Day 15- Hollywood

Today was a slightly earlier start than others to make sure we made the most of our time in Hollywood. Due to our position in the city we decided to make our own way out to Hollywood on bus and metro so that we could get the hop on hop off touristy bus from there. It took us slightly longer than expected and we therefore didnt really get started until about 11am and ended up at the wrong end of hollywood but a pleasant walk along the walk of fame with golden stars inscribed with celebrity names underfoot. It was funny watching verybody walking along staring at the floor and we certainly nearly bumped into people a few times never mind walking out infront of traffic!

When we finally reached the main action of hollywood, Grauman's Chinese Theatre, we were somewhat surprised and how incredibly tacky and actually quite rundown the entire place was. The famous hollywood sign was also quite a distance away up the hill and very well hidden by the buildings and some probably cleverly placed trees! I had a suspicion that the tour companies did this to force people onto their buses! But anyway, we bought a 24 hr hop on hop off ticket for about 25 bucks and after consulting the map decided to do the shortest of the 3 loops available- up to Universal Studios and back, a route we thought would be nice and scenic. After driving for about 20 mins on the busy freeway we reached our destination, only to turn right around and come back. An hour well spent i'm sure you will agree! The next bus we decided to take was on one of the more main routes that headed out towards beverly hills before circling the farmers market, skimming the edge of downtown and returning past some film studios to hollywood. This bus was also a classic red london bus with the open roof for good photography opportunities but on such a hot day we knew it was going to be a sweaty ride.

After only about 15 mins or so on the slightly uncomfortable bus I was getting thirsty so we decided to get off and head for a diner that was half a train just sitting by the side of the road! It was really cool as you boarded at each end, as you would a normal train, and sat looking out of a train window in seats similar to those of a 1970's locomotive! As the buses passed every half hour we thought it would be plenty of time and we would hop back onto the next one that passed but unfortunately this flashed past before we had finished our 'soda' so we were left to wait another half hour outside the hotel where they filmed ocean's eleven. The next bus to turn up was only a single decker but still open top with luxurious comfy leather seats and a much better sound system so we could actually hear what was going on which was good.

The next area was to be Beverley Hill and it was amazing how nice it actually was! Beautiful little park spaces planted with colourful flowers and lot of people walking pint sized poodles wandered by. Each resedential street that flowed from the main road we were on was also planted with a different species of tree, just to keep it interesting which definately gave each one some character. Even though I wouldn't have recognised any celebritys even if they were sitting on my lap we kept a look out anywhere and stared intently into the large number of flashy mercedes and bentleys that filtered past. We also passed through the main shopping street of Beverley Hills which was lined with Prada, Gucci, Ralph Lauren and countless other exclusive stores- one of which you have to have an appointment to enter! Another interesting fact that we were told is that all the telephone lines are buried underground in BH as the poles were thought to be 'unsightly' which makes for interesting viewing on the intersection between hollywood and BH where suddenly all poles dissapear in the matter of a couple of yards. They also like to keep the place clean- you can serve up to a year (i think, might have been 10!?!) if you dont clear up after your dog! One woman was unlucky enough to get caught commiting the crime and actually served longer than some guy who assulted a cop!

After Beverley Hills we passed Paramount Studios who do an amazing tour through all these film sets but it was way too pricey for us so we made do looking at the gates :) We also caught a small glimpse of the Hollywood sign but again it was quite a way away and we were moving at speed so it just flashed between buildings before dissapearing again. The farmer's arket was next up which looked really cool and in hindsight i wish we had got off to have a look around but we had one eye on the time, aware that we hadn't really 'done' hollywood yet and had to be back on the 'link' bus in just 1 hour or so.

As we arrived back in Hollywood we hit some really bad trafic which sucked as we were already really feeling the sun having been sitting on an open top bus for the past 2 hours so we grabbed a quick McFlurry and a coke before checking out all the celebrity handprints outside the chinese theatre. The funniest was probably all the Harry potter stars although Arnie's 'I Will Be Back', written in 1994, was probably the most ironic considering he is now the governator (haha) of California.

After 'doing' hollywood we jumped onto a link bus that would take us the start of a new route exploring the downtown financial, jewellery and theatre districs. This was again a more uncofmrotable classic open top bus that shuddered through showing us all the main skyscrapers, little tokyo, the old theatres and the staples centre. This route was slightly less interesting and the facts less impressive but considering the size of LA I would not like to be the one who plans these 2 hour long routes! Since the bus actually passed the end of Figueroa street and as our tickets were still valid we ended up doing the first part of this tour all over again to get back down to the staples centre before heading back up to our hotel for Maika to have a dip in the pool.

Our bags packed we grabbed a takeaway from down the road and started trying to work out how the hell we were going to get to the greyhound station the next morning for our bus north to San Francisco!

AC & MS xxx