Means you get on a plane and when you get off it's almost two days later. But the flight only took 15 hours. It's a bit weird.
However, if you fancy driving the 15,000 miles, Google Maps has some thorough directions. Do have a read and check out point 13 in particular.
View Larger Map
Toodles
x
Showing posts with label LA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LA. Show all posts
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
Wednesday, 29 June 2011
Tim Burton retrospective @ LACMA
Another day in LA and we decided to head for the new Tim Burton exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Unfortunately, you're not allowed to take photos inside, but you can check out this link to find out more about it if you want.
Me at the entrance
Hilarious, touching, informative, inspirational and educational, the retrospective is chock full of drawings, sculptures, memorabilia from certain movies and funny insights from the writer/director. I thoroughly recommend a visit if you can make it.
My favourite piece was a letter from Tim Burton to Johnny Depp about the character of Willy Wonka, but I also loved this poem which came complete with fantastic artwork.
Toodles!
x
Me at the entrance
Hilarious, touching, informative, inspirational and educational, the retrospective is chock full of drawings, sculptures, memorabilia from certain movies and funny insights from the writer/director. I thoroughly recommend a visit if you can make it.
My favourite piece was a letter from Tim Burton to Johnny Depp about the character of Willy Wonka, but I also loved this poem which came complete with fantastic artwork.
Toodles!
x
And this one time when a cop pulled us over...
Back in LA we met up with some friends who lived there and went out for a nice dinner in West Hollywood, before driving back to the ACTUAL GHETTO where we were staying.
Here's a little picture as we stopped for emergency snacks on the way home:
During dinner, I opened a fortune cookie to reveal a highly accurate message from the baking gods, albeit two months late...
On the way home, "the driver" (I'm not saying if it was Dave or Hannah) made a dodgy turn into a gas station and the police pulled us over. It went like this:
Cop: Licence and registration please.
(driver gets out of car and stands up)
Cop: WHAT ARE YOU DOING???
Driver: Getting my licence out... I can't get to it sat down.
Cop: Get back in the car. (Studies licence. Long pause.) I don't understand. If this is a UK licence, what makes you think you can drive here?
Driver: It's a rental car. We're allowed to drive it.
Cop: Where are the rental papers?
Driver: Hang on. (Pause) We don't actually have them. But we can get them.
Cop: Have you been drinking?
Driver: No, nothing. The other three people in the car have, but I haven't.
Cop: Are you sure about that?
Driver: Sure.
Cop: Wait here. (Walks off and comes back five minutes later). Do you know David Beckham?
Driver: Not personally.
Cop: You're fine to go. But watch those left-hand turns.
Here's a little picture as we stopped for emergency snacks on the way home:
During dinner, I opened a fortune cookie to reveal a highly accurate message from the baking gods, albeit two months late...
On the way home, "the driver" (I'm not saying if it was Dave or Hannah) made a dodgy turn into a gas station and the police pulled us over. It went like this:
Cop: Licence and registration please.
(driver gets out of car and stands up)
Cop: WHAT ARE YOU DOING???
Driver: Getting my licence out... I can't get to it sat down.
Cop: Get back in the car. (Studies licence. Long pause.) I don't understand. If this is a UK licence, what makes you think you can drive here?
Driver: It's a rental car. We're allowed to drive it.
Cop: Where are the rental papers?
Driver: Hang on. (Pause) We don't actually have them. But we can get them.
Cop: Have you been drinking?
Driver: No, nothing. The other three people in the car have, but I haven't.
Cop: Are you sure about that?
Driver: Sure.
Cop: Wait here. (Walks off and comes back five minutes later). Do you know David Beckham?
Driver: Not personally.
Cop: You're fine to go. But watch those left-hand turns.
Friday, 24 June 2011
Santa Monica, Venice Beach and Westwood
Back in LA I met two friends from home who had come out for a holiday. I'd already walked down the well-trodden Hollywood Boulevard on a previous trip; it's trashy, dirty and yet oddly fascinating for the types of people you see there. They generally fall into three categories: bums, tourists and worn-out "older" types (please note I fall into the second group, not the third) who you suspect moved to Hollywood years ago in the hope of making it and... never did. It is not uncommon to see women with huge sunglasses and plumper-than-average lips with full make-up on at 9am. Nor is it uncommon to see a movie premiere taking place - back in 2007 when I visited with a friend, we got caught up in the hustle and bustle of the crowds waiting to catch a glimpse of celebrities outside the El Capitan Theatre, where the red carpet was laid out and the streets were closed off. We actually ended up seeing Patrick Swayze, who was a) smoking hot in real life and b) still looking as young as he did in Dirty Dancing (sidenote: Point Break is my favourite Patrick Swayze film). This time there was no such drama and I resisted going into the epic record store Amoeba Music, because once you go in, you come out hours later and lots of $$$ lighter.
So, back to meeting my friends. They had rented a car and badly wanted a convertible Mustang. Guess what they actually got.
Yes ladies and gentlemen, I bring you... a Chrysler Sebring. Gutted. From then on, Mustangs haunted us. We saw at least two or three a day but resisted the urge to slash their tyres. It WAS a convertible, but the novelty of this wore off when we went over 20 mph and the wind made my hair twice as big as it is already.
If you have a look at this review, it sums the experience up nicely.
