Thursday, September 27, 2007

The very VERY VERY belated Holiday post: part three - LA

Waking to sultry LA was quite a stunner, and though it took us about an hour to suss the buses to get to Aviation metro station and the sun was already piping hot, it was a blast of a day. We took the Metro up to Hollywood (cheap and easy) and walked out onto Hollywood Boulevard at Hollywood and Vine, the start of the Stars Walk of Fame.

And there was Pantages. Famous anyway but man you should have seen me shriek when on our return we watched LA Confidential (it's next to the Frolics Bar which is where Jack goes when he should be waiting til he snaps the DA with hapless Matt Reynolds).

We had a great lunch at Lucky Devils (serves real ale - and Cloud assures me very good ale too!) and by now frying in the sun I purchase a snazzy and cool split sleeve cotton shirt to cool my arms. Nice.

We go find City Hall for Lisette (again, its an LAC thing) and then walked past the rather stunning Walt Disney Hall. We walked past many magnificent buildings and then headed to Hollywood again to eat at Musso and Franks Grill. Not the best meal ever (the menu hasn't changed since 1919) but an experience nonetheless in a well-known Hollywood haunt.

Of course the next day we had to be off to NZ on an evening flight, so we decided to get the bus over to Santa Monica on the recommendation of the George. It was a scorching day (why is the Muscle Beach equipment made of steel? it was roasting to touch let alone use!) so I needed a new hat. Whilst walking the beach and generally enjoying the sand, sea and surf views of the pier and funfair, we also ran into - almost literally - the most terrifyingly huge bosums on a girl of my height and build (funnily, I think they were fake). To cite a line, "Holy Boob Job Batman". Still, as distracting as that was, Neil still came up with a grand idea for entrepreneurial adventure:

The English Seaside Emporium on Santa Monica Pier - selling rock, kiss-me-quick hats and Donald McGill postcards
It would work, wouldn't it?

Anyway, taking full advantage of a rather weakened dollar, we ate at The Lobster in the company of a mixture of fake bodies, and Hispanic waiters/out-of-work, 6 foot+ perfectly chiselled jaw waiters! Then a bus back to LA and on to the airport for our flight... where I wrote this (forgetting to say that the only 'celebrity' we saw in LA was Jim Broadbent on his way out to the Heathrow flight at LAX: and that was the only celeb seen all vacation...)

3 comments:

JoeinVegas said...

Fake? What? Fake? We don't do that around here. After all, Pam Anderson was on that beach, and she's not,.. is she? Oh heck.

Rob said...

Jim Broadbent seems a pretty good celeb to me. My daughter (who is admittedly a fan of Moulin Rouge as well as a Harry Potter fanatic) became quite ecstatic at the thought of JB as Horace Slughorn in the next HP film. I always think of him as W S Gilbert in Topsy-Turvy myself. A star.

Lisa Rullsenberg said...

Don't get me wrong I think JB is a rather spiffy actor/celeb. But given Hollywood and those more associated with it, seeing JB felt like something I might have done in the UK....

Still, actor-alert! Actor-alter! We did feel there was a touch of the old Holywood to seeing him.