Me rockin the bull on first night in LA

6 Days of  excessive drinking, partying and minimal sleep combined with day tours, took its toll!

Looking back at the last week I may have partied a little to hard, the last 6 days felt like a week long crazy college party. It was really good to have a chance to let my hair down and run a bit wild especially after all the stresses i’ve gone through in past few months  and to be honest after returning back to Montreal it has hit my body and my wallet pretty hard, I don’t think I’ve been this sore in a long time. The amount of money I ended up spending on alcohol ended up being about as much as my accommodation and food for each day.

But I wouldn’t change a thing, I think I have now gotten a lot of my younger rebellious college boy out of me so going into my Latin American trip I will not be partying nearly as hard. for one I don’t think my body could take it and secondly I will be limiting myself to a more strict budget.

Partying in Limo Hollywood LA

Los Angeles

I started in Los Angeles and was there for 3 days staying at the USA Hostel in Hollywood. I was in a 6 person Dorm and overall I really enjoyed it, they had a outdoor patio and upstairs lounge which had a bar in it which made it really easy to meet and hang out with new people. Their numerous activities such as pub crawls, limo rides and numerous walking tours were also a lot of fun and only being 5 minutes walk from Hollywood boulevard it was great,  I would highly recommend this hostel to anyone looking to stay near Hollywood.

In terms of LA as a whole it didn’t really blow me away everything felt very commercialized, touristy and run down. Walking down Hollywood boulevard you would be constantly harassed by people trying to sell you something, that and the fact that everything is so spread out making it hard to get around really made it hard. Hell it took us over an  hr to get from Hollywood to Venice beach via car. In Australia I could have driven from Brisbane city all the way to the Gold Coast in the same amount of time.

USA Hostel Hollywood

Day 1

I wont go over much that happened in my first day of backpacking in LA seeing as Everything that happened in that first day is already listed in “Losing my Hostel Virginity” so if your interested in that go check it out. it involved a limo large amounts of alcohol, riding of mechanical beasts and other activities worth reading.

Limo outside of hostel

Day 2

So after day 1’s activities I ended up in bed at around 3am, I woke up the next day at around 8 am with my mouth feeling like an ashtray, turns out hookah doesn’t agree with me. I wont be making this a regular thing.

But either way got up and I went on a walking tour up to see the Hollywood sign. It took a couple of hours and was nice because there were over 20 of us and I got to meet a bunch of cool people.On the way up to the Hollywood sign we got to see the “Garden Of OZ” which is a mosaicked folk art garden that is a LA historic-cultural monument, It was gated when I was there so we couldn’t go inside,the tour guide said that there are only 6 keys for it that get passed around LA. (for those who are keen to check it out its at 3106 LEDGEWOOD DR LOS ANGELES)

Outside the Garden Of OZ

After continuing up the hill we arrived as close as we could get to the hollywood sign (there is a big fence around it so people cant get that close to it). I guess it was cool to be up close to it and made for some cool pictures but I think its one of those things actually looks better when viewed from afar because its such an iconic thing.  but it still was awesome to see.

Hollywood Sign

When you are up close to it you realize that its just a tacky wooden sign!

Obligatory tacky tourist photo, I swear im so unique i’m the first person that ever thought of doing this 😛

After spending the morning in the dry heat of the mountains of LA. one of the guys from the hostel (Luis) from Portugal who I met up with on the Limo tour on the previous night had rented a ford mustang convertible and was heading down to venice beach with a couple of other guys I met up with the night before, so there we were 4 guys all from different countries, Australia,Portugal,Brazil and Norway with some dance music blazing driving down to Venice beach feeling like superstars. This would have to be the highlight of my trip to LA and my second favorite thing of my entire trip behind seeing the sunset behind the golden gate bridge in San Fran.

Me feeling like a Baws cruising down Venice Beach

Upon arriving at Venice beach we checked out the pier which was alright I guess just a bunch of tacky stores, then we hit up the beach. I have to say I’ve heard a lot of great things about Venice beach, people going “omg the beaches in california are so good”. Maybe I’m just spoiled being from Australia because I thought it was ok. Having just come from the amazing beaches of the sunshine coast in Queensland Australia I actually preferred the Australian beaches. But that still didnt stop us from having a great time and even going for a bit of a dip and posing for some “Manly” photos haha.

Haha you can really tell that I’m a nerd in this shot and don’t go outside much with my awesomely tanned arms and blindingly white chest 😛

After that we headed back to the hostel for a “Quiet” night in (Partying and drinking at hostel until about 4am)

Day 3

Day 3 was my last full day in LA and it was another bright and early start with a walking tour of Runyon canyon at 10am. To be honest the dry heat of LA was really starting to get to me, I know people are probably going to say “DUDE!!! your from Australia your meant to be used to the heat” I guess the last 2 years in Canada has softened me up a bit. But by the third day in LA I was really wishing I had an Endure Elements spell (Bit of a nerd joke there for ya :P)

It was a cool walk and I got some awesome shots of LA including one of my favorite shots of my trip

Warning Sign at top of Runyon canyon really love this shot

I think one of the things that always fascinated me about Los Angeles was the landscape, all of these sandy hills everywhere.

Runyon Canyon landscape

After  a morning out in the sun I headed to Skooby’s Hot dog’s with a girl I met from new zealand where I had one of the best hot dogs I have ever eaten, It had bacon, peppers, onions, mustard,ketchup and mayonnaise, om nom nom

Sooo Delicious!!!!!

With some food in my stomach I was ready for the hostel activity of the day which was an organized pub crawl through 3 different pubs in Hollywood, This was my last night in La and I was going to make the most of it. I cant remember half of it but there were 25 of us and it lasted to ridiculously late in the evening and   the next day a few of the guys were saying that we ended up at some really ghetto dance club that was full of gang members covered with tattoos however I cant remember noticing that at the time which was probably a bad thing 😛 But oh well it was a great night out and everyone had a good time.

Day 4

I was up bright and early before 10am to check out of my hostel room. Then me and a couple of Aussie blokes who I had met up with on the first day in LA who were also heading to San Fran boarded a bus to San Francisco. The  bus ride took around 8 hrs and had us arriving in San francisco just in time for the pub crawl event at the USA hostel there. So stay tuned to see part two which continues my adventures in San francisco 😀

With that I leave you with this awesome photo I took from the bus on way to San francisco.