USA: Hollywood, San Diego and Mexico

So we arrived in LA having technically been in New Zealand, Fiji, and America all within 24 hours due to the time difference. My head could not get around and for once we were behind England in time, being 8 hours difference. We got a cab from LAX (I was so excited!) to our hostel where a group of 20-30 year old men had placed themselves outside to smoke and drink. We got there way past check in time, about 12.30 am, and were greeted by a very intoxicated "handyman' who was on duty for the night. We later found out that he basically ran the place as the manager only visited the hostel between 5- 10 pm. That was a first for us, and we have stayed at many many hostels. The "handyman" was called Nick, and he had no computer system to find our booking (or the email we had sent to inform them that we would be checking in late) and so we were offered the "Moroccan room" as there were no beds available. We walked up the grimy set of stairs into the upstairs hallway and looked right, as instructed, at the Moroccan room. Which, as the room gives no allusion to, was actually just the hallway. So with it being so late, and it being a Sunday when all shops and hostels close early, we decided to take up the offer seeing as we would actually get a roof above our heads and a mattress, unlike the times where we have slept at the airport. During the night the others were disturbed by a number of incidents (I, being a heavy sleeper, was only disturbed once) including one person throwing up and someone skyping a family member in the Moroccan room. We were very unhappy with hostel, as you can imagine, it was disgustingly dirty and I refused to shower for the whole 4 nights that we stayed there because it made me feel sick to go into the bathrooms. We managed to get the first night for free, as you would expect, and then ended up staying in an RV in the back garden for $20 each.

Looking back, we really should have refused at that price, especially because Nathan and Heidi were basically sharing a single bed in there. But, again, it was warm and we all managed to get to sleep. The manager had not even checked his bookings and so had no idea that we were coming. When we asked him to check there was proof of the booking and of the email we sent, I just think they were not used to receiving bookings because their reviews were so bad that they had stopped looking. The one good thing about the hostel was how close it was to Hollywood, as not many affordable places were, and we made the most of it on the first day.
I think day 1 in LA was my favourite day of travelling so far. We woke up pretty late because of the jet lag, and after a quick discussion about whether to stay in the hostel for the next few nights or not, we begrudgingly left our luggage in the Moroccan room and took a 10 minute trip on the metro into town. We were greeted by dozens of salesmen attempting to get us onto their tours of Hollywood. I am so used to ignoring salesmen now that I usually don't even listen to what they say, but I was caught off guard when one of them told me that I could see Miley Cyrus' house. I was sold. Unfortunately, as is always the way, Miley does not even live in LA anymore so I didn't get to see her house. I think I was more upset about the fact that I couldn't rub it in Tom's face (yes you!) that I had parked outside of her house, than actually seeing it. However, the tour was well worth the $20 that we paid as we got a drive to the Hollywood sign, our photos taken by the funniest driver ever, a tour around celebrities' houses in Beverly Hills, and a drive down Rodeo Drive where Julia Roberts gets taken to shop in Pretty Woman. I felt like a child at Christmas I was just so excited by what I was seeing. On the windy road to the Hollywood sign we saw "Cinderella's" house, with massive turrets and a fairytale style design, 'The Wizard of Oz's" house which had a sparkling yellow brick road leading all the way to the front door, and a house that had mushrooms as the roof. In Beverly Hills we saw a house that was designed for a film set and was officially called The Witch's House. Horton Hears a Who was filmed there and it looked like something straight out of a fairytale. Nobody lives in the house, it is just for filming purposes and it was positioned on the street as if this was a normal thing!

When driving around Beverly Hills, our amazing tour guide downloaded Weezer's 'Beverly Hills' track and we saw the sights whilst singing along very loudly to the song. In Beverly Hills we saw a number of different celebrities' houses including Ellen DeGeneres' (who I have been watching a lot of since being in Australia and here in the US), Gene Simmons', Jennifer Aniston's old home, Micheael Jackson's (1), the Playboy Mansion, Ringo Star's, Marilyn Manroe's and Lauren from The Hills'. My favourite house was Versace's (2) which was made out of real marble and was absolutely huge. 

(1) Michael Jackson's house

(2) Versace's house

The rest of the day was spent consuming our first greasy American meal from a build-your-own-burger restaurant and walking along the Walk of Fame. We spent hours looking at all the celebrities who had stars on the Walk of Fame and took photos with the hand and foot imprints that many had made outside the Chinese Theater.

