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Published: December 10th 2006
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Friday 1st December I Laura - Happy Birthday Dad!
Paul - Final day in Auckland today and we spent the morning browsing round Kelly Tarltons Antartic Adventure where we saw some huge penguins. Apparently it was the first of it's kind in the world at the time but it's looking a bit dated! Definately needs a face lift. Said a (nearly) tearful goodbye to Andy and Anna as they jetted out to warmer climates whilst Laura and I were flying to Hollywood! Flight was fine and we passed the time watching "Little Miss Sunshine" amongst other things.
Friday 1st December II Laura - Happy Birthday AGAIN Dad!
Paul - Arrived in LA after a nights sleep on the plane to be told that it's STILL the 1st December. Yikes! This posed all kinds of questions. Did we really say bye to Anna and Andy yesterday? Did we really see some penguins? More importantly did I not have TWO Burger Kings at the airport!? Argh!
Shockingly we didn't see a McDonalds for about an hour after we'd left the airport. We couldn't believe it.
LA is just as ridiculous and OTT as it is
in the movies. Lots and lots of crazy people! We love it. Our hostel is on Hollywood Blvd, only minutes away from all the A List celebrities! We spent most of the day looking at the Avenue of Stars and taking our pictures of our favourites (Mary Kate and Ashley for me!!!). We sized our hands against various stars' handprints before admiring all the freaks and weirdos wandering up and down the street. These included a Michael Jackson look a like (who we think has had surgery to look like his idol), a Orlando Bloom look a like (complete with missing teeth), and 5 Superwomen who were more likely to take you to a dodgy hotel room if you "tipped" them. Great.
Saturday 2nd December Paul - Our plan today was for a lazy day. Had a stroll down Hollywood Blvd after a long lie in to see a lot of Jesus freaks having a good old sing song on the corner. Cue your typical LA gangstar coming up to them and shouting "Praise the Lord" and "Sing it to me, brother" whilst dancing to their singing. Surprisingly the whole thing was completely compelling and we watched
for about half an hour. The gansta's then left, much to our dismay, and Laura was handed a flyer telling her that God loved her which she promptly binned (much to the dismay of Mr. Big Beard who had given it to her).
Laura got to see where some famous bit in Pretty Woman was filmed. Apparently this was all very exciting and "Katie would understand". I'm sure she would but she's busy in fashion these days darling.
One last thing of note today was our lunch time visit to 'In N Out Burger', on Sunset Blvd. They are apparently an LA tradition so we thought we'd oblige. It was pretty nice and it even had FRESHLY MADE FRENCH FRIES (probably fried in 100%!f(MISSING)at but they were still fresh).
Sunday 3rd December Paul - Today was going to be the most exciting day of my life. I'll briefly explain how it started... we bought a celebrity homes map from a street vendor and got on a bus to Beverly Hills. Oh joy of joys what a wonderous day it will be. First stop was the ridiculous, chandalier(!) lined, street of Rodeo Drive. Most
of the stores were actually closed as it was a Sunday but I don't think we'd have managed to get a toe nail inside one of the doors.
We wandered over to "The Ivy" to see if any famous people were hanging out there and took an obligatory photo in front of it. After strolling up and down Sunset strip for a while and admiring the rows upon rows of bars (including Jonny Depps' Viper Room and Slash's place) we headed into Beverly Hills. There were no pavements (obviously everyone drives) and the houses were obscene! Picture 'Beverly Hills 90210' and you've pretty much got it. It's exactly like that. Probably even more glamorous in real life.
Laura - It was all a bit swanky. Paul kept saying "I'm not sure we're supposed to be here", scared by the 'armed security patrol' signs, but I kept reminding him that it was a free country! Anyway, we had a nose at a few celeb houses to see how 'the other half' live. Not that you could see beyond the 7 foot high fences on many of the houses... Phil Collins has the biggest dog I've ever seen in my
life guarding his drive. It was a beast! Other pads we saw included those of Halle Berry, Lindsay Lohan, Cher, Matthew Perry, Madonna, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, and the famous Osbourne mansion. Paul was thrilled by it all.
When Paul had just about as much as he could take of the celeb hunt (and had been embarrassed enough by the 1m sqaure celeb map) we caught a bus to Venice Beach. It was a bit of a contrast going from Beverley Hills to Venice. The beach was absolutely crazy. There were so many people milling around. It was all the LA cliches from the movies that you can imagine - groups of youths from the 'hood', people whizzing past on roller blades (one was even playing a guitar at the same time), bikini 'babes', surfer dudes, and of course a few crazy people thrown in for good measure. The atmosphere was electric!
We watched an amazing sunset on the beach, which prompted me to start singing a tuneful rendition of "Californian Dreams". Paul loved the lifeguard towers, straight out of 'Baywatch' and was in his element knowing that he was walking the same ground as his legend,
'The Hoff'. After the sun went down the crowd started to thin out and the atmosphere changed. There was a huge group of people gathered on the beach lighting a fire and a big fight broke out so we decided to leave and some helpful locals helped us to find our way back to Hollywood.
Paul - One last thing, the celeb map that Laura bought is ridiculous. Roughly measuring one metre by one metre she would bring it out at the most inappropriate moments (bus queues, middle of the street, anywhere other people could see what we had) and study it for 5 minutes. Embarrasing would not be the word I would use.
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'What's your dream?'
Vivian: Tell me one person who it's worked out for. Kit: What, you want me to name someone? You want like a name? Oh, God, the pressure of a name... I got it. Cindafuckin'rella