Hollywood USA
Trip Start
Dec 06, 2008
1
16
Trip End
Jan 15, 2009
Where I stayed
Hollywood,
California,
United States
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Our time in London was so incredibly cool. Paul and Malcolm are the best hosts. We had a home away from home. The kids really enjoyed the gin and tonic time before dinner LOL.
Apart from a party night with Paul, Malcolm, Dave and Kate we did do a helluva lot of sight seeing. We saw Buckingham palace, with the changing of the guards. Lis and I went in the London Eye (that took some courage from me...). We went to explore the tower of London. The science museum was high on Coen's list and we all did enjoy that. Lis and I went to the Clink Prison while it was getting dark. In the small Dickens-like streets it was a great atmosphere. We walked in St James' park (they have pelicans that were shivering of the cold). We did another double decker tour and a Thames cruise. We were quite dissapointed that the English charge quite a lot of money for tourist to see the churches. Both St. Pauls and Westminster Abbey would costs us 25 pounds each. Now I really believe it is wrong to charge for a church (even in France it was for free). So we decided to skip them both... Coen ventured for a short while to the Imperial War museum, and we managed to squeeze some shopping time in as well.
It was freezing cold in London but we did still loads of walking. It is such a marvellous city. Then at night we would return to a warm home.
We made a lot of use of the London Public transport. Train, bus and underground made it quite easy to get around.
On Wednesday we said goodbye to our friends and got on our way to LA. We first had to fly from Heathrow to Munich. We had a three hour stopover and had to turn our pockets and bags inside out to find some Euro's. We had a cup of coffee in Munich and then boarded our almost 12 hour fligth to LAX. We flew Lufthansa and we all thought that the service was pretty crap. Those flight attendants are not very friendly. We arrived pretty tired on LAX and than that unbelievable security circus started. Long, long queues for fingerprinting, photo's and a small interogation. What a load of bull. I understand that they are careful but if they do all this extra work, then it might be an idea to have more people working. After finally getting through and finding our bags (which were already taken off the caroussel) we found ourselves in another line, for customs this time. It took for ever.
We took a shuttle to our motel and just crashed. Our motel is cheap, and for good reason. But we can't complain. We are on Hollywood Boulevard.
We did another tour on a bustour. We walked almost all of the blvd and saw the Kodak and the Chinese Theatre. In front of the Kodak a lot of wanna-be's are all dressed up and you can take pictures, as we did. We have seen quite a lot during our bustour and tofay we decided to do some more exploring on some spots.
We went to the farmers market in Fairfax. Now don't let the name fool you. It is not just produce and there are a lot of great shops. Lis and I scored some good outfits. Then we went to Rodeo Dr in Beverly Hills. That street is really great to wlk around. And no, we didn't buy anything there I'm afraid.
After that we walked through Beverly Hills Park. On our way back home we dropped in in one of the enormous vintage shops. Yesterday we bought some great stuff there and again today we all had a ball browsing and finding some real gems.
On our way to dinner now. Thai and Chinese are well represented in our part of the blvd so it will be something Asian tonight.
Tomorrow is our last day in LA and we decided that we are going to do Disney Land. So up at the crack of dawn. We will report about that when we get back to NZ because the day after tomorrow we fly home.
Our 6 weeks have just flown by, looking forward to catch up with you all. Chill the wine and beer we are almost home
xoxox
