The Great American Rail Trip - Leg 2

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We are once again on a train off to our next destination of the San Francisco Bay Area after a quick stop in Los Angeles. Here's a little recap of our time in So-Cal:

Day 1- Chilling and a short walk
We arrived in Los Angeles about 3 hours behind schedule, which as I mentioned in my previous post, actually worked into our favor because it required us to kill less time before checking into the hotel. Normally, Amtrak will allow you to temporarily store carry-on luggage at the major stations (New York, Chicago, LA, etc) for $10, but because we were delayed, they let us store all of our luggage for free, which was a huge help for us, as we otherwise would have had to lug things across Downtown LA while waiting for our hotel to be ready.

With the weight of our luggage literally off our shoulders, we took a 15 minute walk to the Grand Central Market, which is similar to the West Side Market, North Market, etc in Ohio. This was a really cool place since they had tons of different and unique food options- my friend got shrimp and octopus tacos, and I got Korean BBQ.

Having killed enough time, we took the subway back to Union Station to get our bags and Lyfted to our hotel in Burbank. It was here we got to experience LA traffic for the first time. It was pretty awful, and a 10 mile drive took us about 40 minutes. I mean why even put in a freeway if you can only ever go 25 mph on it? It was difficult to use transit in LA unfortunately because it simply doesn'tgo where you need it to in a lot of cases.

After checking into the hotel, we hopped on the bus and headed to the northeast side of Griffith Park. Griffith Park is essentially a giant park in the middle of LA with mountains and hiking, as well as the LA Zoo. We took a short stroll which wasn't terribly interesting, but nice nonetheless. It was super cloudy in LA the first day- we must have brought it all the way from Ohio- it's almost never cloudy in LA. We bused back to the hotel, got dinner, and just chilled at the hotel pool for the rest of the night.
Day 2: Santa Monica, Venice, and Hollywood
The next morning we used a service called Zipcar to borrow a car for the day. With this service, you can both book a car like a traditional rental car service or you can rent a car on demand. If you've ever seen Lime scooters, Zipcar is very similar. You essentially unlock the car with your phone and continue on your merry way. Gas is included in the rental price, which is $6.30/gallon in LA!

Once we had the car, we drove to Santa Monica. Traffic slowed us down a bit, but we still enjoyed the Santa Monica Pier and walking along the beach. The Pacific Ocean is COLD, and the air temperature is not terribly warm near the ocean either (upper 60s), but I braved it and swam anyways. After lunch at In-N-Out, we set off for Venice Beach.

Venice Beach is probably not for everyone, but us youngins found it pretty cool. There are big, beautiful beachfront homes as you approach the boardwalk, where you can find food, restaurants, etc. There is an outdoor gym here where people pump iron, as well as basketball courts and a skate park where hundreds of people watch. There was a fitness competition going on here, which was interesting.

Venice Beach gives off a very skate vibe, for lack of a better term. It's where people just kind of vibe, do what they want without a care of what other people think, and yes, have a little dance with Mary Jane. The smell of weed certainly permeated the air.

Then, we set off to Hollywood. We didn't spend a whole lot of time here, but we walked along the famous Walk of Fame. After this, we drove to a park to see the Hollywood Sign. We returned the Zipcar and went back to the hotel.
Note on LA
LA is not for everyone. Being the urbanist I am, I did not care for it too much. Santa Monica, Venice, and Hollywood are certainly cool, but the fact that you have to perpetually sit in traffic tips the scales a bit away from LA. LA also suffers from a very high rate of homeless. I do not mind this personally, because people are people no matter what 
and I treat them as such, but just be prepared to see tents and people on the street wherever you go, even ultra wealthy areas like Hollywood. People don't seem to beg too much, however, and they are not aggressive.

Off to the Bay Area now. Stay tuned for updates!

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