Day 24: Santa Monica

Our half day in Santa Monica is coming to an end. We took our time this morning. We realize how tired we are and accordingly we move slowly. The hotel had a restaurant where we had a delicious breakfast. You can tell in Santa Barbara that a lot of surfer boys serve here. We then took direct routes to Santa Monica. The traffic was terrible, on 6-lane roads we moved at a snail's pace and arrived at our hotel shortly before 1 pm. The area is a bit meh, as is the condition of the hotel BUT it is cheap and central. After 3.5 weeks you have to watch your money when it comes to accommodation. We were also allowed to check in at this time and went straight down to the pier. We quickly decided to rent bikes. I chose a flashy color so I can always find it and we rode towards Venice Beach, with a little break until we arrived at the skate park where I really wanted to watch the skaters. Not bad, what they can do there, wow!

You can tell in general, this is where everything cool and hip wants to come together. Because of the sun, the giant beach, everything runs more relaxed here. I find it quite interesting here but half a day is enough for me to get an impression. The huge beaches are relatively empty despite a water temperature of 20 degrees - not much more than the Baltic Sea.

You can get pierced and get tattoos on every corner but I am not yet 18 ;-) On the one hand, there are big flag stores here, but on the other hand, there are so many junk shops. We didn't buy anything apart from ice coffee, drinks, and a portion of sweet potato chips.

We rode around for about 3 hours with the cool bikes and then returned them before we walked on the Santa Monica Pier. A real amusement park. We had fun walking over it once and taking some photos.

Afterwards, we briefly went to Santa Monica Downtown. If you want to shop for big brands, you have a lot to do here. We had dinner at a Thai restaurant and then walked back to our hotel.

We have to get up very early tomorrow because we booked a tour of LA. So none of us has to be annoyed behind the wheel and we will be chauffeured around by minibus and let out of the bus for photo stops. I probably won't be able to write the blog tomorrow because we will be back quite late or have to pack everything for the next day. Tomorrow morning is our last full day in the USA. But let's see how I feel after the LA day tomorrow, because I shouldn't lack ambition.

Our motel is right by 'Jack the Box' Drive Thru. We'll see how 'quiet' the night was ;-)