Sunday 14th Feb 2010

Thought we’d head to Universal Studios today, and then back to Venice Beach for more exploring.


Didn’t quite work out how we expected though.

We got to Universal Studios and the line to buy tickets was, quite literally, at least 1km long! At least! Crazy stuff. We thought we’d have lunch while we decided how much we really wanted to go in. The girl at the bar told us that she had not seen crowds like that in the 12 months that she’d been working there. Obviously we picked our day well... Silver lining was that we had a fantastic lunch and because they were so busy and we were so patient they threw in dessert for free! Although we actually thought the service was quite fast, but we weren’t going to argue.

Didn’t end up going in to Universal Studios – the lines were still so long after lunch, and we figured they would be long at all of the rides and attractions too. We did manage to kill an hour or 2 looking in the various shops outside the gate though, although Stu wouldn’t let me buy a new friend to share the trip with:

 

Decided to drive to Venice Beach and have a proper look, however because everyday feels like a weekend at the moment we hadn’t factored in that it was a Sunday, and beautifully sunny and warm, and Venice Beach is apparently one of ‘the’ places to be. We had no problems on a cooler Friday afternoon so thought today would be the same. No such luck. Traffic was a nightmare and parking was non-existent unless we wanted to pay $25. We drove around for a little while but in the end decided to take the hint and just come home. All a bit disappointing, but we did enjoy ourselves despite not doing any of the things we had planned so not a totally wasted day!

On the way home we took our Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry.

Although our Chevy is only a Chevy Aveo (buzzbox Kia equivalent) and the levy was a service station which had been closed down due to soil contamination and is now a parking lot.

(Thankyou Stu...)

Ended up having tea at a local place (Dana Point) which we wished we’d discover earlier – great food and atmosphere. I was excited to find ‘steamed vegetables’ on the menu but settled on a veggie omlette, and Stu had a massive bowl of beef and veg soup. Simple food done really, really well. We’ll go there again before we leave, I’m sure.

Bruce and Claire come back tomorrow – can’t wait to hear their San Francisco stories!