Lovin' Los Angeles

Our flight back from New Zealand to the UK was via LA, with a rather long two month layover. This meant that the end of Honeymoon Part 3, and our three year wedding anniversary was to be spent in the City of Angels. We were determined to go out with a bang. We'd booked a hire car in advance and two nights 'aboard' a mystery hotel on lastminute.com. There wasn't much mystery though. With lastminute describing it as 'an iconic hotel on water' - a quick google revealed that we were to be staying on the Queen Mary - one of Britain's most famous pre-war Ocean Liners, now resident at Los Angeles' port at Long Beach.

As you might imagine, we were pretty excited about all of this and so once we'd gotten over the extreme driving/navigating to get us from the airport to Long Beach we thoroughly enjoyed exploring our home for two nights.

View from our porthole

It's only taken three years but we finally managed to get ourselves a free honeymoon upgrade - from normal to deluxe double - thankyouverymuch!

HUGE bed in our cabin
which hadn't changed a bit from the 1930s!

The original shower taps with
salt and freshwater options - alas no longer operational

The Queen Mary looking as impressive as ever

After two months of rice and beans, tacos, quesadillas and the like we were very ready for some proper American food. A quick bus ride over to downtown Long Beach and we found a craft beer house which was doing $3 pints that night and had a rather epic food menu. Cue a very long decision process which resulted in us both having enormous burgers. Yum!

Decisions!

With a tiny bit of room left we popped next door to a diner and shared a milkshake for some old school romance.

All American

And a bit more adventuring around the hotel/ship before bed...

As far as the eye can see

The next day we were up and off (well, after a quick all you can eat breakfast). Our plan was to drive straight to Hollywood which is easier said than done in the massive sprawling city that is LA. We managed it though and were soon parking up and walking the famous 'Walk of Fame'.

Me hanging with Marilyn

The Walk of Fame

A few stars

Carpe diem - we agree

Matt also made a new friend

Next up - a drive along LA's famous Mullholland Drive. We'd heard that a lot of the world's biggest stars live here and whilst we didn't spot anyone, we did get a stunning view of the Hollywood sign.

Honeymooning in Hollywood

And generally loved cruising along what must be one of the most beautiful residential streets in the world!

Matt and our wheels

After an hour or so of driving we left LA behind and were driving through the hills of Southern California. Really stunning countryside and definitely an area which could form the start of a pretty awesome Californian road trip! (one day...)

Welcome to California

A quick stop in Malibu and we realised we hadn't eaten since our epic breakfast. D'Amore's pizza place, with its self proclaimed number 1 rating, sounded just right so we popped in and ordered a slice each. As it turns out, a reality TV show 'Malibeauties' was being filmed there that afternoon, following the owner's wife (an ex Baywatch star) as she went about her daily glamorous life in Malibu. We were deemed 'perfect' for a brief appearance in the show. Our parts involved eating pizza, talking about pizza and, well, that's about it. It was great fun, if a little bizarre - we've decided not to give up the day jobs just yet.

Pizza to the Stars - that's us by the way

Soon enough we were heading back to the Queen Mary on the six lane freeway, ducking and diving amongst these beasts:

Just a little run about

A quick freshen up and we were ready for a night out on the Queen Mary. This last night of the trip/honeymoon happily coincided with our three year wedding anniversary (not sure how many people can say that). We decided to splash out and enjoyed a perfect evening eating and drinking and celebrating what has undoubtedly been the best three years of our lives.

The Observation Bar

An 'Old Fashioned' cocktail for Matt and bubbles for me!

More bubbles over an absolutely delicious dinner

The next morning there was just time to pop over to Santa Monica and Venice Beach (Muscle Beach) before heading to the airport...

Santa Monica Pier

Giving those swimmer's arms the love they deserve

Before we knew it, it was time to board our Air New Zealand flight back to London, bringing this mad, wonderful three years to a close. Fingers crossed someone's there to greet us...