Advertisement
Published: October 4th 2008
Edit Blog Post
We left Encinitas and hit the pacific highway 1 again heading for Hollywood. The drive took a few hours and we arrived late morning. We had to drive through the main highway in LA and the lanes were unbelivable at one point there were 8 lanes and traffic was weaving in and out of them . It took a while for me to stop jumping in fear as yet another car whizzed by. We almost came off the highway more than once beacuse their lanes are slip roads, very confusing. Finally we arrived in Hollywood. We did struggle with accomodation to start with as it was a Thursday and our vouchers are not so cheap for the weekends. We knew we would take the hit somewhere but Hollywood for the weekend sounded pretty cool. eventually after a couple of no room at the inn and then a way above budget price from the days inn we saw a sign for a small hotel. The lady had room and was very happy to see us. She was from Taiwan and spoke broken english but she was most definately full of beans and enthusiasm. Her price was in our budget and she said
she would not increase it for the weekend which was great. The room was adequate and the area seemed quiet. We were around 20 minutes walk from the main area but that didnt bother us too much. We are quite enjoying the exercise these days. We dumped all our stuff in the room secured the cara nd headed off to explore Hollywood. It took a little longer than 20 minutes to start hitting the stars on the sidewalk but they kept us entertained enough for us not to notice hwo long we had been walking. I was beginning to regret my jeans as it had been overcast and a little breezy when we arrived the sun was now out in force and I was very hot. We were stopped by lady handing out leaflets for a tour. It was the free map that caught our attention so we went in to get it as we had nothing to refer to at this point. It turned out they had a tour of the surrounding areas just leaving na dhas two seats they were keen to fill. They guy offered us a discount if we went and we thought it would be
a good idea to get our bearings. We paid $40 dollars less than everyone else which he told us to keep to ourselves and hopped on the open top car. We started the tour by driving down and through the city. We past all the famous areas including the chinese cinema where all the starts sign their name sin the ground and the most interesting stars on the sidewalk. Lots of people were dressed up in character suits habign their photos taken for a small charge and there were people everywhere, very busy. We decided it was a place to come back and explore as the bus trundled on to Beverley Hills. The traffic is horrific in LA nose to nose wherever you want to go so by the time we pulled off Sunset Boulevard and into Beverley Hills the peace and serenity was very welcome.
Beverley Hills, home to many a star and there off spring. We started our tour by driving up to Julia Roberts mansion. What surprised us most was that you can actually drive right up to the gate, we passed Jack Blacks house, Courtney Cox, Catherine-Zeta-Jones, the Beckhams, the list was endless. The hillside
views were not great as it was a little overcast but it was interesting to say the least. The streets are beautifully kept as you would expect and the drive was really pretty, there are gated areas so we didnt get to see where Britney Spears lives but we saw plenty for us not to be bothered!! From here we headed down sunset boulevard which was very busy with traffic and then down Rodeo Drive which was pretty cool as we went past the boutique where they filmed pretty woman. Quite another world down here as I am sure you can imagine. The tour was really good value and it was good to get a feel for the city as we planned to be here a few days. Back in the town we headed for the chinese theatre where all the stars have there inscriptions on the pavement outisde. This was really interesting as we passed messages from Marilyn Monroe to the latest from Brad Pitt. Having done that we wondered aroudn the shopping mall for a while and then took the long walk back to the hotel which was a good 30 minutes away.
The following day we
realised from our emails that Rick and Sharon were in LA for Ricks birthday so after a little chasing around with phone numbers we managed to arrange to meet that night which we were both excited about. So we had a pretty lazy day just wondering around the town again and finding a steakhouse with good deals which was great. We actually spent most of the early evening watchign fottage of a train crash that had happened just north of the city. We were supposed to meet Rick and Sharon at 11pm as they were flying in late so we set out following the instructions we got off the internet and much to our sheer frustration and disbelief 2 hours later we still hadnt found the hotel. It was a nightmare and that late into the night there are few helpful people around which was also frustrating. We even asked a policeman who actually continued giving Tim directions over his loud speaker but still couldnt find the damn hotel. We aborted the whole mission at 1am when we figured it was not meant to be and we were on the verge of killing each other!!!! We were very disappointed not
to catch up with them but we knew we would be seeing them in a few weeks anyway so we consoled ourselves with that. Having had such a late night we woke late and took another ride through Beverley Hills and the surrounding mountains once again it was really overcast so the views were not so good. After a few hours we were back in town and off for another steak dinner! We had planned to go to the chinese theatre again to watch the new Brad Pitt movie but as it turned out they were not showing it and all the others we were not interested in so we aborted that idea too. Finally on our last day the sun broke through burning the morning clouds away and we decided to go up to the hollywood sign and take a few snaps. The roads up there are windy and narrow and the drops are pretty scary to say the least so I was pretty unsettled by the time we parked at the top. Taking our photos was pretty cool though especially when you see it on the telly so often. It was really good fun.
Hollywood is a
very strange place. The hillsides are full of money and glamour and the area has seen more famous people than any other place in the world. Murders, arrests, drug taking, affairs you name it it has happened here and with all too much regularity. We found a map that told you all of the most shocking moments and it is pretty addictive reading. However, outside of those hills and down in the streets you have the homeless and the poor. The area is rough and unkempt and everyone is trying to eek out a living in this city of dreams. There is a very big divide between the have and have nots and the money here is obscene but all in all it was a very interesting place and if the walls could speak there would be endless tales to tell.................
So we left Hollywood on sunset boulevard heading off down the palmtree lined roads with the lid down and the sun blazing, this is most definately the life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.189s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 50; dbt: 0.1187s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb