Today WAS to be the other two loops on the tourist bus - and we made the Yellow loop down to Santa Monica Beach.
Walked the famous pier, Justin did the boardwalk to Venice Beach and Arnold Schwarzeneggers's gym then a bite of late lunch at a Santa Monica pub .

Then things started to unravel...

We wandered up to the local shopping mall and cruised Nordstrum, Bloomingdales and a number of specialty shops, did a bit of purchasing until I found my Visa card missing in one. This tourist's worse nightmare...

And I wouldn't ordinarily bore anyone with the tale of hours retracing our steps and making calls if only for the amazing security in place at Nordstrum - a Myer-like department store. The cashier at the relevant counter was able to phone security and state her location (and hence the nearest camera) and a time from my receipt and have them call up the video confirming that she had handed back my card, I had put it in my wallet then in my bag! When we then looked around there were cameras every 15-20m... apparently people brazenly grab whole armfuls of gear and run, regardless of exit alarms blaring. Everything was also security tagged - even cheap t-shirts.

No other shop or centre management could help so it was back to the hotel to ring Westpac,,, :(

My mood lightened a little when we found a tasty Mexican dinner locally. Just.

How exciting then when the phone rang at 10.30pm. My card had turned up in the 10pm closing clean-up!