Day 9- Santa Barbara and Santa Monica

We woke up today very groggy and wanting to sleep in but of course we headed to our continental breakfast. This one shook it up a bit by adding cheese and ham..we aren't exactly sure what they were supposed to go on buut we added a slice of cheese to our bagels. We then got ready to go but couldn't find anywhere in the room where it told us the check out time. We didn't rush but didn't doddle and finally at 10:50 Jen decided to call and make sure check out was at 12pm. Nope. It was in 10 minutes. We scrambled around and finished packing up and made it out just in time.
We walked around Santa Barbara some more and window shopped. Then in searching for a Subway for lunch (our GPS said it was close but we walked quite a ways before giving up) we found this cute little beachy restaurant which was delish!!
We then headed to Santa Monica, during which I tried my absolute hardest but failed to keep my eyes open the entire time we were driving. Luckily Jen did not have the same problem and though there was traffic, we made it in a little over an hour and a half. We were very leery about our hotel because it is (drum roll please) another Travelodge. We pulled up and were greeted by very friendly and cheerful receptionists. We parked in this teeny tiny lot and headed to our room and were very surprised to find our room is pretty nice. It has a separate little kitchenette area which is cute and the room appears to be much cleaner. My only complaint being that the door to the room is very light and seems kind of flimsy to me.
We researched the area a bit and got ready before heading to downtown Santa Monica. The drive there was extremely stressful and we didn't know where to park but it all worked out (besides having to pay $8 for parking and then seeing a place for $5 parking) and we started our walk to the 3rd Street Promenade. It was so much fun!! The street is blocked off to cars and there are street preformers filling the middle area. There are tons of shops and restaurants and everyone seems to have cute little dogs with them. We stopped to watch this one street performer who was really funny (we couldn't see tooo much because we were behind some people) but he danced and was just a funny personality. We then walked all the way down the street to an outdoor mall. It was awesome! We went to the food court area and had sushi!! YUM! It was quick service and pretty cheap; plus we got to sit at the little bar and watch him make it which was fun.
We then walked to the pier which was just like Ocean City's boardwalk. It was packed!! We seemed to be there at the turnover time when evening people are leaving and night time people are coming. We walked to the end and back and then headed back to our hotel.
This is the part where Travelodge lives up to its reputation from before. I forgot to mention earlier but when we left the teeny tiny parking lot, Jen had to do literally about a 15 point turn while I guided her from outside of the car. If this didn't feel embarrassing enough, of course we had an audience- 3 people standing outside there rooms smoking or something and laughing..I'm going to say they were laughing WITH us but it was most likely laughing AT us. Anyway when we returned to our hotel, we were not about to park in the same spot so we tried to make it into the little end spot where we'd be able to just back out but when the spot is labeled "compact car only" it really means you better have one of those little smart cars because that's the only thing that would have fit. I went to the front desk and asked where else we could park and after looping to there other lots (all filled) we ended up in the Trader Joe's parking lot a little down the street where the front desk guy gave us a pass too. We were NOT happy about this and grudgingly left our little Spidey; bitching the entire way back to our room. OH and did I mention our SAME audience from earlier was there to watch this all happening? Yea we basically wanted to say "I dare you to say something?"

Optimism Column:
-We just filled out the review from our Santa Barbara hotel and gave them a complaint about us not knowing when checkout is
-apparently the Travelodge thinks everyone drives a smart car or motorcycle
-some street performers aere very talented..others not so much (yea we mean the little dude kicking bowls)
-we saw a girl with dreads to her KNEES. How many years has she not been washing or combing her hair?? YIKES.
-some people give their dogs the most ridiculous haircuts
-Oceana Santa Barbara view: the Pacific Ocean.    Travelodge view: someone's trashy backyard
-as I type, an ant is crawling up Jen's leg while she sits on the bed
-if our car gets towed from Trader Joe's Travelodge will be paying for it.
-they were not kidding about L.A. traffic
-people in L.A. like to use their horns
-apparently belly shirts are back in style..huh.
-even though the Travelodge boasts the size of their large tvs, apparently guests would rather stand on the balcony and watch people park their cars
-How much you wanna bet they have those slimy hardboiled eggs at breakfast tomorrow morning??

PS. Can you tell we are writing the optimism column when Jen is tired and has been stressed with driving and parking this evening??

This picture is for the optimism column. Why can I never learn that I need to zoom out before trying to take a picture of both of us together???? I think this is the 500th picture of Jen's zoomed in face and mine cut off.

Gross traffic!

Our little kitchen! :)

SUSHI!

A gigantic Smirf and Joanna.

Ok I truely wasn't trying to take a picture of this dogs butt..I just wanted to show how absurd some of the dogs hair was cut..I believe this is supposed to be a Pomeranian.