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!
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