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After a week of relaxation and calm in Fiji, a week in LA totally shook up the senses. This was a place I'd been to before, but I was 11 and all I really remember of it is Disneyland and Universal Studios. So I was looking forward to getting to know the place.
Which is really not very easy to do, especially in a week. I hadn't quite registered the vastness of the place until I started trying to get around it. A bus from where I was staying, in Santa Monica, to LA's Downtown - which basically involves travelling down just one road, Wilshire Boulevard - took an hour and 20 minutes, in pretty reasonable traffic. I suppose its the equivalent of going from one side of London to the other actually, its just that in LA, everything is very spread out, with no real city centre.
Santa Monica was a good choice for a base - being near the beach, the pier, the shops etc. Its a town in its own right. I loved the walk to Venice beach, amongst all the roller bladers and cyclists, and a walk down Main Street one Sunday was very enjoyable, with lots
of locals out and about for the Farmers' Market. I came across a trumpeter playing a slow and mournful rendition of America the Beautiful, which was rather striking.
The hostel was good too, and organised various things including a pub crawl on my second night - alot of fun, noisy over-the-top bars with tv screens everywhere, motorbikes and margaritas!
However, hostels certainly do have their down sides - the odd nutter (and in LA you get more than just the odd one), lack of privacy in the bathrooms...and as I encountered one night, young couples who are drunk and desperate to "be together". In a dorm room full of other people. On the top bunk bed above me. Needless to say, wasn't happy about that and had to go down to the hostel reception to put an end to it!
Other highlights -
A trip to Malibu, slightly less hustle and bustle, some beautiful houses, the old pier, and shopping - I loved revisiting Banana Republic, an old favourite.
Spending the day in the cultural hub downtown - the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Music Centre (can't bring myself to spell it the American way), and the striking, modern and
very large Roman Catholic cathedral. Then to Rodeo Drive - really just like Bond Street with palm trees.
A day back at Universal Studios (22 years later) was fun, as was a drive around some of the stars' homes in Beverly Hills.
My final night in LA was spent at the Orpheum Theatre on Broadway (between 8th and 9th), watching the taping of 3 hours of auditions for America's Got Talent, the equivalent of the British show which is responsible for bringing us Paul Potts and Susan whatsername. It was too long, but still alot of fun, and because we were put near the front, for looking slightly less scruffy than other people I suppose, its quite possible I might be in a few shots sitting behind the delightful judges, Piers Morgan, Sharon Osbourne and the inexplicable now-legend (to some people), The Hoff. Thats David Hasslehoff, if you have to ask.
So I had the necessary sprinkle of stardust whilst in LA.
I mentioned the nutters earlier, and I certainly saw a few, but my highlights were the man with the sign asking for money whilst on his cell phone and the able-bodied woman on a wheelchair, pulling herself
along with her feet, wearing high heels. And most of the people on America's Got Talent.
Also, at the risk of sounding like a grumpy old woman, what is it with Americans and chewing gum? They actually went round the audience at the theatre with cups for people to put their gum in - its not just the kids either, I've seen lots of middle aged folk chewing away. Strange.
So yesterday it was "All Aboard" the Coastal Starlight train to San Francisco. Which might have been a relaxing enjoyable journey if it wasn't for the fact we hit a truck, somewhere before San Jose. The driver was OK, I think the train hit the back of the truck, but he was taken to hospital - and we were held up for 3 hours. As it was a 10 hour journey anyway, and having left LA Union Station nearly an hour late already - PLUS the fact that I'm a Wilson (not to mention a virgo) and was an hour early for the train - this made for rather a long day. I finally crawled into bed at my San Francisco hostel just before 3 in the morning.
The
11-year old me came to San Francisco too, but I don't think you can run out of things to do here, and I'm looking forward to exploring - its going to be much easier to get around than LA for a start.
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