We spent the morning in Santa Monica, enjoying a late breakfast, then walking on the Pier and 3rd St Promenade. We drove along route 1 to Malibu, where, on a side-street, we witnessed the harsh conditions in which people are forced to live. We met Soheila and Kaveh again on Point Dume Beach and we spent some time enjoying the pleasant weather.

There was one more place we planned to visit before declaring the vacation over: Hollywood. It was really easy to find Hollywood Blvd and even easier to be disappointed at what it had to offer. There were stars all over the sidewalk (with some of the neames easy to recognize), not only on Hollywood Blvd, but also on streets intersecting it. The Capitol Records building looked good enough from distance, so we didn't get very close to it. Other tourist attractions enjoyed our presence from a smaller distance. It was the case of Kodak Theatre (the home for Academy awards) and Grauman's Chinese Theatre (where Lida found traces of her lost hero - Johnny Depp).

Driving back to Las Vegas was painful - everytime the traffic was not stopped the cars were moving with 20-30 miles/hour. There were also some smart drivers who decided that they were too creative to wait like everybody else and started taking over on the emergency lane. Some of them probably got to Las Vegas earlier to celebrate the New Year.

• Las Vegas by night
• A tour of Las Vegas hotels
• Another tour of Las Vegas hotels
• Almost visiting Hoover Dam
• A windy day in San Diego
• A sunset in La Jolla
• Downtown and uptown Los Angeles
• Santa Monica, Malibu and Hollywood