Avenue of the Stars

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Los Angeles! City of the stars!

We had a very basic continental breakfast at the hotel. Basic, but it included coffee so we’re good.

First stop, Avenue of the Stars. We parked in the mall parking nearby and found the avenue. Obviously this was the wrong place. A wide avenue, very upscale office buildings, lots of Lexus and Teslas driving around, but not a hint of a star. Well, we did see a Lotus, which is a star among cars.

I called Noah for directions and what we needed was Hollywood Boulevard. Oops… never mind, we had a nice walk, got ourselves woken up and even did a little shopping in the mall (well, Tamar did).

Then we went to Hollywood Boulevard and found somewhere to park (expensive). We enjoyed walking up the boulevard, looking for familiar names. Some of them are really funny, like Kermit the Frog, or Godzilla (what’s he doing here?!)

So many names from movies, TV, music, radio. It was kind of cool. We saw so many strange people, real characters who lived or worked around here, some on the street, some hawking tours or trying to sell their CDs (aren’t compact disks kind of outdated?)

We got to the end of the street, the top of the boulevard where Elvis Presley and the Beatles had stars, then walked down the other side. So many people, tourists, homeless or nearly so, people selling cold water bottles for 75 cents, a van giving away free energy drinks, people trying to sell tours, trinkets, your name on a star. Souvenir shops, fast food shops, clothing shops, sex apparel shops, Halloween costumes… such a mix of humanity and, well, stuff. It was exciting and surprisingly fun!

We walked back up the street, passing Ripley’s Believe It Or Not and Tamar said we have to visit Hard Rock Café.

So we did. Now that was fun! Besides the T-shirts and souvenirs they have displays of all sorts of clothing and other items used or owned by various celebrities (Michal Jackson’s fedora, Beyonce’s bathing suit, etc. etc.)

We were getting hungry by now so we decided to eat here. We got seated in the restaurant. It wasn’t crowded and the service was very good, we were free to wander, explore and take pictures, good music played in the background and a good atmosphere in general. And the meal was great compensation for yesterday’s dinner! Tamar had an Original burger and a strawberry smoothie, and I had an Atomic burger and basil-strawberry lemonade. Everything was delicious! And plentiful! And a lot cheaper than yesterday’s “meal”. We were finally sated, and Tamar got her smoothie glass (with the Hard Rock logo) as a souvenir! Cool!

We left Hard Rock happy, and decided to try and get the obligatory pictures of the Hollywood sign, so we drove up to Griffith Observatory. Parking was at a premium, and premium prices, so we just stopped, Tamar got a few pictures and selfies and we went on towards Huntington Beach.

Traffic to the beach was really bad, and by the time we got there we really weren’t in the mood. Besides, we could see the beach from the road and it looked very similar to Venice, with fewer people.

We decided that we’d had enough of LA for this time around, and headed towards San Diego. On the way we stopped at another outlet, this one in San Clemente. We shopped around a bit, mostly window shopping, and also visited a Halloween costume shop.

Then got onto Freeway #5 and after a smooth, easy ride on the highway were back in San Diego by about 6:30.

We packed all our stuff, and then Noah took us out to a very nice dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House. You’d never guess there was a restaurant there. From outside it looks like a community center in an upscale neighborhood, but inside it’s a very posh, very nice restaurant. Everything was delicious! We left there stuffed to the gills.

We got back to Noah’s house and went to bed.

There, our US and Mexico adventure is about over. We leave for the airport early tomorrow morning. We have three flights home; San Diego to Washington Dulles, then to brussels, and finally to Tel Aviv and home.

What an adventure it was! A few days to spend with Noah, Tali and the kids and to acclimate ourselves with the West Coast, with family and beaches, aircraft carriers, taco and seals.

Then 10 days in Mexico. Yucatan with its cenotes, Mayan cities and tourist traps. Chiapas with mountains and jungles, waterfalls and rivers, lovely towns, banditos and great street food, and Playa Del Carmen with its beaches and shopping.

Then another week’s road trip around Southern California, Joshua Tree, Death Valley, and Sequoia National Parks, the Pacific coast, LA and San Diego again.

Tamar and I learned to get along well with each other and had a great bonding experience, one that neither of us will forget.

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