LA + Santa Barbara Photo Diary Part 1

I got back from the US last week and a few people asked me to share photos of my trip! I took over 700 so have managed to cut them down to a few! I have also had to split these posts so I will share photos from a few days at a time! Sorry for my blog URL all over the photos but these are personal photos so would hate for anyone to take them! Although it's probably the worst attempt ever, I was tired so just wrote my URL and put it in the photo wherever I could!

If you didn't know, I went on the trip with my college. It was a trip for students who study Media or Film Studies as the main part of the trip was the film festival. Overall there were 20 students and 3 teachers who went, I think it was a nice number and everyone formed their own groups within the big group. I left on Thursday (31st January) morning, we met at college at 5.30am! I was very tired and believe it or not me and Mum saw people RUNNING and walking their dogs!! Why are they not in bed? Haha! My flight was at 10.25am and so I had a lovely breakfast at the airport, we went to Giraffe, which I have never been to before. I had pancakes with blueberries which was amazing! The flight was okay, ten hours is such a long time to be sat down for! I get bored easily and I kept watching half films and then getting bored of them so changing! This photos was taken when we arrived in LA and we were on the coach to Santa Barbara. We arrived in Santa Barbara and went straight out to see a film, one of the main reasons we went to the US was because of the Santa Barbara Film Festival, we saw a film called Beijing Flickers which was actually really good even though it had subtitles and I had been awake for over 24 hours and could barely read them!

This photo was taken on the first morning out of my window, I loved waking up to this, it was beautiful! On our first full day we had free time for the morning, we went to the beach and walked along the pier before going shopping!! On the first day I went a little crazy with my shopping! In the afternoon we went to see two more films, called Punk In Africa and Queen of Montreuil. I loved Queen Of Montreuil, you can see the trailer and a clip here and here. I believe we were the first people to see the film which was really exciting!

This was my bed! It was possibly the most comfy bed ever! I loved our room, we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Santa Barbara and I would 100% recommend it! I shared with one other girl which was quite nice as I've gone on trips before and there has been three of us in a really tiny room, this room was really big and apparently we had one of the nicest rooms of everyone!

This pelican was terrifying! He kept flying towards us and he actually pecked a few people! We spent quite a long time on the pier as it was really pretty and had quite a few tourist shops and restaurants, it was also a really beautiful day so it was nice to hang out on the beach for a while.

On the second day we went shopping before going to a producers panel! They had the producers of films like Silver Linings Playbook, Les Mis, Beasts Of The Southern Wild, Lincoln, Django Unchained and Life Of Pi and they were asked questions about their jobs and the people they have worked with. I was watching the Bafta's last night with my Mum and it was really nice to know that I had learnt so much from the people who actually made the films that were nominated and won!

We then had the rest of the afternoon as free time, I was surprised at how much freedom we were give, I last went on a trip at secondary school and you had to keep checking in with them and they were strict about where you could go. Whereas here they would let you go wherever you wanted and do whatever you wanted to do! I found it quite scary at the airport when we checked in and they said "we'll meet you at the gate" I had never been in an airport without my parents so I had to work out what to do! We found a nice Mexican restaurant for lunch and then after we found a really beautiful hotel, when I go on holiday with my parents we used to just walk around other hotels and be nosey! We walked around it for a bit, the day before we had done most of our shopping so we had already gone to most of the shops! We then had a few hours spare and I wasn't feeling too good so we went back to the hotel for a nap! 

Hello me in the mirror! ;) This was our "getting ready" area in the morning! 

We then went to an awards ceremony where JENNIFER LAWRENCE was being given an award. She was then interviewed (by the worlds WORST interviewer, he was awful!) and she was hilarious! I am 100% in love with her she was so lovely and down to earth! And yes, I was in the same room as Jennifer Lawrence. I still cannot get over that! I hadn't seen any of her earlier films but I now really want to see The Burning Plain and The Poker House.

The first few days were quite relaxed in comparison to the last few! I will put up the next photo diary in a few days which will be slightly more interesting as the first few days we were all tired and just shopped a little bit! I also have a haul of the many things I bought so look out for that!