Advertisement
Published: August 29th 2007
Edit Blog Post
I returned to Long Beach for another hit of L.A. I went to the south end of Venice Beach and walked along the famous concrete pathway that runs alongside the sand up to Santa Monica. It was fun checking out all the freaks. People from all walks of life can be seen around Venice Beach. There are lots of little shops and stalls selling everything from music to visions of the future. I watched some locals playing basketball over a lunch of chilli cheese fries. It took about 2 hours to walk up to the Santa Monica pier, doing my best not to get run over by the bicyclists and roller bladers.
I spent a day in Hollywood. I walked along the Blvd's - Santa Monica, Sunset and Hollywood. Hollywood Blvd has the "Hollywood walk of fame". That is where the select hundreds of entertainers get their name printed in a star on the ground. Tourists are easy to spot here because they all walk along with their heads down. It seemed like every second shop along Hollywood Blvd sold exotic dancer's clothing.
The premiere of the movie 'Hot Rod' was getting started at Mann's Chinese Theatre as I walked
past. Since Isla Fisher was the only celebrity I knew in that movie I didn't hang around.
I continued on to CBS studios to be in the audience of The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson. If you don't know who that is, he used to play the boss on The Drew Carey Show. I used to watch the show when I was "working" at Ch9 when we got it via satellite. He does it well and it was a great show. The audience liaisons actually told us that even if we didn't think something was funny to laugh anyway, and they made us practice our natural convincing laugh before the show started. The magic of television.
The musical guest was Hanson. I'm sure all you 10 year old girls are very jealous.
I decided to pop down to San Diego for the weekend. The train was pretty quick and for parts went right along the beach. My host in San Diego works for a radio station and she had organised a CD launch at a club for friday night. I had pretty much just been to pubs on my trip prior to San Diego and it was the
Santa Monica
It's a household name first time I pulled a collared shirt out of my bag. Initially the bouncer wouldn't let me in with my Australian Licence, saying I needed to show my passport. Eventually we got the manager and he let me in. Vodka -Red Bulls were on special so I pumped a bunch of them into me and danced the night away.
The next day we scored tickets to 'Comic Con', the largest comic book convention in the world. It was huge. Lots more than just comics. Basically all forms of entertainment were covered for anything related to Sci-Fi/fantasy/adventure. There was lots going on and lots of people dressed up and really getting into it.
We took it easier on saturday night and just went to a local pub for a few. Sunday we went to a couple of beaches including the southern most beach in San Diego, which is about 8 miles from the Mexican border. This means I covered all but 8 miles of the west coast of America.
On my return north from San Diego I stayed in Huntington Beach, Orange County. I stayed with a couple my age and they are two of the nicest people
you could ever meet. We soaked in some sun on the beach and walked around Huntington. That night we went out for pizza with with a girl I met on the train back from San Diego and all her friends. We ended up going back to their apartment to play some drinking games.
The next day I wanted to check out Newport. Being obsessed with the show "The OC", I was pretty excited to see where the show was shot. I couldn't be bothered waiting for the bus so I walked the 2 hour walk from Huntington to Newport along the beach. I tried to look for locations I might recognise from the show but the only thing I recognised was the beach itself.
We went that evening to a local bar and got started with what seemed like a quadruple shot of tequila. When the bar shut we got some beers to take home. We took the beers, a blanket and a guitar out to the field they live next to and made a little party of our own. It was cool drinkin beer and singing songs untill the sun came up. That was day 1 of a long
stretch of big nights.
The next day I moved house to Manhattan Beach. I again went drinking with my new host and her friends. We went to a cool bar with a whole bunch of crazy crap on the wall, where the staff let off sirens and bells and such just to scare the customers.
The following day we cruised around Hermosa Beach and surrounding areas. We went up to some cool lookout points and checked out the coastline. We followed that up by another night out on the town.
I had such an awesome time on the west coast. After being there for so long and not being on a plane for a while, flying to my next destination felt like something completely new.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.316s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0744s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
Tyrone
non-member comment
West Sieeeeed
Glad you've enjoyed the West Coast mate, I know you were looking especially forward to that section of the trip. My true nerdiness showed through when I read that you went to Comic Con and I got all excited. Octoberfest and the World Cup just around the corner now. Booyah!