Hollywood baby!

Welcome to Hollywood baby!

After a long 14 hour flight, made that much more comfortable by the lovely Quantas, we touched down in LA.  It was 6am and as we flew over the city we could already see that rush hour had begun.  We’d heard of rush hour traffic, and now we’d seen it!

For our final country, we were meeting up with friends from home, Chris and Helen.  They were due in on a later flight though, so it fell on us to pick up the car.  This is where we met Hank the Tank, a car so enormous he hardly fits in the lane, he was literally, a tank!  After getting used to driving on the ‘wrong side of the road’ (Olly had about 10 seconds for this before he was met with massive highways and mega traffic) we headed for Venice Beach, which was close to the airport so we figured was a nicer place to wait for Chris and Helen’s plane.  Never before have I been to a more random place. It was hippies galore, it was muscle men, it was crazy people, it was LA!  After a brief kip on the beach (along with the many other people sleeping there having not been home after the night before) we walked along the beach front.  The shops all had a marijuana theme and we were being hounded to go and see ‘Dr Gangha’.  Random!  At the end of the road we found a lovely cafe where we sat and enjoyed the largest croissant I have ever seen and half a litre of coffee – welcome to America!

Once we’d collected Chris and Helen from the airport and introduced them to Hank we embarked in what turned out to be a fantastic 3 days in LA.  We walked along sunset boulevard, walked the starred pavement, saw the Chinese theatre, saw the Hollywood sign, watched the sun set over Santa Monica pier and had lots of junk food.  In Beverly Hills, after Olly struck a deal with a transvestite on the side of the road, we had ourselves a map of where all the stars live and did our own guided tour of the area.  The houses are like large hotels, it was incredible to see.  Be warned though, the place is a maze, we seemed to end up in front of Frank McCourts house everywhere we went.

Universal Studios was probably my favourite outing in LA though.  It’s like stepping into another world. After an hours queuing (with terrible hangovers from the free beer the night before – never again!) we entered the film version of Disneyland. It was great to see how the movies are made, going through the mummies tomb, driving down Wisteria Lane and rambling through a set from War of the Worlds were all part of the back lot tour.  We even saw dancing cars – I guess this is Hollywood baby!

After three days of maxing it out in LA, it was time for somewhere even more extreme – bring on Las Vegas!