The morning after we met up, we drove to Santa Monica and had a little walk around, taking in the beach, the pier and some yummy lunch. We then had a look around Venice Beach, which is chock full of vendors on the boardwalk selling all kinds of rubbish and advertising for free medical marijuana evaluations (it's legal to smoke it in LA, as long as you have a permit-type-thing saying you need it for health reasons). Suffice to say we didn't partake in either of these exciting retail opportunities and instead saw some amazing skateboarders nearly killing themselves. Venice is one of those places that looks pretty low-rent, but actually it's anything but.
Later on, we drove our other friend (who had recently moved to LA) back to where she was temporarily staying - in a place called Westwood, which is where the University of California at Los Angeles is based. The thing about LA is it's basically impossible to get anywhere without a car. The city sprawls in every direction for miles, and when people say "I'm going to LA" what they actually/probably mean is "I'm going to a certain city within LA which is miles away from downtown and that's not even a place many tourists go". So, once we were in Westwood, we decided to stay there for the night. It's a really nice area and you can walk (shock horror! Nobody walks in LA) to some cool restaurants and bars.
Toodles
x
So, back to meeting my friends. They had rented a car and badly wanted a convertible Mustang. Guess what they actually got.
Yes ladies and gentlemen, I bring you... a Chrysler Sebring. Gutted. From then on, Mustangs haunted us. We saw at least two or three a day but resisted the urge to slash their tyres. It WAS a convertible, but the novelty of this wore off when we went over 20 mph and the wind made my hair twice as big as it is already.
If you have a look at this review, it sums the experience up nicely.
The morning after we met up, we drove to Santa Monica and had a little walk around, taking in the beach, the pier and some yummy lunch. We then had a look around Venice Beach, which is chock full of vendors on the boardwalk selling all kinds of rubbish and advertising for free medical marijuana evaluations (it's legal to smoke it in LA, as long as you have a permit-type-thing saying you need it for health reasons). Suffice to say we didn't partake in either of these exciting retail opportunities and instead saw some amazing skateboarders nearly killing themselves. Venice is one of those places that looks pretty low-rent, but actually it's anything but.
Later on, we drove our other friend (who had recently moved to LA) back to where she was temporarily staying - in a place called Westwood, which is where the University of California at Los Angeles is based. The thing about LA is it's basically impossible to get anywhere without a car. The city sprawls in every direction for miles, and when people say "I'm going to LA" what they actually/probably mean is "I'm going to a certain city within LA which is miles away from downtown and that's not even a place many tourists go". So, once we were in Westwood, we decided to stay there for the night. It's a really nice area and you can walk (shock horror! Nobody walks in LA) to some cool restaurants and bars.
Toodles
x
Monday, 13 June 2011
Hollywood/LA
My next stop after Miami was LA, where I'd been before and was happy to revisit. My decidedly rubbish (and late) US Airways (advice: never fly with them) flight went via Charlotte, North Carolina, giving me approximately ten minutes to make my connection. I may be small, but I can sure run fast. I liken the dash to the end of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, minus the stopping-to-introduce-myself-to-a-hot-girl part. Oh, I saw a real life cowboy too. Well I assume he was a cowboy because of his clothes, he wasn't like, riding a bull in the terminal or anything.
I'm digressing. I reached LA, took it easy for a couple of days, met an old friend to hang out, ate at a great place in West Hollywood called Toast, then watch the basketball on TV. I know nothing apart from basketball except for the fact I now inexplicably support Miami Heat, even though they're apparently all dickheads and have a player called Chris Bosh who may or may not look like a lizard.
I'm digressing again. By this point I'd decided to see a friend in Seattle, so I spent my third and final whole day in LA on a little walking trip with some people from my hostel. We went up into the hills to see the Hollywood sign, which you can't really get that close to, but it's interesting all the same. It was originally erected as "Hollywoodland", as an advertisement for a housing development, but then stayed up despite looking completely wrecked. So, various celebs gave money to help it get back to full health. For instance, Alice Cooper donated for an "O" and Hugh Hefner helped to auction off the rest. Today, if you try to go too near it, a very scary man in a Jeep on the top of the hill tells you to get down. I only know this because I saw two girls try to hike up to it. I was fully expecting them to get snipered, but a stern telling off seemed to do the job.
From the hill you can see the delightful smog hanging over LA like a literal and figurative black cloud...
Toodles
x
I'm digressing. I reached LA, took it easy for a couple of days, met an old friend to hang out, ate at a great place in West Hollywood called Toast, then watch the basketball on TV. I know nothing apart from basketball except for the fact I now inexplicably support Miami Heat, even though they're apparently all dickheads and have a player called Chris Bosh who may or may not look like a lizard.
I'm digressing again. By this point I'd decided to see a friend in Seattle, so I spent my third and final whole day in LA on a little walking trip with some people from my hostel. We went up into the hills to see the Hollywood sign, which you can't really get that close to, but it's interesting all the same. It was originally erected as "Hollywoodland", as an advertisement for a housing development, but then stayed up despite looking completely wrecked. So, various celebs gave money to help it get back to full health. For instance, Alice Cooper donated for an "O" and Hugh Hefner helped to auction off the rest. Today, if you try to go too near it, a very scary man in a Jeep on the top of the hill tells you to get down. I only know this because I saw two girls try to hike up to it. I was fully expecting them to get snipered, but a stern telling off seemed to do the job.
From the hill you can see the delightful smog hanging over LA like a literal and figurative black cloud...
Toodles
x
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)