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Firstly I want to start off by saying how fast our American trip is going by! Too fast!!
Luke and I arrived late morning on 21st April, then spent most of the day just stretching our wings, after being couped up in the van for ages, and then on a plane for 15 hours.
We went to get some food in, seen as we have a Kitchen in our hotel room, we may as well use it, and save food money whilst were in LA, and go mad in San Diego & Las Vegas! Then once we had unpacked / uploaded the pictures it was time to head BACK to the airport. To pick up our fellow traveller, Joe - (Luke's younger brother.)
We set off with plenty of time to reach Joes Flight. But it seemed all the roads to the airport were blocked, and it sent us on a detour, which was the rush hour traffic route, so we were sitting ducks.....( We later found out these roads were closed due to Obama being in town!! He arrived into LAX the same time as us too that morning, but we were non the wiser!) To cut a long story short - we reached the airport the exact time Joes flight landed, so that was a relief, so we parked up and went to wait for Joe.
It was great to see a familiar face, when Joe eventually emerged!!He was pretty tired after his direct flight from the UK, but we all had so much to catch up on!!
Luke and I, never told Joe we had hired such an American Legendary car, so we said we had hired a White Ford car, but couldn't remember where we'd parked, so to look out for that description in the car park.....
Joe was pleased with our choice, and with that in mind, we drove home with the roof down, through the streets of Los Angeles!!
It was safe to say, once back at the hotel, we all just cabbaged out, and went to bed!!!
The following morning we were up and ready for the day. We took a stroll over to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, on Hollywood Boulevard, which is directly behind our hotel. So we saw everyones stars on the pavement, and then went into the Manns Chinese theatre, to see the hand / footprints, left by all the celebs.... I have the same size hands as Marilyn Monroe... FYI!!
Then we went to Madame Tussaudes, the wax work museum.... It was great fun... a little creepy too but really good fun! For a lot of the scenes they provided clothes to dress up to be in character!! It was Ace, Joe had his hand put in a wax cast, and made into a model.. It only took 8 minutes, but it was really impressive! So currently, we have Joes Wax hand in the fridge, giving the peace sign!!
Afterwards we went on a bus tour of Hollywood, we were all pretty tired still, but thought it would be a good way to spend the rest of the afternoon, there is 3 routes on the tour, Beaches, Hollywood & Downtown LA. We just got on the Hollywood tour ... for now, thinking we would get the other routes done later in the day. This route alone took nearly 3 hours.
But on the plus side, we saw all the famous / interesting things to see, the route took us to Beverly Hills too, and down Rodeo Drive.. Its sort of a good job that we were on a bus, rather than walking, as we would be poor by now!!
We all caught the sun on the bus, so that made us tired a little more. But the bus journey showed us of places we wanted to visit our selves.
The next day we took a ride out to Santa Monica. The sun was shining, it was a beautiful day. We parked up by the Pier, and went for a walk along the beach. We came across the original Muscle Beach, this is where all the body builders used to work out, before it was moved further down the beach in the 60's (I think) It still has equipment there, but mainly for gymnasts. We walked down the beach a short while, then stopped for a drink on the beach front. Then walked back towards the pier on the beach and in the sea. The Pacific is freezing cold!! We definitely took the water temperature for granted in Australia!!!
Being at the Pier, we took a stroll to the end, there was one guy there with heaps of parrots, so I became a pirate, and this gorgeous tropical parrot wrapped his beak around my index finger, and dangled off of my finger!!!!!!! Totally amazing, right!
Then it Climbed aboard, and up my arm to my shoulder... It waved his wings, and kissed me. (Or bit my bottom lip!) Then the comedian owner, he squirted my arm with water, but it felt like the bird had poo'd! So I squealed!!! Yes, I had an audience, and Yes everyone laughed!! Then He squirted a little more!! And then again!! Then once my hysteria had died down he squirted my other arm..... it is then i realised I had been 'Punk'd'......!!! Once I was faecesfree we drove a few miles over to 'Golds Gym' the world famous gym where Arnold Schwarzenegger used to train, along with the old incredible hunk actor! Luke and Joe bought some clothes from the gym and we headed home for lunch.
