LA

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We didn’t actually sleep as long (or as well ) as we expected and were up and about hunting for a breakfast by 8am. The hostel was a good find - cheap and cheerful and in an excellent spot right off Hollywood Boulevard next to the handprints of the stars. We found a 50s style diner and promptly ordered the most American sounding thing we could find - a ‘lumberjack breakfast’ which consisted of lots of eggs, half a pound of ham, potatoes, pancakes and maple syrup. Lush! Matt ate the lot and I managed to make a reasonable sized dent in the table full of food.

A 5.4 earthquake hit (no joke) around lunchtime while we were dozing off all the food back at the hostel. Not much more to say on that, everything shook for a bit and then stopped. It was very bizarre - not sure if LA has lots of these or we were just ‘lucky’ to experience one.

As the day before had been a long one, we decided to take it easy and go on a hop on hop off bus tour. Not that it ended up being an easy day as we hopped off the bus more often than not. It was the weirdest thing seeing the places we’d seen on TV. On the bus we saw a lot of the main sites of LA - Chinese Theatre, Rodeo Drive, Melrose Place, Beverley Hills, Paramount Studios, Santa Monica Boulevard...we got off at the Beverley Shopping Centre to cool down a bit and spend some time in air con and apart from Matt buying some Ray Bans (which were a bargain) and a slice of pizza we managed to not buy anything. Good job too as we couldn’t fit any more into our rucksacks.

We hopped back on the bus and felt we had to get off at The Grove and Farmers Market as the voiceover woman said it’s somewhere you have to spend some time. So we did - it was a very pretty little shopping district with manicured lawns and water features. Didn’t take long before we hopped back on the next bus heading home.

As we left the bus at the end of the day by our hostel, finally expecting some chill out time and maybe an early evening nap, we spotted the queue for seats to the recording of the Jimmy Kimmel show and decided to join it. After waiting almost an hour as they were filling up the theatre we got right to the front of the queue only to be told that it was now full. How gutted were we - although we‘d never seen Jimmy Kimmel or heard of one of his guests we thought it would have been a laugh and Bryan Adams was due to be singing which we thought would be cool.

It all worked out for the best as we then found out we could still get in to see Bryan play the live outdoor concert and we got right to the front barrier which wouldn’t have happened if we’d gone in to see the show recording. We expected Bryan to just do one song, but he did another for the show... you’ve guessed it, summer of ‘69. That was the moment it hit us; we’re at the start of a trip of a lifetime, we were standing in Hollywood, watching an intimate Bryan Adams gig on the front row and listening to him sing one of our favourite songs. It was the most random feeling ever. He then went on to play loads of oldies off camera just for the small crowd of maybe 300 people. I don’t think you could even buy a ticket to see him play to such a small audience!

Afterwards I fancied a beer to celebrate but Matt reminded me that in LA everyone has to show ID to buy drink so we headed back to the hostel to get our passports. I made the mistake of letting Matt sit on the bed and before I’d even got the ID out he’d fallen asleep.

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Photos

Rodeo Drive
Matt tried to keep me out of the Jimmy Choo shop but it didn't work! Luckily I didn't like any of them otherwise it could have got messy!