25.2.2014 // Southern coastline

On tuesday we had plan, but still we had no plan. The plan was to yet again drive along the Pacific Coast Highway, but this time down to the south. Laguna Beach was our final destination and on the way we just stopped whenever we felt like it. 

The first stop was at Long beach, where we were supposed to enjoy breakfast. On the way there, I saw these huge bridges and was already upset that we wouldn't go on them, when suddenly I realized we actually would! Mom is kind of scared of hights so she was panicking while driving as I was super excited, haha. Poor mummy! As we got closer to Long Beach we passed by an enormous shipyard and it was such a cool looking place with all those humongous cranes.

I had researched some places and there didn't seem to be that many places listed.. I found a place that seemed promising, but as we got there it was very..interesting(to say the least). After a few google sessions, we drove down to the harbor and found a somewhat better place to hang out at. We had breakfast at the same place as four American police officers, who all had frappucinos. It was pretty windy so we only walked around for a while and changed locations to the actual beach of Long Beach. Even though it was pretty warm in the inland, the wind made it chilly to walk around the beach. There were some people, mainly just running/exercising at the beach. I thought one man was actually swimming but it turned out to be a fisherman, hehe.

After a while we continued our way south, admiring the landscape and all the beautiful beaches. Our next stop was Huntington Beach, in which I was not even that bother to stop at. I was pretty tired and not in a very good mood but mom made us stop by there and I am SO glad she did. Such a cool, hip and young place with all those skaters. We saw some pretty awesome surfers in the water too, especially one of them was almost like having his own show as most of the guys were just sitting on their boards.

All of a sudden I heard this loud noise and looked up, I saw five big helicopter flying right above us. As we drove a little while ahead, there was a some kind of a military campsite so I suppose they came from there.

 

At Newport Beach there was once again a huge harbor full of gorgeous boats or yachts should I say. There would have been a kind of an islet just by the beach but it came too surprisingly and we didn't manage to get there anymore. 

Getting closer to Laguna beach the landscape changed a lot to a more hilly than before it was quite flat. By the highway I saw these big signs directing to a some kind of a shopping center called Fashion Island with stores like Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Macy's. I was like, Mom, we _need_ to stop by there on the way back. And so we did.

At Laguna Beach we kind of just drove trough the place. It looked nice, a lot of old wealthy looking people and their kids was my first impression. I wanted to find this beach called the thousand steps beach(or something like that) and we actually did, but then some grumpy old man started to yell at us that we couldn't park there and it was only or the people living there. Also, it was a by a pretty busy road so we figured to just continue our drive. I mean, we saw some pretty awesome beaches during our stay so not to bothered we skipped that one.

We somehow managed to spend quite a few hours at the Fashion Island(outdoor mall) and suddenly all the stores were closing and almost like kicking us out. For the first time, I got terribly rude service at Forever21. I mean, I understand that you can not expect the same service as like for example Neiman Marcus(where the ladies where SO nice even though we did not buy anything), but come on you can still be nice. This woman did not say hi, did not smile once, was super rude to her colleague and when I was looking trough a pile of tank tops, she yelled at me that I shouldn't touch the pile and she would give the size I wanted. I mean, its not like I would mess up the whole table. And finally, she gave me this one top which must have been the wrinkliest one in whole California. 

We had such a long day and manage to get back to the hotel just after nine I think so once again an early night in for us.