Our American dream Part IV - Are we in Hollywood?

Hi! Welcome to our blog! If you haven't read "Our American dream Part III - Beaches..." you definitely want to enjoy that one first :)

17/09/2013:

After a good night of sleep, and our jetlag slowly but surely disappearing, me and Michael were up fresh and early! We were having a jummy breakfast when we decided to explore Hollywood Boulevard. It was yet another sunny and warm day, nevertheless we brought a cardigan in case it gets chilly at night. It was end of September, so it started getting colder by sundown. Luckily I did my research before packing!

With our GPS guiding us to the correct location, we passed South Los Angeles (Now known as South Central Los Angeles in hope of losing its bad rep), the Staples Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, China town, we could see the Dodger stadium from afar, Korea town and Little Armenia. These were just a few main "attractions" on our route to Hollywood, so sightseeing was definitely a wonderful experience! For being there since just a few days, we already noticed that most of the places you'd want to visit within the area were around a thirty minutes drive without traffic jams, so don't visit the city of Angels without renting a car! :)

When we arrived at the Hollywood Blvd, our next challenge was to find a cheap parking spot! I guess it took us around twenty minutes to find a car park in one of the side streets. While walking towards the main road, we saw that there was sort of a concert hall where auditions for rock groups were held! I never saw so many artists just waiting their turn for a chance to make their dreams come true... Pity enough only few will make it in the entertainment industry, as L.A. can make you or break you. Nevertheless it's wonderful to see so much talented people together! We continued our walk to the world-known boulevard where we stumbled upon street entertainers who were dressed as known legends like Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and so many others! So much was going on that we could not choose where to look first! Many tour vendors trying to convince us to hop on one of their tour busses driving through Beverley Hills to view the houses of celebrities; we have many interest but that is not one of them! As many tourists, we came there to see the stars on the Walk of Fame, so we walked up and down the boulevard to see all of them or at least the ones we wanted to find.

We just had a salad for lunch, as we weren't that hungry and still wanted to see so much more! We went into the Hard Rock Café and I bought a souvenir there for one of my girlfriends back home and of course we headed to the bar to have a refreshing drink! They really had a cool interior, with guitars from famous artists hanging on the walls! From all the beers we could choose from, we chose a Belgian beer called Leffe, which you should try if you have the chance. We talked to the bartender for a while and at one point asked him if he could tell us where the best place was to see the Hollywood sign. He explained us that Lake Hollywood Park is the best place and tried giving us the directions. With that in mind we decided to find that place after a bit more walking. On one of the street corners we saw a boy proposing to a girl and the girl said "No"! But these were actors who were just having some fun by playing this piece for us! It was hilarious! We went on and took some pictures at the Chinese Theatre, also had a look inside the Hollywood & Highland Center Shopping Mall. On the third floor on one of the bridges there we also found a view of the famous sign, it was quiet far but you could see it.

After a while we headed back to the car to search for Lake Hollywood Park, but we had taken a wrong turn somewhere, cause we ended-up in a different park. It was already getting dark, therefore we gave up and decided to search for it the following day, but still were into some more sightseeing though! So we drove through Beverly Hills and near Rodeo Drive, saw many nice houses in this beautiful area! You might ask yourself why we did all of this by car; it was nice seeing it from afar, but it was just not our scene to be walking around in... On the way back to our hotel, we were again amazed of what we've seen and experienced that day!

It just goes to show that you don't have to spend tons of money to enjoy!

This is the end of Part IV, stay tuned for Part V where you will read about our stay in Palm Springs! If you enjoyed reading this, go on and subscribe to the blog! Until next week!

Our American dream Part III - Beaches...

Hi! Welcome to our blog! If you haven't read "Our American dream Part II - The arrival" you might want to read that one first... :)

16/09/2013:

It was 5AM when I woke up that first morning in beautiful L.A., I thanked the jetlag for this. Michael was still fast asleep while I creeped on him a bit cause he looked like a little boy lying there. I was full of energy that morning, ready for our adventures that day! I got out of bed, walked to the sitting area where I saw a menu the previous night and looked if they had something nice to eat. My eye immediately was drawn to the American pancakes, so pancakes it were, and an omelet with bacon for Michael. Once I decided what to order to our room, I first took a nice relaxing shower, because I really could not order at this ungodly hour. Freshly showered, I went to lay next to Michael and creeped on him a bit more as it's one of my favorite things to do. Then I called room service to order our breakfast, the woman who I spoke to was very friendly by the way!

