Day 15

For our last morning in Vegas we went back to Citizen and had an eat in breakfast. I had a scrummy raspberry granola thing, Laura had an omelette.

We said our goodbyes to our Mandalay Bay room, checked out and dragged our suitcases through the casino in the direction of the car park. On the way through I smelt the Mandalay Bay smell (vaguely coconutty) and thought about how I wouldn’t smell it again. It was also still weird to see people smoking indoors, especially when you consider it’s been banned in the UK for about 7 years now. Totally bizarre.

As we walked through the car park, we did something that nobody should be surprised about now – we split up and each walked up different aisles to scout out the license plates! Our determination was rewarded when we found Mississippi, the remaining ‘M’ plate. Result! Only eight left now.

We briefly stopped at the ‘Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas’ sign before starting the long drive to LA. For whatever reason, the roads seemed to be particularly busy, the drivers more crazy and the speeds higher. It wasn’t a particularly enjoyable drive and the scenery was a but ‘meh’. We passed the time looking at license plates and playing good music on the iPod shuffle.

Shortly after leaving Vegas we spotted Nebraska. Woohoo! And then about half an hour later we got Kansas too. Yes! Just six left to find.

At 4pm we arrived in LA and negotiated the winding streets to our apartment in the Hollywood Hills. We met Jackie and she showed us around. The view of LA from the apartment was just as spectacular as it looked on AirBNB.

After acquainting ourselves with the apartment we headed down to the super touristy Hollywood Boulevard. We walked along the walk of fame looking at the stars. Then we checked out the Kodak Theatre, home of the Oscars. Next, we looked at hand prints outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

We then went to a restaurant called Goldie’s to have dinner. On the drive over we discussed how sprawling and kind of ugly LA is. It didn’t seem like a very friendly city.

Goldie’s was a restaurant Laura had found via the internet and it was quite cool. Maybe a teeny bit too cool for us. The food is designed for sharing and we order five plates, but after the third and fourth plates arrived we realised we’d perhaps ordered a bit too much. When the duck arrived we forced it down. I had a cocktail called a Golden Girl which was kind of weird. Sort of spicy.

After dinner we headed home, got some milk at a gas station and chilled in the apartment. We both felt a bit odd – almost like we had post holiday blues whilst still being on holiday. After the spectacular scenery of the national parks and man made scenery in Vegas, LA was seeming to be a bit crap. However we focussed on the good stuff coming up: Universal Studios, Paramount & WB tours, the Hollywood Bowl, Taylor Swift and the beach day.