"Under the Boardwalk, Out of the Sun..."

Day 3.  We woke early-ish and had breakfast (in the Club Room, of course), before catching the Metro down to Wilshire and Vermont and changing to the 720 Rapid Bus for the trip to Santa Monica Beach.  The bus trip takes about 40 - 50 minutes and we saw some amazing architecture, elegant suburbs and sights like Tiffany's on the corner of Rodeo Drive as we passed (we decided to dedicate a day to the centre of Hollywood when we come back to LA before flying home to Sydney).

For today, we stayed on the bus until the end of the line and then strolled down to the pier and took in the sights.  When we arrived the beach directly in front of the water was crowded with people all holding hands. It was 'Hands across the Sands' a protest against BP who haven't acted quickly enough to clean up the oil spill in the gulf (green view).

The Pier itself is pretty amazing with a mini amusement park, an old-fashioned carousel, buskers and painters and traders all along the sides, a few seafood restaurants and dozens of people fishing.  Every now and then there are stairs down to small landings, floating docks, with yet more fishermen on them. 

Then we had a sea food lunch: a couple of the girls had calamari and chips and I had the clam chowder in a bread bowl, which was absolutely delicious!  All of this is up on the pier which is made from humungous wooden planks - very old and worn by the passing feet of generations of Santa Monicans with the nail heads all poking up, laying in wait to trip the unwary.  I wonder if this is the famous boardwalk of the song?  I've taken a photo looking diagonally back across the sea showing the huge posts holding up the pier and you can totally see how on a very hot day, it would be nice to sit in the cool under the boardwalk.

After lunch we wandered back up toward the bus stop but detoured along the Third Avenue Promenade which was three blocks long, blocked off to through traffic in a pedestrian mall, a bit like the Corso in Manly, but a much larger area.  There were dozens of buskers here too and crowds milling around enjoying the sunshine - although the sun had come out, it wasn't horrendously hot, rather it was a very pleasant 77 degrees F (approx 23 - 24 degrees C).  There are some pretty amazing topiary 'statues', well artworks, shaped like dinosaurs, with heads and spines of steel and bodies of living bush; again, I'll post pictures when I have access to a computer that has both the internet AND a card player [at the moment I have the internet on the hotel's computer but the card reader is on my notebook which cannot link to the internet].

By then we were back at the bus stop and so hopped back onto the Rapid bus for the trip back.  On the way out to Santa Monica we'd been 'entertained' by an obnoxious man who spent about half of the trip arguing with the bus driver; thankfully, the trip back into town was devoid of argumentative people.  In fact, people were polite and actively wanted to help us when they heard our accents.  Although it doesn't sound like we did much it was a tiring day, being jostled by the bus was almost as good as a gym workout(!) on top of our walk: although Kerri says 'we didn't walk much, we sat on the bus most of the time'. Bear in mind though that Kerry is half my size and about 15 years younger.

Back at the Sheraton we were in time for the hors'douvres, and are packing up tonight ready to travel to Dallas tomorrow morning (Sunday).  We leave the hotel just after 7 am to get to the airport on time for our flight.  I'm looking forward to a couple more days in LA on the way home, there is so much to see.

CU L8R,
Tracey

PS: When organising a trip with people you don't know, it's best NOT to organise to share beds before you know each other well... The Sheraton is kind of dear for student pockets, so to save dollars we booked a double-double room (2 double beds in a twin configuration) which made this expensive hotel affordable; however I am REALLY looking forward to Dallas and having a double bed all to myself!! Mind you, this is NOT to say anyone in the group has been anything but considerate to one another and polite. It's just when you are jetlagged and need a good nights sleep it's easier when you have a bed you can squirm around in, if for instance, you have restless legs that itch and twitch through the night.  *sigh*