City of Angels

Wednesday 16th July

Today was the first real opportunity to explore the wonders of Los Angeles, the city of angels as they call it (then what we're we doing here?).

There was so much to see here and the sheer scale of the place is just mind blowing.

I had looked at how I might get around the city by public transport system but I shortly realised that it would not be possible to fit everything in easily and it would just be a major hassle.

To solve this issue I opted for a hop on hop off city tour of Los Angeles. I bought a 48hr pass which gave me access to the bus routes. This tour covered all of Hollywood and the surrounding area, Beverly Hills, right into Downtown and also Santa Monica beach and Venice Boardwalk.

I was extremely glad I took this tour as not only did it save my badly blistered feet from walking long distances but it was a narrated tour. Each passenger had a set of headphones through which to listen to it.
This was fascinating as it gave me a real insight into the history behind all the buildings. For example it turns out that a little run down chicken restaurant just across the road from our hotel is where Brad Pitt started his acting career, promoting the restaurant outside dressed as a chicken!

Before I boarded the tour I took a stroll down the world famous Hollywood boulevard, home of the Hollywood Walk of Fame! This features a long road with pavements (or sidewalks)  each side that are littered with stars on the ground representing hundreds of different actors, actresses, musicians and comedians. I was a little bit disappointed with this.  What should be a road with palm trees either side and nice cafés and restaurants to complement in fact is packed with Street vendors and performers, hundreds of gift shops, men dressed up in superman/spiderman costume, homeless people and our rapper friends trying to flog their homemade CDs.

Once I boarded the tour I enjoyed a ride around the most famous parts of Hollywood such as the sunset strip where many famous musicians and comedians were discovered. This led us into Beverly Hills where I could just about see the homes of some of the celebrities through the trees.

This part of the route room around 2hrs and brought me back to where I began. After this I headed to madame tussauds museum as I was entitled to free entry which was incorporated into the bus tour. Packed full of wax models of various celebrities, some more accurate than others but it was well presented and something different. At least I can say I saw some celebrities today.... Even though they were just wax models.

In the afternoon I headed back out on the same route because it was so nice to have that cool breeze on a nice sunny day  but stopped at the La Brea Tar Pits this time along the miracle mile.
This  was quite an interesting area to visit. Natural asphalt has been bubbling to the surface here for millions years (and still does to this day, that much is evident by the smell) and was also a watering hole for animals. Unaware, they headed into the water and became stuck in the sticky asphalt beneath them and drowned, hence this is a popular area for excavators to dig up fossils.

By the time I had finished here I had planned to head to the petersen motor museum but time wasn't on my side and I had to go back to do some washing.

After my day out I could have been forgiven for thinking that all the excitement for the day was over... How wrong I was! After taking a shower the water would not stop no matter what I tried, it was still gushing out water. So just after midnight I has to call out the hotel receptionist. He came in to try and fix it but the handle had completely broken so the only way to stop it would be to get in behind the panel. The receptionist made about 5 trips back and forth, each time with the wrong tools for the job,  he then drafted in some help from some random guy who was equally perplexed. In the end they did get the panel off and managed to turn the water off but not exactly what you need or expect. What is it with me and water/plumbing?. He apologised and decided to give us the night free of charge, to be honest, he handles the situation very well. What can I  break next to get another night free? I'm joking of course