LA Story

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Hi everyone,

We're safely in New Zealand now and it's great, but more of that in future editions. In the meantime if you want action, excitement and drama, well you should probably watch The Sopranos, but in lieu of that, here's our latest update.

After San Francisco we felt that LA was a bit of a comedown. The place has a totally different feel and it seemed to be unacceptable to look even vaguely happy. We half considered barricading ourselves in our room for four days playing Sudoku, but eventually we talked ourselves round.

One of the main highlights was a trip to Universal Studios which we'd both wanted to do since were were kids. We did the studio tour and saw the features on Jaws, King Kong etc. We also went down Wisteria Lane, setting of Desperate Housewives. It was chucking it down most of the day so the park was very quiet, great for not having to queue, not so good for the outdoor shows. We did see the Waterworld show (billed as the greatest show in the world) which was excellent (thought I think the marketing department had got a bit carried away).

The most exciting thing about LA was that our celebrity spotting went through the roof. How? I hear you ask. Did they join the church of Scientology? Check in to a rehab clinic? Well no, though that probably would have made for a more exciting story. While at Universal we picked up some free tickets to "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" (Americas top evening talk show).

We had a brilliant afternoon at the recording studios the following day, having to do a lot of very un English cheering and whooping. We were yards from special guest and wrestling legend Hulk Hogan, and British songstress Natasha Beddingfield. Ok, it wasn't exactly an A List roster but what an experience, and Jay Leno is a pretty big star himself, and a thoroughly nice bloke.

Having been away for quite a few weeks I needed my movie fix and we managed to go to three films in four days, one OK ("The Great Debaters" starring Denzel Washinton), one excellent ("Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and one almost unspeakably bad ("How She Move" imagine Dirty Dancing with no soul, directed by a five year old, and written by his younger sister).

The Sarah Marshall film was made even better by the fact that it was test screening and the tickets were free! We happend to just walk into the cinema at the time they were giving away tickets. We saw all the films at the famous Mann's Chinese Theatre where they have the footprints/handprints of stars outside. We only saw the bad film because it offered the opportunity of VIP tickets. These meant we watched the film sat on huge leather seats with a concierge service; the concierge actually forgot we were there and didn't do anything at all for his money, but hey, never mind.

Our last day in Hollywood we spent walking along the walk of fame, taking photos outside the Kodak Theatre (home of The Oscars) and generally acting like the tourists we were. From there it was on to LAX airport (imagine a theme park with no rides, staffed by very grumpy people, with nothing to eat) for the overnight flight to Auckland.

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Photos

Theme Park!
They'd always dreamed of going to Disney Land

Pick 'n' Mix
Jaime\'s bag of sweets was so heavy that the scales in the shop stopped working.

Universal City
Martin walked down a quiet side street in Hollywood to contemplate their travels.

That White Blob...
...in the background, is the Hollywood sign

Comments

[Nicola]

WOW
Hi guys. Your journal entries are great. Always make me smile. Can't wait to hear about your stories in New Zealand. Hope you're well, love Nicola and Gavin