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Let the games begin
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After a worry free night with the car in a car park and in clear sight from the hostel window I was up at 7am to shift it and avoid another days parking charges. As it was Sunday the on street parking was free and luckily there was a space so I moved it and went back to bed for a bonus kip. But not before asking two people their opinions on my chances of seeing my car get towed again.
One side of the street was cordoned off for a film crew as there was some shooting (film not gangsta) going on nearby. On the celebrity spotting front, I've seen no one but apparently Orlando Bloom was seen wandering in Runyon Canyon, Billy Connolly was seen on the street, I don't think he was begging and Holly Valance was accosted by one of Aussies that was in my dorm room which I'm sure she was pleased about. For the first few days I was surrounded by Aussies as there were 4 of them in my room but they were a good laugh. I'll probably run in to some of them again at some point as this hostel is part of a chain and most people are doing the same thing touring about.
Anyhow, back to the plot... I headed to the airport and managed to get Ceri without a hitch which was good news after the mobile and car dramas. We then headed back to the hostel via Ralphs (he's a nice man that sells lots of food in his shop, similar to Mr Asda and his long distance cousin PakNSave). We then put the car back in the safe haven of the car park and did some tourist wandering along Hollywood Boulevard. We decided after some chat about my navigational skills, which although were passable weren't really as good as having a map, that we needed to remedy the situation. We'd been back to the car rental place to add Ceri as a driver and had found out that there wasn't a massive difference between buying a GPS and hiring one so headed to an electronics store (that's American for shop) and got ourselves a stylish Magellan GPS. Ceri has kindly said I can keep it after the trip as a birthday pressie so if you're ever looking for directions, I can ask my new friend Maggie.
That was about enough excitement for a day and with the car needing shifting at 7am again, it was time for an early night. It's just a shame there's a flabby clumsy idiot in the bed above who came bounding in at about 3.30 and woke me up. I'm sure he thinks the bed is a trampoline.
After our early start the tourism could start in earnest. We first headed, with Magster leading the way, to the Hollywood sign and had a walk up a hill to take a few pics. I then programmed in what looked like a Bel Air street to see if we could find the Fresh Prince. We didn't but we did get a pretty good view and on the way back down found one of the grand entrances to Bel Air and saw a few big posh looking gates to big posh looking houses.
Next stop, Venice Beach and we walked a fair old way along to Santa Monica Beach to have a look at the pier, in particular the ferris wheel as Ceri wanted to go on it. It's been a glorious warm sunny day and as I lost my suncream in my Gisborne wine manbag, I've ended up with a red face to prove it. By the time we got back near the hostel after the drunk GPS played a couple of tricks (such as insisting on a legal U-turn after taking me the wrong way when I could have kept going), it was nearing sunset which seemed like a good chance to have a second go at seeing a view from Runyon Canyon. It was much better this time with views right out to the beach we'd just been to and over the city.
So, tomorrow we head off so it's goodbye to tinseltown, goodbye to Hollywood hills, but most importantly goodbye to ma bitches from the hood, word to yo momma. Peace out. Next stop, Santa Cruz...
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