Essexgirl's Californian Exploits - Part One: Los Angeles

I have just returned from my holiday in California with Ratboy. We flew Virgin Atlantic to Los Angeles. Virgin is definitely the way to fly - great movies, own TV, games, in-flight goodie bag with socks, eye mask, notebook, pen etc. My veggie meal was a veggie curry with rice, Bombay potatoes and two mini-naans, I was very impressed.

We landed in LA at about 3pm, which was 11pm UK time, so we were quite tired by the time we got to out hotel The Hollywood Metropolitan. It was quite a nice hotel, although there was hardly anyone staying there it seemed (apart from a tattoo convention at the weekend, which made for some interesting sights!). The area did not have much to offer, it was a bit seedy, but the hotel was fine and we could see the Hollywood sign from our room. As it was still late afternoon, we decided to walk to Mann's Chinese Theatre and the Walk of Fame. The people at the hotel thought we were mad as it was quite a long walk. Anyway, we set off and saw lots of stars in the pavements of people we had never heard of. Apparently celebs have to pay about £1500 a year to keep their star clean, until they die, when it is done for free. We tried out our feet in the footprints at Mann's Chinese Theatre (which was actually owned by a chap called Sid Graumann, who was not Chinese, I think he just liked the Chinese style). Arnold Schwarzenegger has huge feet, although most of the ladies, like Katherine Hepburn were quite petite. By this time we were very hungry. Ratboy bought a tacky mini Oscar for his dad and we had out first meal in the Pig 'n' Whistle, an 'English' pub/restaurant that sold Newcastle Brown amongst other UK and local beers. James loved his meal, but my veggies in dressing and cheese was a bit bland. After Ratboy left the stupid Oscar in the restaurant, we got a cab back to the hotel and crashed out for the night.

The next day we booked an afternoon city tour, and decided to get the bus to Venice Beach. It seemed quite straight forward - get a bus to the end of Sunset Boulevard and then go down the coast. However, it took an hour and a half to get to the end of Sunset, as the city is so much more vast and sprawling than we had anticipated. Mindful of our afternoon city tour, we went to get the bus back, but had to walk (uphill) a good couple of miles to find the stop. Back in the Hollywood area we grabbed a quick lunch before picking up our tour. We had a very informative guide, and went to a good viewpoint of the Hollywood sign and the Hollywood Bowl, we saw Mann's theatre again (and Ratboy got to buy another Oscar), Rodeo Drive (very nice - shame no time to go into the Louis Vuitton shop...), The Farmer's Market (food stalls as well as a smart shopping and entertainment complex), downtown and a Mexican enclave etc. Our guide also pointed out other places of interest, such as the place where Hugh Grant picked up the hooker, Divine Brown. It was a long day but we thoughroughly enjoyed it. We thought we would like to go to the Farmer's Market for dinner and a film, but it was too far away from where we were staying, so we went to an Italian chain restaurant nearby and had an early night.