LA

My trip, or my 'OE' as the Kiwi guy on the plane exclaimed, began in Los Angeles. After cursing customs for taking foreverrrr (forever) I was finally able to meet up with my friend/gemstone Christal who was extremely lovely to let me stay at her place and drive me around a lot. If you see her in the street then please give her a present or something. Thanks.

LA = celebrities right? Well I didn't see any. Stop reading now if that's a problem for you. I did spend a lot of time doing movie stuff though! If that's your cup of tea then read on friends ...

Turns out that looking at the Walk of Fame requires a whole lot of looking down at the street which is a shame as there is a lot to see at eye level and up along the Hollywood Boulevard - There's heaps of advertising and people dressed up and whatever. I was told that almost all the restaurants and bars in the area are staffed by people 'trying to make it' which makes sense as frankly if you're not a tourist or a future star I have no idea why you'd ever want to go to the area.

(William Shat'n'er hand)

You could see the Hollywood sign from on top of the nearest shopping centre but we opted to do a proper hike around the Hollywood sign. It's free to do and it actually doesn't take that long at all. Granted you don't get to physically touch the sign but you DO get to touch the sturdy looking gate surrounding it! 

(DOOWYLLOH)

There's also a mean looking communications tower up there that you just KNOW is bouncing off celebrities' text messages like crazy. There's a pretty high chance I may have had some data waves of Kim Kardashian's latest utterances shudder through my body.

                                               

(Kim and I share a 'K'. Twins!)

The weather has been cooler than Melbourne but it's been pretty consistently sunny. We went for a ride from Hermosa Beach to Venice Beach which is probably most famous for hosting Muscle Beach which is essentially an outdoor gym. To use it you have to A) have a membership, B) Work out in front of hundreds of people walking by and C) ENJOY working out in front of hundreds of people walking by. There wasn't much beefcake while we visited but I did catch this guy close by. It's like he's posing for YOU GUYS!!

(This photo was taken without permission. He'd love it though, right?)

To be all cultured and relevant we visited an interesting movie studio one night to watch a series of short films because one of Christal's friends played a crazy cat lady for about 7 seconds in one of them. We hung out afterwards for a bit and listened to everyone talk about the movies but soon bailed for pizza. This experience was followed a few days later by a tour around the Warner Bros studio. I bought some Ellen underwear (for $20. Worth it).

                                               

(The Anamaniacs are long dead apparently)

The tour itself was really interesting and entertaining but I tell you what, getting public transport home was MURDER! The buses kept terminating for no reason that I could discern with my English ability. I ended up catching the same bus (the 210 as I recall) three times on the one trip just because we had to get off the bus and wait for the next one. I had a burger as compensation. I've also been eating a lot of Mexican food.

I'm currently in Seattle at my friend Travis' place. Seattle is pretty rad so far but I'll put that in the next blog.