Advertisement
Published: February 13th 2011
Hollywood
Smaller than it looks on TVWe landed in San Fran very tired, cold and in a slightly muddled state owing to severe lack of sleep on our 12 hour flight and 5 hour wait at LAX airport. One good point was that the in flight meal from Auckland was bloody great, beef in red wine and mash, cheese and biscuits and salad and a mint chocolate. I was so happy. I usually love plane food (I know this is weird) but in our 10 months of travelling it had all been crap.
San Fran was beautiful. Although I have only ever been to New York so not much else to compare it to, I could definitely see myself living there. It's busy like any city, full of weirdos like any city but doesn't have the pretentiousness or mentalness of NYC. The architecture is wonderful and pretty much every street I saw I could have happily lived on.
We did the usual tourist stuff and visited Alcatraz, the Golden Gate bridge, went on the trams and shopped. I was very proud of myself or identifying the car chase street from Bullitt without any help from the guide books (yep seen that
film far too many times). I was often found to be singing the Bullitt theme tune or Sitting on the Dock of the Bay to myself every day.
Alcatraz was great. I usually get a bit bored by these sorts of sights but I think because I knew a little already and it was extremely well presented in the prison and on the audio tour I really enjoyed myself. I still think the UK prisons should be like this, all basic and no SKY tv!! The ferry trip there was also wonderful as we could see the Golden Gate bridge, the other one like it but not red and some amazing views of San Fran. Considering it's called Fog City we must have done really well as no fog at all for us, very sunny and sometimes I had my shorts on!! They are having the opposite problem with weather on the West Coast and having hotter winters (we're dreading Chicago, it's minus 12 there!!). We got the local bus up to the bridge after a quick detour (by foot I am proud to say) to Lombard Street, the zig zag street. I was knackered but the views were
well worth it. The bridge was great but Chris got vertigo again and it was only me that walked across it (wuss).
I can safely say that I am now slightly concerned with the mental state of some Americans though, even more so realising that the street nutters could quite easily have a gun (makes our Big Issue men seem harmless now). Our first day involved an encounter with a huge man talking to himself and others. I thought he was preaching coz he kept mentioning 'Nectar of the Sun', this sounded 'preachy' to me, then it was followed up by a little groovy dance and then 'Nectar of the Sun you bitch assed mother f***ers' and another little groovy dance. Needless to say we avoided him when he got on the same tram.
Second encounter with mad person or possibly just girl with a pure attitude problem. Chris was walking up the stairs in a clothing shop and overtaking a girl walking a bit slow, this is how this conversation went :
Girl – Is your husband gay? (said right in my earhole)
Me – (In some odd posh english accent that came out of no
where) - I'm so sorry pardon me?
Girl – Is your husband gay?
Me- (thinking it was just a funny comment owing to his possible mincing walk he sometimes does) – oh he gets that a lot (smiling)
Girl – Shiiiiiiiit is dat your husband bitch, you related bitch? You look the same bitch, get his gay ass outta ma face! (shouted at me right in the face)
Needless to say I giggled, thought stupid cow, then thought shit she may have a knife/gun or worse those scary long nails (i've seen what those nails can do on Jerry Springer), went and told Chris and kept far away from her.
Chris has also developed some kind of attraction of sales people and beggers. You would have thought after 5 months in Asia he would have perfected the avoidance technique but nope. Some scary men have managed to get a couple of dollars out of him.
He was like a kid in a sweet shop in the food court coz they were giving away free food samples, to the point when a girl had a small beaker of what he thought was drink and he ran over nearly
grabbing one and drinking it only to be told they were bath crystals (at this point I was pissing myself laughing on the escalator leaving him behind).
