A Few Days in Los Angeles

On our recent trip to Southern California we spent a couple of days in Los Angeles.

I'll be honest. LA isn't my favourite place but I figured we couldn't travel all the way down there and not see any of the city. Ava and Lola had only briefly visited Los Angeles in the past (a quick breakfast in Hollywood with my sister on the way to Disneyland and a transfer at LAX when we first arrived from Australia) and there were a few things they were pretty keen to see.

Ava and Lola couldn't wait to visit Santa Monica Pier, the stars on Hollywood Walk of Fame, the handprints and footprints in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater, and La Brea Tar Pit. But most of all, they couldn't wait to buy cupcakes from the Sprinkles Cupcake ATM! Ok, I was pretty excited about the cupcakes too!

The girls enjoyed Los Angeles and I must admit that I actually kind of warmed to it a little too. You won't be seeing us moving there any time soon but my opinion of the city has improved a little!

Here's a look at our time in Los Angeles...



We arrived in Santa Monica where we would spend the next few nights late in the day. After an early dinner the girls and I headed to the pier to check out the amusements. It was much colder than expected so we just went on the one ride before the shivering took over. We warmed up with churros and headed back to the hotel to rest up for the big day of sightseeing ahead of us.

The next morning we headed to La Brea Tar Pit. I've been keen to see La Brea Tar Pit since seeing it on tv shows as a kid. Ava and Lola were just as intrigued. While we didn't visit the museum, we did walk around the tar pit and the neighboring Los Angeles County Museum of Art which features many sculptures outside. Across Wilshire Boulevard we saw pieces of the Berlin Wall. The girls were intrigued by the painting of JFK on the wall and spent the rest of the afternoon saying "I'm a jelly donut!"  

We then headed to Hollywood where we checked out the stars on the sidewalk, had fun with the hand prints outside of Grauman's Chinese Theatre and caught a glimpse of the Hollywood sign.

Time for some food... We left Hollywood and headed to Beverly Hills for the long awaited cupcakes from an ATM! By then it was getting dark so the cupcake ATM didn't come out so well in my photos (in real life the mesh around the ATM is striped in pastel colours). The kids enjoyed the novelty of getting their cupcakes from an ATM even though we had to wait a little while for it to be restocked. Ava ordered our cupcakes through the touch screen and then the girls watched the journey of our chosen treats from their spots on the shelf to the collection point via the onscreen camera. Much more fun than ordering in store!

We then moved on to dinner. Ava is a little obsesssed with the Bubba Gump chain and had spotted one on Santa Monica Pier the night before. We headed there for dinner and the girls were pretty excited to have their food served in a cardboard boat!  

The next morning the girls were ready for some playground fun and as luck would have it there was a fantastic playground right behind our hotel. Look at Mathilde rock climbing!

After an hour or so at the playground we were back in the car and heading to our most colourful destination yet. Stay tuned for Salvation Mountain coming soon!