mark his words: California, here we are.

I'd heard LA was quintessential America and from the moment I've stepped off the plane I've felt like I've been dropped onto a movie set. From the cab drivers, to the street artists, to the homeless people that litter Venice Beach, in a way it almost feels like I'm not seeing anything new. Everything is exactly as I pictured it, which is not a bad thing, but it's almost eery.

Our Armenian-come-American cab driver gave us a slight hint of what to expect as we grinded to a halt on one of LA's sprawling freeways. "Welcome to LA", he laughed, before explaining the unusual Sunday afternoon gridlock was for most the part caused by a massive exodus of the Los Angeles populace heading towards Venice Beach, where we were to spend out first few days, to make the most of the picture-perfect weather.

The iconic boardwalk along Venice Beach was teeming with life, a melting pot of an extremely diverse range of people. Local skaters, tourists, joggers and street entertainers of every creed and colour all contribute to what is a huge sensory overload.

It was in search for a supermarket that we really gained a sense of how spread out everything is in LA and also, how poor the public transport set-up is. After walking for miles (literally), we decided that we'd cut our losses, and just buy some food from whatever caught our fancy on the way back. As it turned out, that food happened to be in the building next door to our hostel. It was also our first experience of American food portions. Let's just say, as someone who is inclined to shock and/or appall people with my ability to eat, I'm incredibly satisfied here. In general food portions seem to be about 50% bigger yet cost 50% less. Queue the obesity puzzle pieces falling into place.

Waking up early the next day allowed me to view the boardwalk and beach in a completely different light. Rather than being full of activity and life, the boardwalk was desolate and full of homeless people. Sadly, they're also iconic. When the boys awoke we made our way via bike to Santa Monica. After disembarking at the pier, and again further up from the beach, we ventured back to our hostel to discover that the "absolutely perfect weather" had absolutely perfectly given us a touch of sunburn. Perhaps not as invincible to the suns rays as expected.

Tomorrow we head off to Universal Studios in our (first)rental car we have for a couple of days. We got slightly ripped off, due to leaving it to the last minute (well, 15 minutes, literally) to book it. Burnt twice in one day, who'd have thought.