So, first off, I have absolutely NO photos to show because I
left my camera at a restaurant on the Santa Monica Pier. Gutted! I’ve been
really anal about taking heaps of photos too and had some cool ones!! Anyway…
LA is insanely huge. Way bigger than I ever could have
imagined. Flying into it was so surreal, most of it is incredibly flat so it
looks like it goes on forever. Seeing all the smog when we flew in was pretty
gross, makes you wonder what is happening to the lungs of the people who live
here all the time… “You can’t breathe the air in Los Angeles but 8 million
people think they can…”
It probably took us about an hour and a half drive in a
shuttle to get to our hostel, which meant we got to have a good look around. I
miss green already! This place is such a concrete jungle. And it goes from
really huge, expensive-looking houses with manicured lawns to really run down,
shitty, graffitied places with homeless people wandering around with shopping
carts. This morning I saw a homeless woman with a child sift through a rubbish
bin and half-empty orange juice and then drink it. Urgh. Feel sorry for them
but what can you do??
We’re staying at USA Hostels Hollywood, and it’s just off
Hollywood Boulevard which is pretty cool. Last night Cam and I went for a walk
around the block. The first shop we passed was a really awesome t-shirt
store/tattoo shop, t-shirts kind of “illicit” style, so we had to stop and buy
ourselves each a skull t-shirt! We then wandered into a Mexican restaurant,
yum! There are so many Mexican places here it’s ridiculous, we’ve already had
it three times in two days. It’s so nice and fresh and made by real-life
Mexicans so it’s gotta be pretty authentic! I did have a photo of our first
American meal but…
The Hollywood Walk of Fame goes all the way down Hollywood
Boulevard so we wandered along, alternatively looking at those and trying to
spot people that we knew (most we didn’t!) and then looking at the buildings
and the sights to see around us. We randomly saw Capitol Records, that was
pretty cool. <Insert photo I took but no longer have here…>
We were pretty stuffed from the jetlag – I was starting to
see funny things – so we had a big nap, waking up about 10pm. We decided to go
out for a quiet beer and see the nightlife in Hollywood…nek minnit (especially
for you Dad), drunk. We went to this Mexican bar that served margaritas and the
girl talked us into buying this MASSIVE margarita for the two of us, instead of
one small one each. Big, huge mistake. Turns out there were about 5 margaritas
in that one big one, combine that with jetlag and exhaustion and we were
schmozzled (hehe Mum). We went to another bar called Dillon’s – it’s an Irish
bar of course, but the most Irish thing about it is that the bartenders wear
small ‘Catholic school girl’ skirts…Anyway, we got talking to a couple of nice
American-Hispanic guys there, they were really friendly so that was cool. Turns
out they were both into punk music and one of them had a NOFX tattoo and had
met Fat Mike so we had a great time chatting about that! At 1.30am the bars all
do last call, and then they’re closed at 2am. We were gutted at the time but
thank freaking god because we would’ve been dead on our feet today otherwise!
We stumbled back in the direction of our hostel, got some Mexican on the way,
and went to bed!
This morning we went to Venice Beach in a free shuttle that
our hostel runs. Fucking hell. The trifecta of jetlag, hangover and Venice
Beach is NOT a good combination. It’s a pretty seedy place, a great long
boulevard with lots of shops selling all sorts of crappy shit on one side and freaky
looking people peddling their own shit (paintings, jewellery, portraits of
yourself, your name written in animal shapes etc) on the other side. The whole
thing left me feeling a bit overwhelmed and homesick for little old Nelson (and
my family)! First time I’ve really ever been homesick when I’ve gone away from
home but I think that’s partly cos I know we won’t be back for a while. Anyway,
Cam and I wandered down Venice Beach boulevard a bit like zombies, back towards
Santa Monica beach where we had to catch our bus from. Santa Monica is way
nicer than Venice thank god, so Cam and I walked down the famous Santa Monica
pier, taking lots of photos. We then stopped at a restaurant on the end of the
pier to have lunch (Mexican again, I think we have to branch out), and that’s
where I’m sure I left my camera. Argh! I will get over it eventually…
From Santa Monica we had to catch two buses back to our
hostel. This is where the enormity of LA gets you. The first bus took about 1 ½
hours, just driving through the city. Oh and I forgot to say, there is SO much
advertising EVERYWHERE, it’s really in your face and gets a bit tedious. Ah
little old Nelson and your bylaw against billboards, I love you. Oops I’m
getting side-tracked. Yeah so it just takes forever to get anywhere, especially
on public transport. Having your own car would obviously be a bit faster, but
driving in LA would be my worst nightmare. Aside from everything being reversed
since they drive on the right, the people here are really aggressive drivers.
If someone forced me to drive here, I think would just curl up into the foetal
position. We skipped getting the second bus cos it was only about a ½hour walk,
which was cool cos we ended up going past the Chinese Mann Theatre, Ripley’s
Believe It Or Not Museum, and the Hollywood version of Madame Tussaud’s. Oh,
and we also randomly passed Kat Von D’s LA Ink tattoo studio, which we’d been
talking about this morning and wondering where it is. There are so many tattoo
studios here, there must be a hundred down Hollywood Boulevard alone, so we
were wondering why Kat Von D was so special. Anyway, we were just walking down
a random road and realised we were standing in front of it. <I’d lost my
camera by then>.
This concludes todays journey up until now. Cam is having a
nap beside me, man, that boy can sleep. We have a single bed each but he’s yet
to sleep in his. I might have to kick him out tonight though; it’s too hot to
sleep next to anyone else! Our hostel is doing a $6 spaghetti dinner so we
might hop on that bandwagon so we get to meet some more people from the hostel.
Tomorrow we’re planning on going to Rodeo Drive, Ripley’s, and Madame Tussaud’s.
Might have to buy another camera first!
Love ya’s
xoxo
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