October 8 - Santa Monica / Los Angeles, CA

all by myself!

Weather – surprise, surprise…it is
foggy again this morning. The fog continued until the afternoon when I was in Santa Monica, Chris says it disappeared a few minutes drive from the hotel. Temps were warm, I’d say 25º and a bit humid.

Steps – 13,422

It is lovely not to have to stress about getting from the ship to the airport in time for a flight. You never know how long it’ll take getting off the ship, through immigration (if that’s necessary), finding a ride and actually getting to the airport. Today we are headed to Santa Monica for 3 more days before heading home on the 11^th.

deep beach

Speaking of immigration…we went through facial recognition immigration…look at the camera…done. Very similar to going through American immigration in the Calgary airport, but here we don’t even have to talk to an actual human.

We figured finding a hotel in another area of LA would be a good idea, this way we can experience a new area. On first glance, Santa Monica seems touristy and upscale. I have recently learned that Santa Monica is technically a separate
city, it is typically considered part of LA.

success!

Heading to a hotel straight from a cruise does have its downside. The latest we are typically permitted to stay onboard the last day of the cruise is 9/930…definitely no later than 10 – today we were in an Uber before 9, to the hotel by 9:30. That means that chances are, we aren’t able to get into our hotel room. No big deal really, the hotel will always store out luggage and we can sit by the pool, get a coffee, wander the neighborhood or whatever. We decided to spring for the extra

home for a bit

charge to get into the room early, we got in just after 11. Chris is going to the football game this afternoon and wants to get on with it.

Apparently, breakfast is part of our room booking so we were able to kill time getting breakfast. Similar to our last LA hotel, this is another expensive egg situation. We are allocated $54USD for breakfast – today we went over that…sheesh!

so many cars

I spent a bulk of today on my own. Chris has friends in town for the LA Rams football game, so he joined them this afternoon. This is just fine with me. In fact, I encouraged him to go, I’m always happy with alone time. I did very little. I whiled away the day blogging, reading, napping, relaxing, and checking out the Santa Monica beach/pier and searching for ice cream.

The Santa Monica Pier is the quintessential touristy part of Santa Monica that everyone knows from the movies – that means…it is touristy and packed with…you guessed it…tourists. There are rides, buskers, carnival food and people trying to convince you to accept Jesus into your heart.

the pier

Along either side of the pier is beach. I’m not sure

Afters Ice Cream

about tides here, but when I was there the beach was DEEP. The beach was packed too, people were in the water, laying on the sand, skateboarding, and flexing. Lots of families…because it’s Sunday afternoon, or is it always like this? I’ll see tomorrow. Could also have been because of the glorious fall weather.

traffic jam

I walked and I walked. I wanted to “soak in the scene”, but also had my heart set on ice cream. The stands at the pier were packed plus all I could see was soft serve. I’ll never say no to a soft serve cone dipped in chocolate, but I’m more a lover of good ol’ scooped ice cream. I continued my quest. Just when I was about to keel over from starvation (after all last it had been about 5 hours since I had eaten!) I stumbled into a yogurt place. At this point I

bordering lot of hotels

figured I’d have to settle for froyo…nope…it was actual YOGURT. Now I eat my fair share of yogurt, but not in place of ice cream. Yogurt is for nutritional purposes, a vehicle for flax…this was not that. I was actually a bit intrigued but soldiered on for the real deal. I may return tomorrow…breakfast? Probably won’t be more than the hotel breakfast! Or maybe it will…it’s not cheap around here!

I finally found Afters Ice Cream food truck. People were friendly, ice cream was tasty - I had cookie butter. I sat, I ate, I soaked in the late afternoon California sun and people watched.

I took a different route back to the Viceroy Hotel (our home for the next 3 days) and through a park. I walked right through the middle of a little kid’s piñata party…didn’t get asked to join.

not by himself

By the time I got back to the hotel, my foot was ready for some TLC…why, oh why can’t all hotels have ice machines? I am very capable (even when infirm) of filling a bucket from the end of the hall machine. Nope…here I have to call a guy, who then has to call another guy…annoying! The Sofitel, out first LA hotel had an ice machine…plus…it had a water bottle filler AND the way to contact the front desk was via text! AMEN!!!!! I do not consider this calling more personalized service…maybe some people do, but anytime I can communicate without actually TALKING to someone is a win to me!

Woah…this is a long post when nothing really happened.