That afternoon we headed over to the Petersen Car museum. Being with two boys now, outnumbers just me, so I agreed to go with them to the boys day out!! It was pretty good actually, and had 3 floors of cars, old and new! Across from here is the La Brea Tar Pits, so we went on over. I thought it was some natural occurance, like all the weird and wonderful stuff in Australia, and with them saying that prehistoric fossils have been found here in the Tar. But we read that it used to be a quarry, and one day when it rained it was filled in, and it produced tar?!?! Americans!
The following day then, we walked over to the ROCK WALL, This is just down the road, and dedicated to Rock stars. So we went there, saw all the crazy hand prints of rock legends. We thought this was another museum place, so went in, but its just a guitar shop.... prices ranging from $80.00 to $8,000.00!!Then back for lunch via Arnold Schwarzenegger's star!
For the afternoon we had Arnie fever, so hunted down his house!! Yes, we googled it, and sat nav'd it - and drove out to Brentwood, to the iron gate central!! We drove up Arnie's street, and no lie, its about 4 miles long, before you even reach his house! He has a huge rock feature in his driveway, with a waterfall!! Then a security building before you get to his gate!! There was no chance of seeing him doing his gardening, nothing!! BUT, as we turned around in his drive, someone did pull up in a brand new black Ferarri!... It had blacked out windows, so we couldn't see who it was. But we have been in Arnie's driveway!!!!!!
Then from here we drove over to Venice beach, to spent the afternoon there. Here we found the 'revised' muscle beach, this is where Arnie used to train, also this is where the iron man / worlds strongest man competitions are held!! There were heaps of activity going on here in Venice, much busier than Santa Monica yesterday!!!! But it was fun! We then went and all bought some new sun glasses! We are officially all too cool for school! It was buy 2 get one for free, so it was too good of an offer to refuse basically!
When we returned home, we were told there had been an earthquake in Culver City, which is between here and LAX airport, it was only a tiny one, at 2. Something, and we didn't feel it - so if anyone is worrier, which I doubt - were all OK.
Then the last full day in L.A we drove to Universal Studios and spent the whole day at the park. It was another roasting day!! And we spent the day going from ride to ride, so never had time to stop. When we arrived we parked up and walked through the Universal City - where all the restaurants and shops are... and throughout the day we went on everything the park has to offer!!! There is a Terminator 2 show, its all a mix of actors / film footage and real life acting, the seats move, you get wet etc... so that was pretty fun. Then walking through the park we came to the Simpsons part, there was the Kwik-E-Mart and all the characters walking around, then joined the queue for the Simpsons ride. I loved this ride, Luke, Not so keen! Your in the little cart, and it lifts up, outside of the room, and your in a huge auditorium and then the screen is all Simpson's cartoon like, and on a rollercoaster, the cart your sat in reflects the movement that the screen is doing, so your mind is tricked into thinking your on the cartoon rollercoaster.... It was pretty crazy! I could see a cart to my left, therefore seeing that our cart was not moving forward, Luke didn't see this, so he says his stomach turned heaps through this ride! I loved it! Joe Loved it too, but nothing throughout the day topped the following ride, The Jurrasic Park ride.... it was the first roller coaster sort of ride we came across, and we all got pretty wet! It was over fairly quick, and dinosaurs spat at us etc. Then we went up, and came crashing down.. in a heap of water!!! Then in our wet state we went across to the Mummy ride, this is a proper hard core rollercoaster, but only lasts a couple of minutes, before doing it all in reverse!! Crazy!! Then before we knew it it was already Lunchtime, we found some shade to eat our lunch before getting back into all what was on offer! We decided to calm down a little, and take the studio tour...
At Universal is where Desperate Housewives is filmed, and they were filming as we were there, the tour usually takes you actually to Wisteria Lane, but it was blocked off with heaps of cars, trailers and people! That would have been the cream on the cake, being able to watch some filming!!
There were heaps of other things we did and saw, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable day. Again the sun was shining and the sky was blue, so that alone is bound to be a winner of a day!! So we came all tired and worn out, That is it from Los Angeles, in the morning we pack up the Mustang, and are heading south. Heading to San Diego.
LA - "Ill be back!"
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