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Published: January 6th 2012
Having chilled out appropriately in Santa Monica & Venice Beach, New Year's Eve called for an assault on LA itself but obviously done in the Rattywally styely!
There was the option to do the hop on - hop off bus to LA which takes you round all the bits you should see but at $70 for the two of us and no guarantee of really getting round it all (as it's all so huge) we went for Big Blue Bus day ticket ($8 in total) to get to Downtown LA and be completely awed by the size, scope and diversity of is there. We walked down from the Civic Centre, passed the Law Courts to then cross over to Chinatown with all the sights, sounds and smells you would hope to get. We stopped for a smoothie and I experienced my first brain freeze ever when I went for a big gulp of my apple one - felt like I froze in time!
Just a short walk from there is the Mexican quarter El Pueblo and walked down Olvera Street which was an amazing collection of colours, authentic restaurants and a cacophony of mariachi bands. A lot of people
were on the margharitas at noon so we weren't sure they'd make it to midnight! We had a lovely lunch and headed for Union Station via the little square which housed a monument to the founders of LA. We took the metro to Hollywood, hurrah for that...($3 in total!) and thus began Anna's mission to find Doris' star! Not only did she find that we also found her hand prints at the Chinese Theatre. Also with a slight wrong turn we saw the Hollywood sign which we thought was going to be a near miss like Meg Ryan trying to see the Eiffel Tower in "French Kiss" but we hit gold straight away...
Hollywood was pulsating and very busy with lots of touts selling their tours etc. but we battled through and walked part of the way down Sunset Boulevard to make our way back to the Blue Bus route but it was a bit far so after filming a NYE message for UK/Ireland time (see 1st video), we got the metro bus (another $3) to get back to the hotel for a bit of a rest before the evening antics (this was going to be our first night
out after 8pm after all!!). The hot sun takes it out of you after all.. ;o)
Santa Monica was home sweet home for our NYE celebrations and we found a great Irish pub, Finn McCool's on Main Street to see in the New Year in local time - way behind everyone else! Again surprisingly good beer was on offer again and it was a chilled out and non-rammed place to welcome 2012 West Coast style. We met fantastic people again, lots of Americans but also a bloke called Paul from Scotland who was great fun. With our free glass of sparkly we filmed another video at midnight and made our way home via walking and a cab (only $8 inc tip!). It's been great to do similar things to home but from a different perspective and it's felt like everyone is with us even though we're a long way from home. An amazing way to start a new year.
Due to our 2am antics, New Year's day was spent at the hotel watching trashy films and getting supplies from the local store inc. a tenderloin pork and sweet potato hot dinner which was gorgeous. Thoughts now turned to
our last day in Santa Monica (2nd Jan) and getting ready for our 1st road trip to San Francisco. Tune in for the next blog on how that's going!
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Emma
non-member comment
Loving it
Great blog Elaine loved Anna and Doris but where was piccie of Hollywood sign???? Xxxxx