Hollywood and LA

We spent an exciting day on the Rasta Bus with our tour guide Kameko,  taking the tour of LA and surroundings.  Our first stop was Venice Beach, and then we basically saw or drove by every exciting thing one can imagine.  We did get out at Venice Beach, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Farmer’s Market at the Grove,  Greystone Mansion (where Ghostbusters, the Shining and many others were filmed),  and high up in the Hollywood Hills to see and take photos of the Hollywood sign.

Venice Beach is home of more strange folks and beach bums than one can imagine.   It was probably the most interesting place of the tour!   We rode past places where folks were murdered, the house where Michael Jackson died and many other exciting places, i.e. the Hotel California, Whiskey A-Go-Go, and too many other famous places to mention.

If you know who Mario Lopez is, watch  Extra,  I think it is called – I have several photos of him filming the show.   New to me, I have never heard of him.  

We saw many of the stars homes, and even though they cost millions and millions of dollars, they are all crowded and jammed together.  It is awful!!   We have homes the same size out where we live; they cost less and have acres of grown around them.   What one must pay for prestige in Hollywood!

I never did get to see Barry’s star, it was too far to walk in the time we had on Hollywood Blvd.  But I did see and take photos of many others including Alice Cooper, David Bowie and so many others that I cannot remember them all.

Grauman’s Chinese theatre was the greatest!  We saw handprints of Abbott & Costello, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Red Skelton and so many others….photos taken, of course! 

We saw the CBS studio with folks standing outside to get into The Price is Right.  It is just a big white building with the CBS eye in black on the outside.

We had Brazilian food for lunch….great!

All in all, we think that Los Angeles, Hollywood and California in general are over rated.  What we did enjoy is how pleasant and courteous everyone is everywhere you go.  People talk pleasantly to one another, strangers talk to one another.   At home, if a stranger talks to you one tends to be wary.  Folks in California are pleasant, friendly and helpful.   There is a good share of nuts around, folks talking to other folks who aren't there, keeping house on park benches with their entire household in carts.  Lots of expensively dressed folks and a lot of weirdness.  They don’t refer to  it as Holly Weird for nothing!  It is very crowded and we simply just don’t have a desire to see any more of it.  Perhaps on another journey, we would like to see San Francisco.  By the way, part of their weirdness here is their building of multi-million dollar homes on the edges of cliffs which you can see are falling apart.  So many of these homes are not insured!   One of the biggest ones we saw (which they have not been able to complete remodeling for the last 3 years - due to mud slides) is the home of Ron Howard.    Totally nuts.

Tax is very high…just about 10% on everything.  We thought 6% at home was bad!  

We arrived here at LAX around 6 PM but weren't able to check in until about 7:30 PM.  There is nothing on the other side of security but the gate so we are sitting waiting for it to be time to go through security.  Basically the international terminal here is very nice, very organized.   Terminal 1 that Southwest uses is more like a zoo.   I don’t know yet about security here, but check in with Air Tahiti Nui was a breeze. 

So, we will soon be Tahiti bound.