Johnny Depp's hand prints

So went back to the hostel and slept in the RV, ready to spend the day with Auntie Mary (Nathan's family friend) who lives in Hamosa Beach in LA. We took a 2 hour train ride to see her, and spent the afternoon eating New York style pizza, napping on the beautiful beach that was surrounded by 14 year old brats who seemed to have walked straight off the tv show The Hills, and went for dinner at Auntie Mary's wonderfully expensive and impressive house. She made us sausages and mash in an English fashion and practically through free goodies fir our travels at us. This fun and indulgent day, however, was followed by the scariest moment of the whole trip. Our 2 hour train journey back to our RV consisted of a few changes in places on the way to downtown LA. We had already experienced a drug dealer selling drugs on the train to Auntie Mary's, and that was in broad daylight, so we knew what to expect. We kept our heads down and did not look anybody in the eye for the whole journey. The places we stopped in reminded me of the places that "Cake" from "A piece of Cake" by Cupcake Brown had lived in, and although I was extremely nervous to be in these places, I was actually glad to see a side of America that I had often read about and imagined. So during one of the stop offs we had to wait 30 minutes for the next train and walked down the wrong set of stairs to the platform that we needed. As we walked down we were greeted by a big group of men, I cannot say how many were there as I was forcing myself not to look at them, but they were spread out on the platform, watching our every move, most of them with a bottle in one hand and a smoke in the other. As we got to the bottom of the stairs, we asked a train attendant directions to our platform and after telling us that we needed to walk past the intimidating group of men that we had just walked past he added "please be careful guys." Brilliant. His words that were meant as both a warning and a kindness scared me half to death and I could not get them out of my head as I practically ran across the original platform and over to the other side. You'll be glad to know that we made sure to do no more late night journeys across LA. As we got off the metro at the stop by our hostel, we were greeted by a rather odd transsexual who Heidi and I had briefly met the night before. We were drawn to her attention as she started singing extremely loudly through the metro station and exclaimed "yummy yummy in my tummy" at Heidi's legs as she stood on the step behind Heidi. This was not the strangest part about this meeting. I politely exchanged small talk with her as we had met her before and she was staying in the same place as us, during which, she skipped off in front of us and had a very heated debate with somebody who was not there. This is just an example of the sort of people that we met in LA as we rarely went anywhere without seeing someone dancing on the train or wearing a tight fairy outfit when they really did not have the figure to do so. It really was a crazy place. 

We then moved to a motel near Venice Beach for a couple of nights as we could not wait to leave the hostel. This was the nicest and most expensive place that we had stayed in by far and took full advantage of it. We went to Venice Beach where we watched a brilliant street dance group who made the point to "joke about racism because racism is a joke". They were very good and very funny and also pointed out that they were doing the show to stop themselves from doing many other not so legal things on the street. We then walked to Santa Monica pier and enjoyed the gym playground on the sand and a couple of beers at a very American pub. We then went on our first proper supermarket trip and went crazy. They have food that I have never seen in America, such a birthday cake flavour oreos and poptarts, microwavable breakfast bowls of egg, cheese, bacon and potato, and 6 layered dips for crisps. On top of that, everything was enlarged by at least 50%. The day after, we went to the Griffith Observatory where we got an amazing view of the whole of LA, sat through a talk about how to make your own meteorite and watched a demonstration on how to create lightning. Being cheap backpackers, we walked all the way up to the Griffith Observatory (which was high up hence being such a good view point) to save a few bucks on a cab, which I was not happy about. 

Santa Monica

We then took a bus to San Diego where we stayed in the best hostel that we have stayed in so far. We got a free breakfast of pancakes or cereal every morning and on one night we got a free dinner. We were in a 4 bedroom dorm, which we always love, and the toilets had a hair dryer! We spent the first day exploring San Diego, a small and quirky city that was much cleaner and safer than LA. It was lovely to go back to feeling safe as I walked around and not being interrupted by strange people trying to make it famous. On our second day we went to a baseball game and San Diego won which was lovely to experience. The game itself was a bit repetitive and I got free WiFi in the stadium so I spent a lot of it on WhatsApp rather than watching the game. I did see the home runs though and many people watching catch the ball when it was hit into the stands. I then went to get some new vans which were much cheaper here than they would be in England. When we went back to the hostel to have our free dinner, 3 of the friends that we had made at the hostel sat with us and told us that they were going to Mexico for the day in the morning. We jumped at the chance as we thought it would be a great experience and I prepared myself for a relaxing day lying on the beach in the sun. The train journey to the border took only an hour and we walked through the border without even having our passports checked. We were met on the Mexican side by hefty patrol officers with guns bigger than any I had ever seen before (and I mean real guns not muscles!). I was so shocked at the qualifications needed to get into the country as it was so easy, but was then met with a queue of people wanting to enter America which went on as far as I could see. Knowing what was in store for us on our way back through the border, we headed to the beach in a taxi that let 8 of us into one normal 5 seater car. The beach was a let down as it was pretty windy and not very nice looking, and so we headed into the centre of Tijuana and sat ourselves down in a few pubs. A corona cost us 59p and the food was just as cheap. It was like being back in Asia for the day as we soaked up the rays on the balcony and took advantage of the free nachos that we were given. Trucks of policemen drove past, each holding large guns as they were on patrol, and owners stood outside of their restaurants begging us to go in. We managed to get ourselves free shots of tequila which was a bonus, although I very nearly threw up as I can never shot alcohol. We left the restaurant that we ate in for £3 each at 5 pm and managed to get back into the US at 8 pm, spending all of this time standing up in a queue. The officer checking my passport and letting me back into the country asked me what I was bringing back with me, as in what I was taking into America, but I didn't understand what he meant and said I didn't know. He then turned to the officer next to him who was checking somebody else's passport and they both laughed at me, saying over and over "she doesn't know what she's taking back in". He then waved me through as if I was an idiot, but because I was English he has no questions. I then had my apple confiscated as I walked through the security x-ray because I was not allowed to take fruit from Mexico into America. As all this was going on, there was an increasing line forming of Mexicans who were applying for a visa to just visit America that lasted only 30 days and allowed them only to travel within 25 miles of the border. Most of them looked as though they were ready to camp there for the night as the queue was so long and at a standstill. It's crazy what advantages being English can have.