Thursday 23 July 2009

Day 23 - L.A., California

Another day mostly spent in the car.

Even though we waited until 11am to move onto the freeway, it took us far too long to get to our first stop of the day: the beach. The city of L.A. turns into the city of Santa Monica before reaching the ocean, and the Santa Monica beach is every bit as lovely as it looks in Baywatch. Unfortunately, Pammy seemed to be off duty and we had to make do with a slightly overweight, balding guy for a lifeguard. Have a look at this beach though:


Don't you wish you were here? It wasn't crowded at all, and the sea was soothingly cool and the air was warm with a breeze. Just below sweaty hot and one hundered per cent perfect.

We had the best hamburger so far (and we admit, we've had a few) at the lovely Mary's on Santa Monica blv. The place was gay friendly and really cool. Mattias reported disco balls and ABBA music in the men's room, and our check came in a silver stiletto shoe :D

From there on, the day started going slightly downhills. We took a little spin around the blocks trying to find a parking spot near the Hollywood walk of fame (the stars, you know) and just as we went over a crossing, a man who had parked right on the corner flung his door open and we slammed into it. Miraculously, his car was perfectly fine, and I think we were more worried about him making a fuss than what happened with our car. At least a life of lawsuits flashed before my eyes when I heard the horrible noise of car against car.

Anyway, our little darling now has her first beauty spot, a cute little dent just behind the right hand headlights. To be honest, with some of the city driving that goes on here, we're surprised it hadn't happened before. Nearly all cars have scratches and bumps here. And not to worry, we went for the extended insurance which covers this sort of damage.

A little shaken, we started off down the walk of fame, in what we realised 15 minutes later was the "wrong" direction. After many blocks of "who the hell is this, the most famous person we've seen so far is Drew Carey..." the stars ended and we had to walk back to where we started. Only about a block away in the other direction were the real stars, and the famous slabs of concrete with hand- and footprints on them. After comparing hand sizes with 50's movie stars ("my god my hands are massive!"), we stumbled across Michael Jackson's star:


People were crowding about it, taking pictures and putting down little tokens of love. Apparently it was completely mental there the days after his death.

Our final sight for the day was Mulholland drive. It's not only a pretty poor David Lynch movie, but a very attractive address housing people like Jack Nicholson and Paris Hilton. It's a long, windy road up in the Hollywood hills, streching over into Bel Air. There are lots of scenic views and surprisingly enough plenty of parking spaces. The views themselves were lovely, the driving was mad. People zoomed around in their huge SUVs that took up all of their lane and half of ours, at twice the speed limit, alongside sheer drops that made me feel faint and hold on tightly to my comfort handle.

Here's a view of downtown L.A. from Mulholland drive:


The famous Hollywood sign:


Sunset over Mulholland drive:


Tomorrow we're going to Universal Stuidos. I'm not sure how much of a photo opportunity it is, but if I see something cool, I'll snap away.

Later, dudes.

4 comments:

  1. Att för cineaster som ni få komma till LA måste vara att som för muslimer få komma till Mekka. Det låter som om ni har det riktigt bra, trots den lilla incidenten med bilen (vilket fick det gamla modershjärtat att fladdra till lite extra). För övrigt tycker jag att er ev ändrade resrutt låter alldeles utmärkt. Den skulle jag inte ha något emot att följa med på. Kör nu försiktigt och tänk på att alla andra i trafiken beter sig som idioter! ;)
    Många kramar till er båda

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  2. Åh, nu vet du säkert vad jag tänker: "Jag hade allt på FILM" ;) Hihi, nåja - känner i alla fall igen mig och längtar faktiskt tillbaka en smula. Det kändes lite som att man var med i en film faktiskt. Där, någonstans längs gatan med stjärnorna, gjorde jag min lilla tatuering :)

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  3. Vad mycket faktiskt det blev. Faktiskt.

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  4. Jag sällar mej till mängden, och säger att Hollywood känns bekant för en, även om man nu inte har varit där fysiskt, men i andanom och via otaliga filmer! Hoppas dock att ni inte fastnar där, och skriver på något "fett" filmkontrakt på flera år - i varje fall inte förrän ni varit här och hälsat på mej i Göteborg! (ha ha!) Men hälsa Mr. Jerry Lewis, om ni träffaar på honom, please! Vi hörs!

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