Michael finally woke up when room service knocked on our door... After a nice and delicious breakfast, we both were ready to face the world and explore L.A.! We stepped into our ride and drove without having a destination, the only thing we knew was that we wanted to see the beaches! We drove towards Pacific Highway with help of our trusty GPS. The drive was entertaining, as we saw so many new and exciting things which we didn't have in Belgium! Like many donut shops, huge billboards or liquor stores on every corner! Well, liquor stores you could compare to our night shops, I guess! But it was just amazing to see the words "Liquor Store" as it was something I only saw in movies until that moment. When we were nearing the beaches, the surroundings were changing, more palm trees, beach houses and hotels popping up. It was nice to see all of this while cruising in our SUV. After a while we decided to park at Santa Monica beach parking area where we paid 15$ for a day, which was not too bad!

We started our walk towards Santa Monica Pier, while taking in the wonderful scenery. The sky was such a nice shade of blue, the sun was burning just right and the sea stretching out in the horizon. I felt so carefree which brought a big wide smile on my face! I had a flashback on my childhood years, when I frequently had this feeling of euphoria, when everything was just much simpler, without a worry in the world... Locals were performing all different kinds of activities on the beach pathway, some were inline skating, running, walking with their dogs and so much more was going on! We first wanted to explore the pier, as we were curious what to find there. We stopped a few times to take the usual touristy pictures until we arrived at the pier. Our first impression was: "Man, this is huge!" and to make things even more impressive it seemed there was a small amusement park with a merry-go-round and a roller-coaster. Just amazing to see this for the first time! We walked until the very end of the pier where we had a wonderful view from the sea and the beach behind us, of course we took some more pictures. There we also found a bench where we just sat down for a few minutes to let it all sink in and to really enjoy the view. On the way back to the beginning of the pier, we saw many souvenir shops, little stands with all kinds of food and so much more!

It was already midday, so, time for lunch! On the way back to the car we bought something to drink and enjoyed watching some locals working the gymnastic rings. It was cool to see it and many could actually pull it off! We continued our walk towards the car to find a U.S. SIM card, as we needed to stay connected while on route and we also urgently needed some food! Once in the car we drove towards Santa Monica Promenade, left the car in the car park and were on foot again... After asking several people if they knew where we could buy a SIM card we finally found the AT&T shop where we got what we needed :) Next step was to go on the hunt for nutrition! A walk of a few minutes brought us to Baja Fresh a burrito place, which was better than expected! Now that we had stuffed ourselves, we were ready for what we would find next... After some more walking we arrived in the car park, and went on our way to Venice Beach!

Once at Venice Beach, it was so wonderful to see all these different street artists doing their thing! I even assisted one street performer with his show! I was just minding my own business, filming and enjoying the show, when the good man picked me out of the crowd! He had a blanket laying on the ground which was filled with broken glass and I didn't have a clue of what to expect! :) He asked me where I was from and who accompanied me :) Michael of course! The performer gave me a toy dinosaur and he wrapped a scarf around my waist while talking to the spectators, it was extremely funny! After fulfilling some tasks with other assistants he started on his grand finale! He laid on top of the broken glass and I had to stand on his abdominals, which made me a bit uncomfortable, but it was hilarious! We had the whole show on film, so it was very entertaining to watch it again once we were back home! We still had an enjoyable walk next to water and had a look at Muscle beach where Michael even did some pull-ups! The sun was setting already when we arrived at our ride to cruise some more next to the beach while on the way to our hotel... During the drive we reflected on this amazing first day whilst enjoying the sunset in all its glory!

With a beer in our hand at the pool of our hotel, we just couldn't get enough of talking about the happenings during that day! After a while we decided to just relax in our room, as we were still jetlagged and called it an early night...

This is the end of Part III, stay tuned for Part IV where you will read all about our day in Hollywood! If you liked reading this, go on and subscribe to the blog! Until next week!

Our American dream Part II - The arrival

Welcome back! Happy that you are interested to know how our story continues! :)

15/09/2013:

After many months, weeks, days, hours of impatiently counting down and packing, we finally flew and safely arrived at LAX around 2:30PM. Wrecked after such a long flight, we made our way through immigration, all the security checks, picked-up our suitcases and found a shuttle to the location of Fox rent-a-car. After some hassle at the counter we were driving our Jeep Liberty to Los Angeles Adventurers All Suite Hotel where we were staying.

By the time we checked in at our accommodation it was around 4:30PM, we were so tired but still wanted to explore the neighborhood a bit, as the weather was amazing and were trying to fight the jetlag. We brought our suitcases to the room, which was quite okay, it was simple and clean. We freshened-up and stepped into our ride! The first impression we had of the area around the hotel was that there were many weird people walking around, but it was not too disturbing. We went on a hunt for food and found a Burger King nearby, which was an easy option for that evening but a tasty one!

