Hollywood Calling

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27 February 2011

Actually, it was 27 Feb before the end of Gregg’s last blog but it seemed fitting for us to leave Rarotonga in that one and arrive in LA in this. Here I go then.

I categorically cannot sleep on flights, much as I really want to. I think that I managed the combined grand total of about 2 hours last night between moments of sheer desperation at the uncomfortable nature of airline sleeping arrangements. We are going to have to a find a way to make serious amounts of cash before we ever do this again, that’s all there is for it - business class has got to be so much better. Hasn’t it?

Air New Zealand’s flight crew continued this morning as they had left off last night - serving us with our breakfast first, so quickly in fact, that neither of us were really sure that we were actually awake. Several episodes of Glee (for those who watch we have now reached the end of episode 4) later, we began our descent into LAX airport.

Having been forewarned by our Doctor friend that this airport is stuck in a bit of a 70’s time warp, we weren’t expecting much - lucky really. We couldn’t even find toilets (sorry restrooms between leaving the aircraft and clearing immigration which made the wait to be permitted into the country seem interminably long. Having passed through US Border Control once before, we were both prepared for an unpleasant experience but were pleasantly surprised. We lucked out and got a Border Control officer who actually knew how to smile. Although, he did seem rather pleased when we advised him that we would only be staying in the states for a week.

That, unfortunately, was where our luck ran out. Quickly.

We patiently waited by the baggage re-claim carousel and my bag arrived first. Yet more patient waiting followed and then, quite unexpectedly, the baggage carousel stopped. Just like that. There were a few bags remaining on the carousel but none appeared to be ours. Gregg began a queue at the Air New Zealand desk next to baggage re-claim which had extended to a good thirty people by the time we had been dealt with. In short, the plane had been overweight prior to leaving Rarotonga so they had randomly re-routed a not inconsiderable number of bags via Auckland. How silly of us, we should have realised. The flight was full, granted, but surely said aircraft should be designed to be able to carry a full complement of passengers and ALL of their luggage? Perhaps I am being idealistic again. Whoops.

We were matter of factly told that Gregg’s bags would be arriving tomorrow from Auckland without any sign of an apology. In our sleep deprived state we were however able to raise a complaint about Gregg being totally deficient of clothes and, following the arrival of a supervisor, were given a voucher for $100 emergency cash. That was something at least.

The benefit of ones’ husband losing his bags, I have discovered, is that one can divest oneself of ones’ own heaving bags and negotiate airport arrivals halls with relative ease. In that respect, I highly recommend allowing Air New Zealand to re-route your husband/significant other’s bags via Auckland. In others, such as err no clean clothes, I categorically cannot.

We had booked beds in a hostel in Hollywood and our next task was to re-locate ourselves to said hostel. Sounds easy? It wasn’t. This, I have to confess, was more down to lack of application of brain than anything else and certainly cannot be blamed on Air New Zealand. After booking the hostel, I left the directions page running in the ipad, not thinking that, in order to refer to it later, we would need to be connected to the internet. I didn’t write the details down anywhere because I thought we would be able to pull the details up on the iPad without a fuss. Except nowhere in LAX could we find free wifi. No problem I thought, this is a major international airport, we can simply find a book shop and flick through a guide book which is bound to list this hostel. Wonderful plan, flawed in its execution since LAX seems to be almost completely deficient of landside shops.

After several fruitless trips in the lift, we gave up and accepted that we were going to have to pay to log on to the internet. Usually we wouldn’t mind, but we were going to have to pay for 24 hours access when, realistically, all we needed as about 90 seconds. The whole process was not assisted by the lack of sleep that we were both suffering from but we did eventually find instructions on how to reach the hostel and arrived a mere fifty metres from the Walk of Fame just before 3pm.

On the way to the hostel we discovered that tonight was Oscar night. How fortuitous. As we sorted ourselves out, we began to notice the hum of helicopters overhead which, no doubt, indicated that things were starting to happen at the Kodak Theatre. How could we be possibly be so close and not try to at least see something?

The stars seem to start arriving at the Kodak Theatre at around 3.30pm and the main event kicks of at 5.30pm. A far cry from the 2am viewings in the UK.

