whole lot of time in Venice beach like we did in Santa Monica, because we didn't really like it. It was nothing like Santa Monica, it was still pretty with the sea view but it just felt and looked so dirty. We wished we hadn't bothered with the walk to Venice beach and had just spent time chilling on the beach in Santa Monica.


Day 4 - 
We caught another Uber from our hotel but this time headed to Hollywood walk of fame. We walked down the strip for a while looking out for famous peoples stars that we knew and loved, but once you've seen a few of the stars you've seen them all really. I felt like there was nothing overly special about them, but its something I can say I've done. I loved the Chinese theatre, that to me was completely different to the walk of fame, because its the stars actual hand prints and footprints. It was really fun trying to find our favourite people and seeing if our hand and feet fit into there's. I was disappointed that I couldn't find Marilyn Monroe's and Paul couldn't find Frank Sinatra's, we both really wanted to see those ones. But its only a small courtyard and there is a lot of people cramming in to have a look and take photos so its not as easy to see all the slabs if people are stood on them. 


Once we'd had enough in this area we took an hours walk to the Grove shopping area, this is probably one of the prettiest shopping area's. Its all out door and there are fountains, lots of shops and a market at the end of the shopping strip. we planned on having something to eat here for lunch and then walking another hour to Rodeo drive, basically using this as a pit stop and a sit down. But after we'd had lunch we really couldn't face another long sweaty walk in the heat. So we called an Uber and got to Rodeo drive in like 20 minutes. It was so fun looking around this area, I've never seen a row of such expensive shops like that in my life. Totally crazy, and you definitely need to have some money behind you if you want to come shopping here. Me and Paul enjoyed just strolling around the area, grabbing a Starbucks and taking some photos. When we we'd had enough we just called another Uber and went back to the hotel. 


Day 5 - 
This was our last full day in LA. Today was the day we went to the Griffith Observatory. We got a Uber all the way up to the Observatory rather than being dropped at the bottom. We got to see the Hollywood Sign from here which was great, we could have done a hike up to the sign if we had wanted. But we knew that even if you hiked up there your still not that close to it. So we settled with taking some photos of it from were we were at the time, we were happy enough just to see the sign, another thing we ticked off our list. We spent alot of time walking around the outside of the observatory and going onto the roof taking photos. There was some really great views to see and plenty of beautiful photos to take. We then headed inside the observatory which was free! Paul was excited by this as I have already told you, he's really fascinated by space. It was actually a pretty cool observatory and I really enjoyed finding out what I weighed on each of the planets, ha ha. When we had finished, we decided to walk down to the bottom of Griffith park, this was a really nice walk and a lot easier than walking up that's for sure. When we got to the bottom we called an Uber back to the hotel and just chilled around the pool. This was nice as this holiday had been all go, so it was nice to have some time to just lay by the pool. 


Day 6 - 
Our last morning in LA, we had to be up, ready and out by 7am for our transport to take us to the airport. The day didn't start out that great as we didn't get any coffee or breakfast, with needing to be up so early. We also had shared transport, which isn't a great idea in LA as the later it gets in the morning the more jammed up the roads get. So we were quite tight on time when we arrived at the airport so we never got a coffee and only managed to grab a yoghurt before boarding the plane to our next and final destination.

I'd recommend going to LA if your thinking about going, but I would definitely say four days is enough for LA. So I would recommend doing a few destinations if you can. Like San Fran as its only an hours flight or you can even drive there. 

I would 100% recommend universal studios, Santa Monica and Griffith Observatory. I would also recommend a visit to the Hollywood walk of fame and the Chinese theatre, but just ensure you plan other things for this day as you wont need to spend too long here.

I wouldn't recommend Venice beach we really didn't like it and didn't think it was worth the walk.

We had some good food while we were here, the hotel was great for breakfast. The saddle ranch chop house in universal studios had a great atmosphere and tasty food. Stout burgers and beers was near our hotel and was the second best burger I've had. (the first was in Vegas if your wondering) Last but not least I cant leave out Yoghurt land for a treat, if you've not tried it you really need to. It doesn't taste like yoghurt, it actually tastes like ice cream and they do some amazing flavours and you can just go crazy on filling your pot up and trying to guess how much it will cost when you weigh it.

I hope this helps you if your thinking of or are going to LA. If you need to know something I've not mentioned then ask and ill let you know. 

Don't forget to check back for my third and final instalment of my American holiday

ReRe

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