Trip USA...Day 14 Hollywood

I'm posting this a few days late. Well 4 days to be precise. Saturday we (Sam, Moo, and I) went to check out some of the tourist sights round LA. First we drove to Santa Monica Beach. Man the highways are great, sometimes they are 5 lanes wide. If you drive at the right time of day you can cruise round at 120km/h, which is the speed limit.

Our first stop was Santa Monica. It looks similar to the Gold Coast. We came off the highway a bit north of the city and drove round for a bit looking at the beaches. It was quite over cast that morning. In fact most days here in LA are overcast atm. I guess it's more the smog than anything, There's heaps of it! Imaging standing at Burleigh hill and not being able to see Surfers, it's that thick. So we checked out some of the beach but it's wasn't real cool, just cold and overcast.

So we headed down to Santa Monica. That's where the have the pier with the ferris wheel and small amusement park. It was much better down there. The sun was out, it looked like a beautiful Gold Coast day. So we went down the pier and walked around. There were food places, artists, street entertainers, and a small amusement park. We tok some photos and walked round for a bit. We then headed up to the main part of the city. It reminded me of Surfers, but it much better. No cheapo shops, no nightclubs. 3rd street promonade was like Cavill Ave, but heaps longer. Heaps of street performers and cool looking shops. We started watching one guy. He was African-American and kinda had a dance show, but got the crowd involved. He was the most entertaining out of all the others. Towards the end of the show he picked me and 3 other guys out of the crowd. We basically had to repeat all the dance moves he did, it was cool to get involved.

So after cruising round there for a few hours we headed off to Hollywood. On the way we went through, Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive. We didn't stop to get out but we got some pics. Our next stop was Sunset Blvd and Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood Blvd is the street with all the stars on the pavement. We cruised down there for a mile or 2 (I was looking for Natalie Portmans star), until we came to the theatre's where they have the movie premiers. And it just so happened that there was a premier on that night. It wasn't really a big one. A Disney show called High School Musical was having it's DVD launch. There was the red carpet, and the lights and camera's, so it was cool to be there at that time. Unfortunately we didn't know anyone in the show. Sam recognised a guy from Starship Troopers, but that's about it. So we blended in and pretended to know what the whole thing was about.

After hanging round there for a while we cruised up to a shopping centre that had a great view of the Hollywood sign. We took a few shots then headed back to the car, it was starting to get a bit chilli by now. It was really busy round there, more street entertainers, people walking round with pythons charging to have a picture with them, people dressed up as movie characters also charging for a pic. It felt like the whole LA experience.

After a long day we headed home. We had some In n' Out, which has the better burgers out all the fast food chains, for dinner, which was about 9:30 at night. My eating schedule has been put outta wack since I've been here. We eat at all different time of the day.

Well that's it for this post, I'll put up some more later. Had some good pics, but didn't get a chance to put them up cause we keep losing the wireless connection that we are stealing from some dude down the street :)

Trip USA Day 9....10,000 CD's

AB picked up a delivery of 10,000 Love on the Radio CD's today. We spent the day unpacking 3,000 of those CD's, puting them in to piles of 30, cutting down the orginal boxes, and then repacked the 30 CD's into the cut down boxes and then tapped them up. Here's some pics....all in a day's work.

That night we had boys night at Dan's place. We a pizza and poker night, Texas Holdem' was the game, fake money of course! Nothing like a bunch of fella's round for a night of poker. It was down to Bretta and Smalls, when the night finished about 11:30. I made it to the last 3, not too bad considering I've hardly ever played. Swanny receives the dumbest player award for consistently not knowing how to play the game. All in all it was a bit of fun for boys night

Trip USA...Day 7 errr 8 - Early to bed

I wish !!!

I'm still having trouble adjusting to the time difference, so it's 1:50 am Saturday morning and I'm still wide awake. Thought I'd put a quick post in. Had a good morning, and relaxed in the afternoon. AB played at a youth group tonight and it went well again.

I've mixed at 3 shows now, and the response that AB gets is amazing, everyone, young or old gets into it. It's great being involved, I get to crank the music really loud, it rocks out and not one person has complained yet !!!

Well day off today, no plans yet, might go to Hollywood, and Santa Monica Beach, or maybe check out MI 3. Oh talking about movies, I saw The Beachwarmers the other day for $3.50...that's right $3.50 for a movie! It's got Jon Header (Napoleon Dynamite) in it. Wasn't too bad, just a few laughs, more like a feel good movie.

Peace Out!

Trip USA...Day 6 - The Box Rox

Well, sitting here at Dan's place with some of the AB crew. They played at a church last night, and a school this morning. Both went really well. We are just relaxing at the moment, man I could get used to this band life !

Trip USA....Day 2 - Yo Momma!

Monday 1st May

Couldn't much sleep the first night, was still up at 3 AM. Finally managed to get some sleep in Lauren's pink room (shudder!). Woke up at 11 quiet refreshed. Just relaxed for the day, watching TV with Lauren she was at home sick. We watched a show on the MTV channel called Yo Momma! It's hosted by the Mexican guy on That 70's Show. The show is basically about going round to different hoods and finding the people with the best Yo momma so fat...jokes and other kinda insulting jokes. MY favourite ones for the show were:

Yo momma so fat she uses peanut butter as mouth wash!
and
Yo momma so ugly she is starring in the next MTV show Pimp my face!

Well it was funny at the time.

Went to my first baseball game Monday night, LA Angels v Oakland Athletics. It was cool going into the stadium, getting hot dogs and nachos for dinner. They do all the stuff you see at the movies, the songs the chants, they even had chicks with t-shirt firing guns like on the Simpsons episode.

Unfortunately there was only 1 run scored in the whole game, so I got a bit bored, maybe my next game will be a bit more interesting.

Trip USA...Day 1 - Chicken and Ribs

Well finally made it here to the US. I'm posting from a friends house in Glendora, a suburb of LA, about 40 miles from the coast. Quite nice out here, looks like the average suburban house you see in American movies. Heaps of trucks everywhere, the American kind.

My flight was not too bad, Bris to NZ was 2 hours, watched Chicken Little. 2 hour stop over in Auckland, plane left a bit late. 12 hour flight, got through it okay, nothing special, got a few hours sleep. Arrived at 1pm, Dan came and picked me up, and we went straight to get a BBQ chicken and ribs meal for lunch. Okay NOW I feel like I'm in the US. Chicken and ribs were great, with a side of gravy on rice...what the !?!

Staying at friends of AB's - Dan, Brittany and Lauren. Went to Their Church service and ended up playing drums in the youth band !!! 6 hours off the plane and I'm playing already :) It was a good night.

Just been relaxing today, didn't get much sleep last night, was still awake at 3 AM, Finally got to sleep and woke up at 11 AM. Going to a baseball game tonight, looking forward to that. Can't wait to catch up with AB.