A Travellers Blog : hopped off the plane at LAX...

If you've ever heard the stories of Inglewood

(which you probably haven't because you're English)

they are all true.

We lived to tell the tale.

We survived.

Unlike Australia, America isn't known for it's backpackers

and therefore, is not backpacker friendly.

We searched the internet for hours trying to find a cheap hostel

to stay at (turns out they don't exist) and we ended up booking

a hostel in the centre of LA in a place called Inglewood.

First thoughts, we hadn't booked a place too bad,

we got free cookies, cake, and a blueberry muffin every morning

so we couldn't complain. However, come next morning when we decided

to venture out of the hostel and jumped on the bus we soon realised

we were staying in a dodgy area of LA.

3 white English girls in the middle of LA attracted the wrong

sort of attention, we later learned just a month before we arrived

someone was shot outside the reception of the hostel.

Anyway, apart from that we were in the fast food country of the world

and couldn't be happier. Our first week in LA we were typical

tourists getting the compulsory photo under the Hollywood sign and walking along the walk of fame. Memorial day fell on the week in which we

were in LA and so we went to a beach carnival and dscovered the

wonders of pitta pit, which is a subway for pitta bread,

but this pitta bread is like no other, it is honestly one

of the tastiest things ever to enter our mouths.

The highlight was definitely Disneyland where we fulfilled our childhood dreams of meeting Mickey Mouse, Cinderella and Winnie the Pooh. Being the 60^th anniversary we saw a Frozen show, went in a “Finding Nemo” themed submarine ride and sailed through a “Pirates of the Caribbean” set. I

think from this day we learned you are NEVER to young to go to Disneyland

and meet your idols. The evening began with a night-time parade and as usual we made friends with the right people so got front row seats,

some people had been queing 4 hours, we rock up 20 minutes

before the parade starts and with our English accents and natural

charm we won over the security guards (mwahah).

Next came the firework display over the castle which was incredible,

Robyn was probably one of the oldest there

and she definitley attracted some funny looks as the 19

year old English girl stood alone singing as loud as she could

to every Disney song they played.

Snow fell during “let it go” Tinkerbell flew over the castle and

even Nemo made an appearance. BEST DAY EVER!!

Pitta Pit is what we live for.

Next stop was Las Vegas, Nevada and the Grand Canyon, Arizona.

We don't like to get up early so a 5.30am start meant we missed our collection point, spent 1 hour driving round LA chasing the tour bus in a taxi before arriving at a new location- Chinese old people's home, this was a bad omen from the beginning. Little did we know we had booked a tour for Asian tourists, so imagine this, 3 English girls sitting on a tour bus surrounded by

Asians with a tour guide (named Mr Wu) talking in Mandarin to us through the speaker. Trust us to book a tour for Asian tourists, however, it had it's perks, when we arrived in Vegas we were assigned our room and after staying in hostels for the past 4 months being given a room

to ourselves with FAST WIFI, and comfy beds, we were on top of world.

This good news led to the traditional jump on the bed to test the springs.

That evening we explored Vegas to watch a few street shows,

one being the volcano show the Mirage puts on every night, each show

costs $20,000! Vegas is EXACTLY how you imagine it to be,

bright lights, crazy people, everything over the top

and exaggerated, it was a lot of fun, Robyn even had

a go at gambling, (even if it was only $1, but being a traveller

you don't really have that much money to spare)!

We spent the next day at the Grand Canyon, bright and early

we hopped on the Asian bus at 4:45am and were on our way.

When we first arrived at the Grand Canyon we were all shocked at the sheer