L.A. Awesome

We left for Los Angeles bleary-eyed and breathless, and like most people, our only real idea of the placecame from T.V. and movies. But they're reliable? Right?

We found that there is glitz & glamour, and it does have wild & wacky places, but only if you really look for them. So armed with our trusty lonely planet book, we set out to do just that. I have never before seen such a rich/poor divide as I did in L.A. We were a bit surprised by Hollywood, we stayed there for the first couple of nights and it was quite run down- nothing like we expected. but it had the walk of fame and Grauman's Chinese movie theatre, as well as the Kodak Theatre where loads of award ceremonies are. We took a walk down the Sunset Strip and saw all the cool shops and bars there.

Being typical tourists we had to go on a tour, so the one we got took us all around Beverley Hills to see all the celeb's houses (but, unfortunately no celeb's!) we checked out Rodeo drive and Belair, so we got to see how the "other half" lives.

Our favourite area of L.A. was definately the Santa Monica/Venice area, where all the beach bums hang out- dude! Santa Monica looked really nice but further down at Venice boardwalk is where its really at! Muscle men, hippies, musicians and one heck of a beautiful sunset! We had dinner by the beach, with a piano player bashing out jazz tunes on the boardwalk. And with the sun going down, painting purple, red and orange across the sky, we couldnt have asked for better.

The last couple of days we were there we stayed in downtown L.A. and i wouldnt really advise that to anyone- especially after dark! But we were really near a train station so it was ok to use as a base. At first we were a little intimidated by L.A. but after a while we got used to it and we were really glad we went there. I dont think theres anywhere else in the world that has T.V.s on their buses!

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