Yesterday, I managed to avoid the make up sales man, but no it wasn't to be be. He tried to give me a leaflet, Chris took it thinking ooh free stuff and I ended up sat having a make over with lovely gay hispanic man named Eddie and spending $30 on miracle powders that can be used as anything and being asked 'My god girl what were you thinking when you did your eyes this morning?' (I must point out I couldn't be arsed to change my pink eyeshadow and gold eyeliner that morning when I realised I looked like a dickhead). Thank you Eddie for confirming my suspicions of said dickeheadedness. Must point out Chris paid for the stuff as it was fault I got caught.
However, I must add the MicaBella Cosmetics are wonderful, cheap and versatile. They can be used as eye shadow, wet for a glittery look, with primer for a Matt look or dusty for subtle or with vaseline for lip gloss/blusher, used to enhance nail
Alcatraz
Great tour. varnish, hair (don't ask) and mascara and are all made from earth minerals (can you tell I was there for a while?) Eddie can be found in the Westfield Shopping Centre on Market Street near Powell Street on Level 2 or 3 between the 2 malls if you want some cheap (better than Sephora make up).
Chris's Section It looks like I'm doing the LA section of the trip and Lou's doing San Fran. I loved San Fran by the way. Such a cool place.
Arriving in LA was a bit of a culture shock. We got on the bus to our hotel (3 buses actually) and it was like being in Mexico. Everyone was speaking Spanish and we went through some pretty rough areas. It was a little scary at times, but we managed to find our hotel in one piece. We have been staying at the Historic Hollywood on Melrose Ave. Very nice place for the money ($50 a night). We went to a lovely Italian restaurant for some food. Guess who walked in? Only Tony Bennett! We (and everyone else there) were gobsmacked. Talk about a glamorous intro to Hollywood.
Hollywood, on the
whole, is far from glamorous. Much of it is pretty run down and full of shady characters. The further West you go, towards Beverly Hills, the nicer it is. But pretty much everywhere there are nutters of all descriptions. It's never dull here! We did the whole 'walk of fame' thing. Pretty cool to see, but it's full of hawkers and gets annoying quickly. You can't walk 3 feet without getting hassled for your dollars. One amazing thing I realised at Grauman's Chinese Theater is I'm Johnny Depp's hand twin. We are 100% the same. Wow!
We got some free tickets to attend the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. We went to the CBS studios and had a great time. It's really cool to see how they put a show together. There are loads of guys getting the crowd worked up and, essentially, coaching us to make enough (and the right kind of) noise. Craig Ferguson (a Scot) is hilarious. We laughed our heads off for over an hour.
The day after was spent at Universal Studios. We had a great time – it's highly recommended. I was hoping for bigger rides, but the ones they have
are really entertaining. We really enjoyed the Jurassic Park and The Simpsons rides. The House of Horrors was brilliant. I screamed like a big girl. Hehe. The Studio Tour was great (esp the King Kong bit) but the Jaws section was closed. Gutted! Overall the park was great fun. Luckily for us it wasn't too busy. It would be hell on a weekend or holiday.
Our last day has been a shop-a-thon. We set out to look at Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive. Window shopping only here. It was pretty cool to have a mooch around, but there's not a great deal to do if you haven't got cash. We bussed our way over to Melrose and found some great places to shop – great value too. We got our wedding outfits for bargain prices. Just a great day in the beautiful Californian sunshine.
The weather has been great here – 25c upwards each day. Vegas will be a little cooler. Then we're off to Chicago which is currently 2c. That will be a shock! Before we arrived we were really unsure about LA. We've really enjoyed it. It's crazy and full of crazy people. It's a hard
Stevie
Lou's Fave place to get around. Public transport is not tourist friendly. Even the Metro's online journey planner requires lots of patience and some Sherlock-esque skills. We got used to it after a few days. Also, I think they have a nutter per bus policy here. I've also seen 4 people wearing eye patches. Can't recall a single one before LA. Anyway, off to Vegas tomorrow. Very excited.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.075s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0321s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Roel
non-member comment
Almost the same pictures!
Hey guys, take a look at our blog from L.A. it's almost the same! Guess we all do the same tourist track. Nice Pictures and blog. Regards, Roel