After eating we ended up driving to Long Beach and saw the sun setting between the palm trees, which made us so happy, as we haven't seen palm trees for many years! We parked the car at the Long Beach parking area near the water and had a look at the Shoreline Village and walked up the Pine Avenue Pier, which was really nice as the sky had a zillion colors. It became chilly once the sun had completely set, as it was September, but we came prepared and brought some pullovers!

After a long relaxing walk at Long Beach, we made our way back to the hotel, cause our bed was calling us!

This is the end of Part II, stay tuned for Part III where you will read all about our first day in Los Angeles! If you don't want to miss it, you could always subscribe to the blog...Thanksss and till next week!

Our American dream Part I - Planning

In 2012, Michael and I were talking about taking our first international trip together, which was very exciting and scary at the same time... It was our first vacation as a couple and you hear horror stories about new couples who end up in a break-up during their holidays. I was afraid of finding out that we had nothing to talk about, experiencing many awkward silences and having the same sad ending! But... Luckily none of this happened!

Prior to our trip we had plenty of planning to do and so many things to think about! First on our list was renewing our passports and requesting an international drivers license. As we only traveled in Europe during the previous 5 years, we only needed our Belgian documents for this, meaning, we really needed to have this done! After renewing or requesting all those documents, we pinned down the exact date of our departure, we chose 15/09/2013 as our D-day.

From that moment on the fun just had begun! We contemplated about which places we wanted to visit and on what we wanted to spend most of our budget. For the ones knowing us, know that we are not the kind of people who like spending a lot of money on accommodation, but prefer spending our hard-earned money on nice experiences, good transportation and of course good food... This last part is very important to anyone, but surely for my sweet Michael, cause he gets immensely grumpy when he has not eaten well!

At that point we had to start thinking about how long we could stay in the United States, knowing the list of places we liked to visit, things we wanted to see and budget we had at our disposal. We first researched the places on our list by following criteria: cost of hotels, things to do, travel time between A and B, whilst keeping in mind that this vacation had to be relaxing too. We really didn't want to return to Belgium feeling more wrecked than at the beginning of our trip!

We used a great website called Roadtrippers.com which gave us a good idea on the distances between the cities we had in mind, what hotels were in that area and what kind of restaurants they had in the neighborhood! Really handy tool, so check it out if you haven't yet done so! No sponsoring here, we just really loved it... After taking everything into consideration, we decided to travel for two weeks (15/09 - 29/09) to the following three main places we surely wanted to visit: Los Angeles, Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon.

With the exact period in mind and knowing where we wanted to go, we requested our days off at work and started searching the best deal for our plane tickets. We ended up finding a two-way ticket departing from Amsterdam to Los Angeles for 550 euros per person via Skyscanner.net, which was a really great deal! As we would land in Los Angeles in the afternoon, we also booked our first two nights in a hotel located in the airport area via Booking.com, the rest of our accommodations we wanted to book on the go. We also chose an SUV to drive those distances, which cost us around 600 euros for two weeks and I guess most of our pre-holiday budget went to the car rental, but we love us some comfort when on the road! Also did we like to visit Universal Studios when we returned to L.A., so we bought our admission tickets in advance which were around 85 euros per ticket at that time, now they cost more than 90 euros per ticket!

As we started preparations quite early, all main things were covered several months prior to departure. We only had to apply for our ESTA authorization (because Belgium is on the list of eligible countries for the Visa Waiver Program) which we requested two months in advance, we paid 14 dollars per person that's around 12,5 in euros and is valid for two years.

After all the hassle of planning, we could finally relax and look forward to our trip while eagerly counting down the days if not the hours!

This is the end of Part I, stay tuned for Part II where you will read about our first evening in Los Angeles! If you don't want to miss it, you could always subscribe to the blog...Thanksss and till next week!

The purpose...

Why did we start this blog you might ask yourself? Cause a blog about friendships and traveling is nothing special anymore as many of those already exist.

Well, it is special to us, that's what counts and of course we want to make this interesting to readers as well :-) But first of all we want to do this for our future selves and for our children who might want to know what their parents have been up to when they where their age. We write this blog to inspire people, as many blogs inspired us.

This is our diary to read through when we're old and laying in our hammock on the porch of our house at the beach... Dream, dream...

The purpose of this blog is to document our past travels, future journeys and the evolution of our friendship along the way. We want to record everything we'll experience while preparing for our 1 year career break in 2018 and share it with you, so you know what to expect (the good and the bad) when you might take such a big step.

The career break is just our safety net for now, cause that too is temporary and we would like to make our travel lifestyle something permanent.