After all of the excitement of the wedding we decided we would need at least a couple of days to A. recover, B. See some of LA and C. spend some time with our great new friends. We totally moved into the apartment Megan had kindly lent us for a night or two (as we tend to do) and decided that we should do something to thank Megan,Aaron and Coco for being so much fun and helping us out so monumentally with the apartment, the outfits for the wedding and of course being fabulous Vamp bridesmaids (not retrospectively…although Im sure Aaron would have made an equally fab Vampy bridesmaid given the opportunity).At home in sunny old England we were known to entertain and our dinner parties with guest participation went down particularly well…so…on
hearing that Aaron actually only eats pizza we decided we would have a pizza making evening.

We made the dough, filled bowls with toppings and glasses with wine and watched the floury fun unfold!
We found out a little too late that the apartment didn’t have a rolling pin so an empty wine bottle would suffice and Megan provided a pizza stone and we all made our very own mini pizza’s. My favourite quote of the evening was Aarons response to the question “so how do you like your homemade pizza?” with “great, it’s fluffy; it’s light…it’s just right!” we all rolled around laughing and had a great night.

The next morning we were all a little delicate but Alex and I managed to return our rented halloween costumes that we hadn’t ended up wearing and then crashed out on the couch to recover from the madness of driving all the way down the west coast pretty much in a week, going to 3 parties…including the wedding and everything else we had managed to cram in! We were so grateful of somewhere to stay after a few days of roughing it before the wedding.

We spent the next few days really loving ‘living’ in west Hollywood. We returned the clothes to Clockwork Couture and saw the gorgeous Gin (the handsome cat) again, we went to meet Jaques, our good friend from the Hawaii Hilton Waikoloa wedding for coffee, as he was staying in LA for the night, we went to a surprise 30th birthday party for Eric (the guy doing card magic at the shark attackiversary) where Megan whooped Katherine Heigl’s ass at hula hooping and I drank THE worst beer I have ever tasted.
We went kitchen utensil shopping for Aaron after he swore he would never eat shop bought pizza again…we got him a rolling pin…and a pizza stone as the other one broke in my hand (truly, I didn’t even drop it!!!). We stocked up on rough guide books to USA, South America and Central America for our up and coming road trips, we wandered around shops we couldn’t afford to be in wearing shorts and flip flops in the rain and slipped and squelched our way down the aisles giggling like naughty kids and on Saturday we actually made it to do some sight seeing!
We got up early and headed straight for Venice beach. The sun was bright and the sky blue and we wandered bare foot all the way along the beach. We watched the skateboarders defy death, listened to the buskers trying to make music and smelled the cafe’s and bistro’s as we walked along. Its such an eclectic place, the homes lining the beach are of every shape and size and ALL fantastic with glass top to bottom, waterfalls cascading down their front doors, one even had a captains lookout with its very own chandelier…yet the street and beach is lined with the homeless.

The vendor stalls are mainly people making crafts to try to earn a few dollars, there’s a freak show offering bearded ladies and 2 headed children and then next door there is a shop selling $40 flip flops. Its so bizzarre and captivating at the same time. A completely mixed bag!

We walked a good couple of miles and headed back north to try to catch a glimpse of muscle beach but we didn’t see anyone working out, just strutting their stuff up and down the promenade on every method of wheeled of transport you have ever seen from bicycles to tandems, to roller skates or blades, to skate boards to snake boards…and all half naked and fast!

Once we arrived home we couldn’t be bothered to cook so invited the gang around to order in a take out. We had pulled the box of wine out of the van and the equivalent of 6 bottles of wine later we were dancing in the front room, I even learned how to do the dougie and in return we taught the ‘Americans’ how to play Roxanne! If you don’t know how to play watch the video!

Needless to say the following day was a complete write off but well worth the laughs!
We have said it before but we will say it again and again…and probably again, but as we continue on our amazing journey it is becoming more and more evident that it is not the things you see that make your time in a place memorable but the people you meet. I may forget the harbour in Nanaimo but will certainly never forget everything Clark and Angie have done for us and the time we have shared with them. I will very quickly forget the cemetary where Bruce Lee is buried, yet I will never forget the day we spent with Jonas and Mary. I will immediately forget the line of baby seagulls lined up on Venice boardwalk that we laughed at, but I will never forget Megan, Aaron, Coco and Tristan…friends that (maybe unfortunately for them) we will now have for the rest of our lives. We can’t wait to find our new home, wherever that may be, and to call of the Helen’s, Johnny’s, Karena’s,Garnett’s, Jaques’s,Kelli’s and Tawsha’s and invite them to come around so we can return the hospitalitly they have shown us. We can’t wait to be in a position to help total strangers the way all of
the people above…and many more…have helped us make our journey unforgettable!

See what happens next on our wedding travel adventure!