Trying to be a backpacker in Los Angeles

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...It was off to see the best of the worlds plastic stars, and no we weren’t stalking a well known plastic surgeon

After 4 months our first feelings are it is weird to be in western civilisation. Do we want to be here? Our time to adjust started with Downtown Los Angeles – our home for the next 5 jam-packed days.

With no time to waste here we headed straight to Santa Monica beach for the afternoon on the local transport. It is impossible to have a bad time at this beach – the sun, the people, the side shows and general atmosphere ensures you can people-watch for hours and be entertained. After checking out the pier and taking a walk down Venice beach we rounded the afternoon off with a drink at one of the local bars before finding a bus back downtown.

Our first full day would be spent in the most action packed area of LA – Hollywood Blvd. After picking up our 3 day tourist passes and booking into a ‘tour of the stars’ for later in the day it was off to see the best of the worlds plastic stars, and no we weren’t stalking a well known plastic surgeon, we were touring Madame Tussauds famous museum.

Throw in Morgan Freeman, Anne Hathaway and Christian Bale, who were visiting the Chinese Theatre to witness Christopher Nolan, get his hand prints and I must admit our morning got off to a frantic start – and boy would it only get better.

And so the time arrived to jump on our tour bus to be shown the hotspots of LA, the stars homes, hangouts, Beverly Hills’ and Rodeo Drive to name a few. Everything was going along smoothly with views of the Hollywood sign and houses being pointed out left right and centre (well not centre as that’s the road we are on, but you get the idea).

45 minutes into the tour our 3 day old minivan broke down outside Jack Nicholson’s house, and this is where the puns begin. We all sat thinking is this ‘As Good as it Gets’, and even though we were stuck with ‘A Few Good Men’ we both thought ‘Something’s Gotta Give’. After around 45minutes a second bus collected us and we were ‘The Departed’ to continue our tour. Now that wasn’t so bad was it?

The downside to our breakdown is that we missed a walking tour we had booked for later in the afternoon, so with that we got a train back to the hotel to recharge for tomorrow.

Today we headed to the happiest place on earth – Disneyland; this would be my 3^rd visit to Disneyland, but as Bree had never been I was pumped to get to go again. The 1 hour trip from downtown turned into 3 hours and 15 minutes as we took a wrong train and had to do some back tracking and we were then delayed at the gate as our pre purchased tickets would not scan – happy place my ass!

The rest of the day was sensational, your inner child comes out at a place like this and we found ourselves running from ride to ride so we didn’t miss out, knocking down corn dogs and enjoying the atmosphere – by 10 pm we were spent and with a long bus ride in front of us we called it a night.

To continue our busy schedule we were off to Warner Bros today for a studio tour. On our way to we first stopped and had a look through the Grammy Museum and got some photos at Staples Centre. One thing you are told before doing a tour of a back lot, you will never look at shows and movies the same and I think this is fairly true – it’s quite an eye opener seeing how everything is put together for a show.

After seeing so many homeless people in the downtown area and walking past one with a banana I decided the old guy probably needed the fruit more than me, the look in his eyes didn’t so much say god bless you child as much as saying what the #$%& can I do with this, but the thought was there.

For our final day in LA we would again be rushed, first it was off to Universal Studios to explore everything they have to offer, including another back lot tour, 3D rides and plenty of people wanting to get in your way. Took a ride incorporating the world’s largest 3D screen before having to make a mad dash back to Warner Bros Studios as we had pre booked to be part of a live audience for the final episode of season 1 for a new show called Sullivan & Son.

This was so much fun, having a comedian look after the audience between each take, and there were a lot of takes filmed. So much interaction with the audience including a pastor from Oklahoma City and some Swedish tourists – and of course us!

After finding out how long we have been together our host thought it would be a great idea for the pastor to marry us in front of the whole crowd and the actors who were in between takes, even had to get down on one knee – we were given some prizes for been good sports and eventually the show wrapped up around 11.30pm.

5 very busy days and we think we can say LA has been toured.

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Comments

[Anita]

What no invite!!!!!
Hey guys, sooo enjoying reading these. There is so much you forget to tell me about when we talk on the phone. You obviously forgot to tell me about the getting married thing???? Where's the photo's?

[anonymous]

LA LA Land
Loved your humor in this blog, because it really takes humor to be in LA. So sorry I didn't know you were there, I wish you could have met my son that lives in Hollywood.