Welcome to Hollywood (La la land)

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

On our last day in Auckland we took a Harbour cruise and visited the Maritime museum before getting the bus to the airport. So far on our trip we’ve got to airports a few hours before the flight, checked in and then sat around for a while, but flying to America pretty much means you’re in a queue for the three hours. First there’s the long check in queue, then the passport control and bag scan queue and then the second bag scan and full body scan for when you go through to the gate. We weren’t allowed any liquids or gels still. We did have a good flight though as the plane had a new fangled entertainment system which meant that you could watch any of the 50 or so movies and TV programmes whenever you liked with the added bonus of being able to pause it when you have your dinner. Chris watched The Departed and Black Dahlia, and I watched Little Miss Sunshine and Marie Antoinette. It was a bit of shame that it was a night flight as we wasted valuable movie watching time by trying to sleep!

We arrived in Los Angeles and cleared customs in an hour or so, it wasn’t as bad as we thought it might be and the customs officials were very friendly unlike in most other places that we’ve been. We caught a shuttle bus and got dropped off at our hostel which is conveniently located on a road linking Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard.

We took a walk along Hollywood Boulevard looking at the stars on the pavement which was pretty cool and then went into the mall where the Kodak Theatre is to look out across the hills to the sign. They’ve got the Oscars on display at the moment so we went and had a look at those and I held one!
In the evening we went to a comedy show upstairs at our hostel which was quite a lot better than we were expecting. One guy was extremely funny.

Yesterday we took the tube to Universal Studios. It’s great because the theme park is on the same plot as the actual studios so you can take a tour of the studios as well as the park attractions. While we were there they were filming Desperate Housewives, but unfortunately it was a closed set so no celeb spotting for us. It was cool to drive around though and see some old sets and props. The attractions at the park were fun, especially the special effects show and the stunt show. Afterwards we went to Universal City which is just like an outside mall next to the park with some cool shops and lots of restaurants. We had burgers in the Hard Rock Café for dinner. When we got back to Hollywood Boulevard we watched Smokin’ Aces at the Chinese Theatre, which is where a lot of the movie premiers take place.

LA is enormous and we’re a bit lost here really, we tried to walk to Melrose Avenue to look at the shops, but it was miles and when we got there, it didn’t seem that great. We don’t fancy the tours of streets where film stars live and it seems too far to go to downtown LA. So tonight we’re going drinking on the Sunset Strip and we’ll see if they’ll let us into the Viper Room!
We’ve seen a fair few weird people in our 2 days here but no celebrities!