Walking In LA

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Same internet kiosk at the hostel, still no photos. I'm not taking that many anyway to be quite honest. It usually occurs to me to take a picture a few minutes after the moment has passed.

Tuesday was rather un-LA weather: it was like someone was emptying a bucket of water all over the place. I took it as monsoon practice and went for a walk all the way to Hollywood/Vine and back which was actually a lot further than I thought. This city wasn't built for walking: everything's too spread out and crossings are few and far between. From the look of it it's not much to drive around either because the roads are horribly clogged up.

I had my first lunch in LA at an (apparently) famous chili dog stand, Pink's which was on my way. Apparently it's a haunt of many famous types with lots of signed photos on the walls and stuff. I ordered a classic chili dog with fries and coke one I'd reached the good end of the long queue and ate it under their shelter out back. It was nice enough but nothing that special really, though it was quite cheap and I can say I ate at such a famous hot dog stand in the land of hot dogs. Which isn't really a very impressive boast, but what the hell.

I took a long walk up to central Hollywood in the pouring rain to get the tacky tourist stuff over and done with. I went down the walk of fame with stars on paving stones dedicated to people who used to be famous (I swear that people I hadn't heard of vastly outnumbered people I had) and the handprints people who mostly are still famous. And yes, I did it: Johnny Depp has got bigger feet than I have.

At this point I was horribly cold and wet so I went back to the hostel to do nothing, getting even colder and wetter in the process.

Now it may sound like I've got a bit of a downer on LA at this point, but by wednesday morning things had improved considerably. The weather, for a start, was very pleasant and my stuff had (mostly) dried out nicely, so after waking up a little late I went to the 'Farmers Market' on Fairfax (Mostly just tourist food stalls) and had blackened alligator tail (tasted like chicken) from a cajun place and walked west to the edge of Beverley hills. Distances are deceptive in this place: you look at a place on a map and think 'oh easy, that should only take ten minutes'. You are wrong and probably deserve the blisters and annoyance for not paying enough money to those fine folks who make cars, sell oil and run valet parking. At least, that's probably what the LA city planners were thinking. I'm not sure.

I came home with aching feet and having seen no celebrities (though I saw a blacked out limo -ooh) although, surprisingly, a little more fond of LA after experiencing a nice day here. I also had a pepperoni for dinner from a really dingy pizza joint, just like you see in the movies. It was delicious and greasy, just how pizza should be, though I failed to notice that everyone else was ordering by the slice and that a 'medium' (no such thing as small) pizza could probably wipe out third world hunger. I ate about half and gave the rest of a tramp, of which there are many in Hollywood.

I actually ended this day thinking nice thoughts about Los Angeles, though from now on I'm taking the bus.

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Comments

[Louise]

Get Well Soon
We are sorry to hear you've lost your appetite and could only manage three meals today. We hope this situation soon improves. (Food parcels are on their way)

[Hannah]

Yeah
Louise is dead right - when are you going to start behaving like a proper American? *Everyone* knows that *at least* 5 meals a day are required for the average human to continue functioning.