Friday, May 19, 2006

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 :)

3 comments:

Green-e said...

yeah, that's the one

Anonymous said...

Hey, hey, hey Green-e - so fun reading about your little adventures...just heard an AB song on the radio & thought "I should check out what Green-e is up to!". You take care - have lots more fun & say Hi to the gang for me! Sal

Anonymous said...

Hey Green-e
Ive been keeping updated on what you have been doing....its great to see you are enjoying yourself...Miss you...Lisa D