Lights, Cameras, Tourism
Trip Start
Dec 06, 2006
1
90
188
Trip End
Ongoing
Los Angeles,
California,
United States
Friday, November 9, 2007
Last nights comedy was pretty good for nowt, I think the star of the 10 or so that did short sets was a Canadian bloke. Some were awful, some were average, but he seemed to have a good set. The worst of the lot was the host unfortunately so we had to hear his drunken slurs 11 times. You do the math. s.
I went and did the cheesy tourist thing at Universal Studios today. In fact I went and overdid it. I got a bit carried away at the entrance. I saw some queues, the blood rushed to my head and before I knew it I thought buying a front of line pass was a bright idea. To defend my obvious stupidity, it was discounted and rather than the usual extra 35 it only cost 15. It's just a shame that as it's November I didn't really have any queues to jump to the front of. I probably should have realised that there was a reason behind the discount, but never mind, I felt slightly privileged as I walked in my special queue with the handful of other idiots as we passed the queue of not so stupid or rich people I'd see just a few moments later when they followed us in. I think I only really got the benefit from it at the studio tour when I possibly would have had to wait another 15 mins. Time is money, about a dollar a minute apparently.
I had a fun day though; I saw all the shows and went on all the rides. It was a long long time ago but I think the Florida Universal is bigger so it was fairly easy to get around everything in one day. There was no Back to the Future, Jaws or ET rides here, but that's possibly just because things have moved on... The 3-D shows are always fun so I saw Terminator which also had some live acting and Shrek complete with wobbly seats. We were allowed to have 2 goes on The Mummy ride as it wasn't very busy. I can't say I was surprised by the lack of people as the challenge on this ride was the lockers beforehand. As it was a rollercoaster they wouldn't allow bags on and so provided lockers. All sounds fine until you get a room full of people fighting rubbish technology to attempt to open fingerprint activated lockers. It either wasn't reading peoples fingerprints or wouldn't open them when it did, but there was a swell of people and I wasn't keen on waiting. So I took out the jumper I had and put it on, put on my backpack, put my jacket over it and then put my waterproof over that and wandered up to go on the ride. I'd already been turned away so I even got a thank you for putting my bag in a locker. Bwahahahaa, little did he know that I didn't have a deformed back but a hidden backpack. I got a bit stitched up by my front of line pass on the Jurassic Park water ride as it meant I got put on the end. Incidentally it's also true in shows, so a tip for anyone who gets carried away at theme park entrances, don't. Front of line equals side of shows. Anyway, in this particular case it meant I got a fair old soaking and spent an hour or so with a very wet right leg.
Tomorrow I'll be on the biggest thrill ride yet, I'm going to attempt to drive in LA. The give ways seem to be the same as in NZ, so people and turning traffic go first and I'm used to that. I've just got to drive using a mirror in my brain and I'll be fine.
Gangsta update - last night we were all laughing, whilst simultaneously bricking it that we'd get shot, when some homies rolled in to the car park by the hostel in their pimped up rides to battle 8 mile style. Tonight I heard plenty sirens and saw a police helicopter with it's searchlight going. It's all kicking off in LA.
