Adventures in the USA: Rachel's Travel Diary

Good Afternoon from British Soil! As promised, here is one final update to cover the end of my time in the USA and my return to England.

After my last post on the morning (US time) of 26th June, I headed for Beverly Hills to go to Mr Brainwash, an art gallery of pieces by the street artist Thierry Guetta who goes by the pseudonym of Mr Brainwash. He juxtaposes different styles of artwork and superimposes modern popular culture onto classic works of art, for example a series of Mona Lisas wearing sunglasses, face paint, hats etc. After a walk round the gallery, I headed next door to an ice cream parlour recommended by the Book Club crew. I sampled ‘Goose Tracks’ (raspberry/blackberry with chocolate flakes) and ‘Gooey Butter Cake’ (a cream cheese base caramel sauce and cake pieces), then walked back home through the long thin park beside Santa Monica Boulevard. In the evening I went for a lovely dinner with Chris and two of his colleagues at La Boheme, a French restaurant we went to earlier in the year which has live music in the evenings. We ate some great food, shared a couple of bottles of Sancerre and sat on the terrace as the sun set.

On Friday I had arranged to meet my friends Juliet and Adam in the afternoon – they’d flown into San Francisco a week previously and travelled down through some of the national parks (Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia) where they’d seen rattle snakes, black bears and marmots! They’d had a long drive the day before and wanted to do some gentle sightseeing around Hollywood in the morning, so I took an easy morning doing a final bit of tidying and packing. I went back down to Beverly Hills to enjoy the park for a bit longer and investigate an art installation that was being put up the day before. It turned out to be a long line of elephants which is part of a fundraiser for conservation charities; over the summer residents can ‘adopt an elephant’. I did also stop by the ice cream shop again – this time for cookie dough and s’mores ice cream! I caught up with Adam and Juliet in Hollywood after they’d been on a bus tour of the Hollywood Hills and Beverly Hills. We walked round a couple more of the tourist spots then headed towards the LACMA gardens. There was no free jazz concert this week as they were instead hosting preview event inside the new gallery that’s recently completed construction but isn’t due to open fully until 2026. There was still a bar in the gardens though so we enjoyed a beer in the gardens, where Chris joined us after he finished work. Finally we grabbed a burger at an Irish pub then headed home.

On Saturday, we picked Adam and Juliet up from their hotel and headed to Santa Monica for a walk on the beach and breakfast at Sweet Maple one last time – some of the best French toast and fried chicken I’ve had. We walked down to Venice Beach, then caught a Waymo back before heading to the Getty Villa! The Villa itself was projected during the fires in January, but there was quite a lot of damage to the grounds and gardens, so the Villa only reopened on 27th June. I was so glad we managed to squeeze in a visit before I left. It was such a peaceful place, with a view of the ocean in the distance and a huge collection of Ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian artefacts. We spent around 3 hours exploring the Villa and gardens before going back to Santa Monica for sunset, then Chris and I left Juliet and Adam to go to a final dinner together at The Little Door – we went there for Chris’s birthday and it has a beautiful atmosphere; perfect for our last night together.

Sunday morning brought the final bits of packing, a nice walk round the local area including the Melrose Farmer’s Market, then we drove up to Castaway for lunch overlooking the San Fernando Valley. I’d had an email in the morning notifying me that my flight was delayed by two hours due to a fault earlier in the day, and that check-in would also be delayed so I wouldn’t need to get to the airport as early, which meant we had plenty of time to enjoy the view and sip on one cocktail. Before long though it was time to head back to the apartment, pick up my cases and make the journey to the airport. The final hiccup was a problem with my flight ticket, meaning I had all the payment confirmations and booking references, but there was no ticket number linked with my booking! It was a rather nerve-wracking wait while a staff member had to ‘ring London’ (I assume they had to speak to BA head office) but they managed to get my ticket rebooked – luckily it wasn’t a very busy flight and there were still plenty of seats available!

The flight itself was smooth enough – a little bit of turbulence but not too bad, a broken in-flight entertainment system but it was a nighttime flight so we were asleep for most of the time anyway, and pretty tasty meals again! It was much easier getting through border control in the UK than in the USA as well! I will miss LA (and in particular I’ll miss Chris) but it is nice to be back home as well. I’ve recovered from jet lag pretty well and I’ve unpacked most of my stuff now. Now I’ll turn my attention to finding the kit I need for Switzerland, trying to arrange online shopping in Switzerland and planning a USA themed Guide meeting for Monday. Back to reality!

Signing off now, from the same side of the pond
Rachel