Sat 23rd May - Off to Venice Beach!

Everyone manages to get up on time and check out of Sin City with no dramas. Luckily, we hadn’t bumped into Greasy Paul again – and hopefully never again!! We book a taxi but time is ticking away and we start to stress that it’s cutting it a little fine….luckily, the nice hostel owner lets us all hop in his 4x4 and takes us to the Greyhound station. This aint your normal bus station like back home. Oh no, you have to ‘check in’ and of course there’s a sodding queue ahead of us full of Vegas crazies….argh!!! Then of course our ticket might not be accepted, cos Dave has ripped it off thinking we didn’t need a certain part of it – RAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Luckily, the driver didn’t give a rats ass and we all pile on with 1 minute before departure….and the bus is heaving, full of hungover Vegas gamblers – I mean holiday-makers!
We all survive the bus to LA and we get back to Hollywood Boulevard around 4pm. There’s an interesting sight that comes off the bus with us….a very rough looking, ginger haired lady in her early 20’s along with a rough teenager girl carrying a cute Asian baby and they’re all wearing pyjamas….seriously……hmmmm, where did they just run away from!? It’s all so weird here!!
Vanstone and I manage to find out what local buses to get to Venice Beach and it takes blimming ages but we get there without too many dramas. All the different bus rides just emphasises how HUGE from one side of LA is to the other!!
Venice Beach has a totally different vibe to it, compared to downtown LA and I luv it! It’s so BOHO baby with plenty of crazy hippes around!! Heehee!! We check into the hostel – Venice Beach Cotel – but unfortunately, they’ve been having drain problems so our room doesn’t have an ensuite….Vanstone isn’t too happy about it…..welcome to travelling! I’m so used to it now, it’s funny!
We have a mosey on down to the beach and check out the Baywatch beach huts and notice every fecker is on rollerblades or cycling – so it’s true!! Haha! We meet the Stoke lads in the hostel, who are staying just down the corridor! We have dinner on the promenade which dies a death when the sun goes down…all very weird, thought this place would be buzzing! We head for a few drinks in some swanky bar call Nikki’s and then some more in The Townhouse with the lads from Stoke.

Hayley