ThePassportPrincess

This is the first night I’m sleeping in a nice proper double bed with crisp white sheets tucked in nice and tight, a duvet and four pillows.
I’m sleeping on make-up free pillowcases and I don’t feel I have to use my own pillowcase I brought from home.
If you hadn’t guessed it, I’m staying at a hotel!

Oooh la la I hear you say?
Have I given up on my hostel stays?
Unfortunately not.
I’m starting my Contiki tomorrow morning nice and early so I’m staying at the Miyako Hotel in Downtown LA which is where the Contiki begins.

I’ll write about my day first of all before I go on about the Contiki.

This morning I woke up nice and early at the USA hostel in Hollywood.
I’d pretty much packed my bag last night so I just had a shower, did my make-up and got the last of my belongings from my dorm room quietly as two of the Aussie girls were sleeping.

I checked out of the hostel and left my bags in the storage room that the hostel let’s you use.

This morning, myself and two of my new Aussie friends – Shay and Jarid – went to a Dr Phil taping.
Hahahahaha. I can hear everyone’s laughter from here.
They were already planning to go and as I’m a Dr Phil fan anyways I accompanied them.
I’ve been known to watch a bit of Dr Phil on the TV’s at work in my lunch break so this was an exciting trip for me!

Once we were all ready, off we went on the bus to the Paramount Studios in Los Angeles where they film Dr Phil.

As we lined up around 9am, we ended up having to be put in the 2nd show at 10.45am. 😕 as the first taping had become full.
It was a bit annoying having to wait around for nearly another two hours but we just went down to the Diner on the corner and had a really early lunch/late breakfast.
The Diner at first glance looked really average but was surprisingly good.
I ordered a Vanilla shake and a grilled cheese sandwich. Very American of me I know. I’m loving these shakes over here! They’re so thick 🍵

However I can’t quite get over how they use cheddar cheese in like everything here and it’s so yellow!

After we had finished eating it was pretty much time to head back to the studios so we walked back and lined up again.
Once we were selected to go through we ended up having to wait in the sun for like an hour on these seats until the previous group came out from the first episode of filming.
They take your phone’s off you too so we actually had to be social with one another 😄 and not just flick through Instagram and Facebook.

When we finally got through, we were put near the back as Shay and Jarid were wearing jeans and as that’s not very formal we had to kind of be ‘hidden’.
So I recommend if you ever go – wear something nice!
A nice skirt and top with heels, a suit even or a nice pair of pants and dressy top will get you put up the front.
We could still see really well though so I wasn’t complaining.

The show today was about a man called Richard Glossip who’s in jail and is about to be executed as he’s on death row.They also had the Hollywood actress Susan Sarandon on the show to appeal to the U.S. public to help try to stop the execution of Glossip as she believes he is innocent.
Richard Glossip who is 52, is due to die by lethal injection next month but has always maintained he is not guilty of murder.
He was sentenced to death for his part in the killing of motel owner Barry Alan Van Treese in January 1997.
Sarandon said on the show that the scheduled execution in Oklahoma shows everything that is wrong with the death penalty in America.
The fact he was convicted on the testimony of another guy Justin Sneed, who confessed to beating Treese to death with a baseball bat, but said he had been hired to do it by Glossip

She was also saying how people who do much worse get off the death penalty and he wasn’t given a fair trial as in America sometimes having money is all you need to get off lots of things.
I think it airs a few days before September the 16th so you’ll have to watch out for it! (You may even see me in the audience if you’re lucky ;))

Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of the show as we weren’t allowed to bring cameras or phones in.
I saw Dr Phil’s wife though as she was sitting a few rows down from us. She looks pretty much exactly as she does on TV. Very well-presented and quite ‘perfect’.

When the taping was done (which ran over an hour more than it was meant to) we headed back to Hollywood boulevard and quickly went to Walgreen’s so I could buy some snacks for my Bus Tour tomorrow.

Then we went shopping at Forever 21.
Jarid ended up leaving us girls to our own devices and we had a nice shop together, even though I spent the whole time rushing trying to find a dress and heels for Vegas before I had to head to my hotel that night.

I did find a dress from one of the stores on Hollywood Boulevard (it’s pretty but it’s nothing amazing) so I bought it just in case I couldn’t find anything else.
I have yet to get heels though so I’ll have to wait until I go to Vegas tomorrow and try and fit some shopping in!

It was getting a bit late and I needed to get to my next Hotel so Shay and I went back to the Hostel so I could grab my bags. I said my goodbyes to Shay, Jarid and Kevin before I Uber-ed my way to Miyako Hotel.
My Uber girl who picked my up was really nice and we talked the whole way about my trip around the world and her living in LA.
It only cost me $9 for a 23 minute ride to the hotel too. Bargain!! I love uber.

When I checked in at my hotel, I went to my room and met my room mate for the night, Lauren. (When you start your Contiki and stay at the Pre-Contiki Hotel, they pair you up with someone on the same Contiki to make the room cheaper for you)
I think every night on the trip you get a different person so it’ll be good to meet lots of new people 🙂
Edit: You get put with a room-buddy for your whole trip and they stay the same, however it’s not the person you’re roomed with on your first pre-contiki night.

At 7pm we all met upstairs in a meeting room (it wasn’t compulsory so only about 20 of us were there)
We talked about any questions we had about the Contiki, where the nearest food places were and filled out some emergency details they needed from us.
Once we were done a few of us headed down the road to eat dinner.
I got frozen yogurt instead of an actual dinner and now I’m starving!!! 😥
That’s what happens when I snack 😐 I don’t feel like a full meal and then later on I get so hungry.

When everyone had gotten something to eat, five of us headed down to a brewery and had some drinks.
Well the boys drunk beer and I just sat and chatted as I always do as I hate beer and they had no other drinks on offer.
I’ve made 4 friends so far + my room mate Lauren so it looks like everyone is going to be pretty friendly.

The picture above has a little story to it – as we all sat down at a table in the brewery, I realized someone had left all these stickers on it.
Without any of the boys knowing I successfully put a sticker on each of their backs. Then I got them to play a game with these little bean bags the pub provided, then made the boys all line up to play just so I could take a photo of them with these silly stickers. I couldn’t stop laughing!
They had no idea what I was giggling about the whole time until I eventually told them.
They said they’re going to get me back though so I better watch my back haha.

We headed back to the hotel at around 11.30pm and I packed my bag again and had a shower.
Look how weird our toilet is in the picture below. It has a seat warmer and all these buttons which I have no idea what they do. I was too scared to push any of them to find out.

Now I’m off to sleep!!
It’s nearly 12.30am 😯😯
Have to be ready by 7.15am tomorrow to get all my stuff to the bus, eek!!

X