We needed sustenance fairly urgently for fear of wasting away, obviously, so headed out and decided that we would follow the hovering helicopters which would surely take us to the red carpet and hopefully food too. Well, they sort of did and sort of didn’t but, in any event, first stop was for food. I had been skilfully advised that the In n Out Burger is a California institution and, having seen a branch of said eatery we abandoned the helicopters (which weren’t hovering directly over the Kodak theatre in any event) and headed in what I thought was vaguely the right direction.

Fortunately, my sense of direction was working and we found ourselves in a packed ‘In-n-Out’ full of security staff and the odd smartly dressed person that was, as it happened, just off Hollywood Boulevard and the red carpet.

In my opinion, the In-n-Out burger beats the McDonalds’ burger. It is not, however, a gastropub type burger (which I can never quite ignore on a menu) and therefore falls slightly short of my definitition of the perfect burger. It was however, for fast food, pretty good.

It was pretty clear from our In-n-Out vantage point that something big was going on a short walk away from us, so we followed the crowds to, as it turned out, the red carpet. The whole thing is, unsurprisingly, fenced off and, for the most part, the railings are covered with black cloth through which you can see only shadows. After pretty much doing a 360 degree walk around the Kodak Theatre, we discovered that there is a patch directly opposite where the limos disgorge their cargo where there is no black out screening and it is possible to glimpse the red carpet. It was, of course, absolutely jam packed there.

So, we saw a little patch of red carpet, hundreds of black limos and quite a few sparkly dresses. Whether any of those dresses hung on famous frames, I couldn’t say. We did both enjoy the buzz of being there for a short while and it didn’t really matter that we failed to set eyes on Colin Firth or Natalie Portman - we hadn’t expected to be there at all until two hours previously after all.

Back at the hostel, the lounge (bar) was hosting an Oscars night party with free ‘champagne’ and strawberries and there we made acquaintance with one of the Assistant Managers, Kat, who loves English music, ordered us dinner from a Mexican takeaway across the road (all I had to do was go down to reception to pay and collect it) and would later provide a valuable source of information on what to do in LA.

There, we watched the Oscars - all of them and without falling asleep in the middle as I certainly would if I tried to watch them in the early hours of the morning at home - before retiring to our dormitory beds.

28 February 2011

Last night, we slept for queen and country. The inevitable by product of a virtually sleepless night over the Pacific aided by the necessary addition of ear plugs. Our main aim for today was, somewhat predictably, to reunite ourselves with Gregg’s missing luggage. After a call to Air New Zealand, we established that it had landed in LA at 8am and it would just be a matter of time before it cleared customs (it is very clever this luggage) and found its way to us by courier.

That was great but Gregg needed a change of clothes and, more importantly (only kidding) I needed some shoes as flip flops don’t really do the job in LA’s cool climate. We therefore took the opportunity to wonder along Hollywood Boulevard and check out the stars on the Walk of Fame on the way to finding some shops.

Sunset Boulevard (which is two blocks back from Hollywood Boulevard) was more accommodating on the cheap shoes and clothes front and, there, we found a ‘Ross - Dress for Less’ and had to take a peek inside, just because it is named after Gregg’s big brother. It provided us with Gregg’s half of the goods, so thanks go to Ross for that. Cheap too - or it could just be that we have got so used to Aussie and Kiwi prices that we’ve forgotten how much things should really cost.

Later, we found a discount shoe place (enormous) and I sorted my end of the deal out too. Then, we headed back to the hostel to make yet another call to Air New Zealand. Whereupon, Gregg was told that his luggage had arrived in LA at 2pm (so what happened to it between 8am and 2pm?) etc etc but still no eta on its arrival in Hollywood.

In truth, the rest of the day was spent waiting for luggage and, with increasing frustration, calling Air New Zealand until we gave up and went up to the lounge only to return at around 11pm to find a note saying that the luggage had arrived.

Hurrah, tomorrow I may have sweeter smelling husband to hang around with.

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Photos

This is where the red carpet was
by 10am the following morning, not even Oscar was left

Ring of Fire was nearly our first dance
I'm not kidding!