Travellers - USA 2003 - Travelogue

Saturday, 2^nd August
(Grand Canyon)
Barstow
We leave the Grand Canyon at about 2 p.m. and with about a 700 Km drive to reach Barstow. On the way we stop a couple of times, once in Williams to eat lunch at McDonald's and then in Kingman to fill up with gas, get refreshed with a cool drink and an ice-cream. This trip is very long and the drive is fairly monotonous although time passes fast chatting as we finish our diary's entries.
We don't have reservations in Barstow but we shouldn't have problems finding a place to stay. Barstow is a bit bigger town than Moab, full of motels and restaurants. It's famous for a couple of outlets. Our trusted Motel6 is first choice. We get a room for only 31$. The old man at the reception is a sprightly type who gives us lots of information, including the directions to the outlets. It's about 6 p.m. when we finally get there (a bit outside the town) and we just have two hours to browse.
Time flies and so do our dollars but we leave satisfied with our bargains. Coming back to Barstow we do some serious shopping at a big drugstore so we'll have plenty of food for next days. We eat in our room and our dinner is one of the biggest of the last weeks. We end our day watching TV and trying to plan next day's activities in Los Angeles. Our guidebooks will be useful, specially because we know almost nothing about LA.

Sunday, 3^rd August
(Barstow)
Hollywood
The alarm clock is set at 7.30 a.m. and when we wake up we have just few minutes to eat breakfast. A couple of minutes after 8 a.m. we're in our car, leaving Barstow behind us and ready to face LA. Although 120 miles divide Barstow from LA, after an hour of driving we have to follow the signs to get to downtown LA's: the city is so huge that we are already in it!
This morning we'd like to visit Hollywood, a classic first time visit. We get through the tangles of the chaotic LA's highways and at about 10.30 a.m. the famous "Hollywood" sign appears right overhead. It's exciting to see this icon, though the sign itself has nothing special about it. After finding a parking lot, we start walking along Hollywood Boulevard. Some of the shops we see are really strange and almost unimaginable by European standards. We are astonished by one in particular: a women's clothes shop. Not normal dresses...but all kind of provocative dresses that a woman can ask for to seduce her man in some original way...a nurse dress, Cinderella's dress, military style, dark lady, Japanese schoolgirl...of course all with suspender, shoes with high heels...whatever are your fantasies, that shop has what you need.
After a while, we get to the Chinese Theatre, where all the famous Hollywood star's handprints are. We take some photo but there's too much confusion so that we decide to move on. We do almost the whole Walk of Fame looking for our favorite actor's stars. At about 1 p.m. we leave Hollywood. We pass by Beverly Hills where you get an idea of its amazing luxury.
Santa Monica
To be honest, we are a bit confused. Everywhere we want to go, there is a highway to take and this means high speed stress and risks to getting lost. And that's exactly what happens. At the end we decide to fallow the signs for Santa Monica. On the way we stop to eat lunch at Denny's. After a while we finally arrive to Santa Monica where we get trapped in a traffic jam. It's about 4 p.m. when we can finally leave our car at the Santa Monica Shopping Center's parking lot.
The shops can't be called memorable so that we decide to go out for a walk on the main street, the 3rd Promenade. Here you can find the best stores in Santa Monica and lots of entertaining street artists. We specially like a basketball player who shows off his Harlem Globetrotters styled acrobatics, asking people to take part in his performances.
We still have time before our parking ticket expires to spend along the seaside. Palms and people in roller blades remind us of what we have seen so many times on TV. But now we are there and it's a special emotion.
At about 7 p.m. we leave Santa Monica and head to our hotel, the LAX Sheraton. This is the airport area, probably one of the best places to stay since it's near all the other important areas of the city. The hotel itself is not exactly what we would have expected from a 4 star hotel, but it's not so bad. The room looks a bit old and few of the hotel's extras are free.
We're tired so we give up the idea of going out again to some drugstore. We eat at the Burger King right in front of the hotel and after dinner come back straight to our room where we soon fall asleep.

Monday, 4^th August
Downtown & Fashion District
We haven't come to LA to see museums and that means today we're planning on shopping. We'd also like to give a look at downtown so that we unite our goals and leave our hotel headed for downtown LA.
To our great pleasure, we're again trapped in the LA traffic and we have a chance to discover how incredibly expensive parking can be. We drive a bit around downtown's skyscrapers till we find a parking meter where we can leave our car for a few minutes. We just have enough time to get to the information point and get some info on best places for bargains. The two old ladies at the desk send us to the Fashion District. It is basically a huge open market where the only rule to get the best price is that...there are no rules, everything is permitted. I wouldn't swear on most of the items' quality but we wouldn't have come here if that was what we were looking for.
Under the hot sun we browse through the Fashion District till afternoon. Then we give up considering that we would need some extra hands to carry all our shopping bags. Anyway, we're satisfied with our bargain. Before leaving downtown I treat to myself a quick "religious" journey to the Staples Center, home court of the famous and nasty Los Angeles Lakers!
Manhattan Beach
Our desire to shop hasn't reached its limit so we spend the afternoon browsing a true electronics sanctuary: Fry's. Before reaching Manhattan Beach, where Fry's is located, we pass through Long Beach (where we see the Queen Mary) and Redondo Beach once sung by the Beach Boys. Here we stop to eat something at a McDonald's before going on.
We're at Fry's at about 4 p.m. and what happened in next hour only Magda knows since I was in a state of coma due to happiness. Fry's is a electronics shop, as big as a huge drugstore and everything you could ever ask for is there.
We stop at the nearby JC Penny for one more hour and manage to leave traces of our credit cards here too.
It's almost 6 p.m. when, after parking our car along the seaside, we can finally get down to the beach. We don't have our swimsuits with us but this can't stop us from having a little bath. While we sit on the sand and the sun goes down, we can only regret we don't have a few days to spend lazily on some warm and sunny beach.
Instead, time is passing and at about 8 p.m. we're driving to our hotel. We stop by the way to buy some food. Tonight we'll eat in our hotel room.

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