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Published: April 1st 2011
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We arrived at the airport in Las Vegas for our flight to LA to find that it had been cancelled. After queuing for an hour we were told that we all had tickets on a flight at 11.10 that morning - except Mum who was booked on the 4.40pm flight! Whilst we were talking to the girl - much to Mum’s relief - a seat on the same flight as ours became available. Los Angeles is an enormous city! You can still say your in LA if your 80 klms from the centre of the city. Devin had booked us a hotel right on Venice Beach - it was close to the airport thankfully. Next day we were to experience LA Traffic and it was incredibly heavy. That evening leaving Mum and Jerry in their rooms to rest Ginny and I walked along Ocean Front Walk to Santa Monica - the next beachside suburb. We watched a TV series being made on the long pier. We found a lovely Italian restaurant where we spent a couple of hours talking before catching a taxi back to the hotel - it had started to rain. Venice Beach is renowned for it’s alternate lifestyle
- it certainly had plenty of interesting characters there during the day but after dark was not a place I felt comfortable in. We organised some food for Mum in the hotel room before going around the corner to a small café for dessert and coffee.
We booked a city tour next day to see all the main sights. It was very expensive considering that we spent most of the time getting between the few places we were going to see. The roads - 6 lanes either side were choked with traffic - but we did get to the Hollywood sign viewing area eventually. I was surprised to see how far away the viewing area is from the sign. In 1923 when it was put up the 50foot high sign had read ‘Hollywoodland’ and was an advertisement for a new subdivision. A caretaker actually lived behind one of the ‘L’s” at that time. From there we drove around Beverly Hills looking at all the multi million dollar homes. The guide pointed out an entire block of restaurants and shops in the very centre of the area - all the real estate is owned by the Presley family (of Elvis).
We
spent some time on Hollywood Blvd at the Chinese Theatre and the Kodak Theatre, home of the Oscars, and wandered down the Walk of Fame along with hundreds of other tourists. Their were flowers on Elizabeth Taylor’s handprint and also Michael Jackson’s star. The shops were all selling plastic gilt Oscars! The crowds got the better of me so I spent some time in an historic hotel across the road from the Kodak Theatre where I watched a group of actors (nobody I recognised) reading lines.
After that it was back onto the bus and off to shop (not) in Beverly Hills. There is one shop there (a men’s wear shop) where you can’t get in without an appointment. If you don’t buy anything you’re then charged $1500! The owner leaves one of his bright yellow cars - he has a collection of them - parked right outside the shop.
And so ended our 24 hours in LA. Not a place I have any desire to revisit. It was very sad to farewell Mum and Ginny as they left the hotel for the airport. We had a lovely meal with Devin and Jane before we left together for the airport
for our separate flights. Departure and Passport control procedure from the airport was surprisingly pain free and Jerry and I left at 2.30am for our 4 hour flight south to Guatemala.
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