Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Trip to Los Angeles 26-28 May, 2007

I won't go into too much detail, only as much as time permits. A lot of things you can see from my general pictures on flickr. I have added some previous photos from San Francisco, Bay to Breakers, and modified/added more to Santa Cruz beach party photos. So check out everything. It might take a while, but you can skip whatever you want, or just sit back and watch the slideshow :) This particular trip is in this collection. Also there's some description on almost every set and the titles of some photos are commenting on what's happening. Unfortunately flickr does not allow to upload videos. So I'm still using my webshots account for that. The videos, all from day two of the trip are here. This includes the exclusive video of Torsten flipping his hair at the Whisky a Go Go club. (I got the camera only several days ago, so I didn't find the option to change video quality. The vids are 320x240 15fps. Now I found the option and from now on I'll be taking high quality 640x480 30 fps video clips).

Ok, here it goes. For this trip we hired a car as is the custom here. Peace of mind if anything breaks and the size of the car needs to be large for such a long trip and four people. It was me, Ben, Carlos, and Torsten. As usual the rental car agency gave us a bit of a headache. It was amusing how incompetent they were. All it was, they were not applying the IBM corporate rate for the car so it was almost twice as expensive (even though I've booked everything over the phone four days in advance). Anyway, instead of our planned 1600 leaving time, we set out around 1730. The drivers were Ben and me, everyone else could not be added as a secondary driver due to them being under 25. Anyway, it took us eight hours to get to our Motel as we got into a nasty traffic jam just outside San Jose. I slept or at least tried to sleep most of that trip in the back.

I don't know what I was thinking, maybe because Torsten smokes, but I booked a smoking room at the motel.... Somehow we got to sleep, but only because it was nearly two in the morning. Everything smelt like smoke. I changed the room as soon as I woke up the next morning.

Day 1

Day one was Hollywood boulevard with the Walk of fame. Then Beverly Hills, followed by us trying to see the Hollywood sign from a mountain opposite it, but the smog was too thick. Lastly we tried to go out to bars/clubs in Santa Monica beach.

Hollywood boulevard was a let down. The area looks like it hasn't been touched since at least 1970s. It's literally the Ghetto. Walk of fame was better, at least someone cleans the paving stones. A lot of famous and surprising people got a star there (see photos).

Beverly Hills was everything we expected including the fact that we saw trees instead of celebrity houses. Saw a white long hummer limo outside Playboy Mansion. Someone even told us there was a party there that night. Somehow I don't think old Hue had us on the VIP list though...

Looked for a couple of hours how to get to the mountain that overlooks the Hollywood sign. In the end we were too late (around 1830) and the smog became too thick.

In between Beverly Hills and going out we went to some area of Sunset (I think) boulevard that was actually a gay area ( you can see the gay cruises ad on photos). We ate at some Italian grill place and noticed a lot guys holding each others hands and other "unusual" activities. Only then we realised where we were... Oh well, a new experience :)

Santa Monica beach proved nothing new in terms of night life. Same old stuff... bars shut very early, some at 1 (if you remember in California the law prohibits sale of alcohol past 1.30 in the morning). We wondered into one bar after waiting for about 20 minutes at least. Nothing spectacular. Wasn't even worth a picture.

Day 2

Downtown LA was great, followed by the Community Center which held the 30 years to Star wars celebration. We finished our day with going to Malibu beach. At night we went out to some clubs on Sunset Blvd.

Downtown LA has magnificent architecture. I think it is far better than San Francisco. There are so many different style buildings and so many abstract art compositions. I don't think I've ever seen this kind of thing in such a large scale. If you are in LA, definitely check out the downtown (but only before 4 pm -- it becomes dangerous after that :)) Other dangerous parts of LA is Eastern and Southern LA.. the guides and the policeman, whom we asked for directions, all said to avoid these...

Star wars celebration was on that day (Sunday, 27 May 2007). We saw some dressed up fans, but not that many. You needed to go inside the Community Center to see everything. The entrance fee was $45 per person so we decided against it :O

Malibu beach was so so. It wasn't that warm and it wasn't very spectacular. Saw some surfers, some girls, the pier. Afterwards we went to the university that's located very near the beach, overlooking the harbour. Very cool to study here for sure!

In the evening we first decided to have the real American experience dinner at International House of Pancakes (IHOP). Of course, we all ate far too much. There is a picture of Carlos showing how full he is... Went out to first Whisky (a) Go Go club where there was live music (I have a short video, see link at the beginning). The club is one of the most famous ones. A few celebrities came there for a whisky -- there is a celebrity wall, which didn't come out on the photo. Saddle Ranch was our last stop. It was fun watching people fall off the mechanical bull. I've never seen that live before (see videos again). All in all not a bad night. There was an idea to go to a crowded strip club (as they are open later than bars). But decided to leave it until I/we get to Las Vegas :D

Day 3

Queen Mary ship and Russian submarine inside, followed by Venice-Muscle beach where a body building competition was going on.

Queen Mary is a ship built shortly after Titanic. It is bigger than Titanic. We didn't go inside as it was expensive in terms of money and time. Russian submarine, called Scorpion, was fun. It was build in the 1970s. It's a small diesel submarine that magically could hold over 70 crew members inside!

Muscle beach was great fun. First the beach is great, very wide --- basically Bay Watch kind of beach. Not that many people as the water was still about 16 degrees. The bodybuilding competition was the best thing. Even though I couldn't actually see much (or take many pics) it was cool. Got some free stuff, bought a muscle beach t-shirt. The best thing was (as I discovered a little later) that Ms Fittness America signed me a couple of her pictures :) And no, she's not a deep voiced mutated female bodybuilder. She looks like a (very very nice looking) model. You can check her out here. Anyway, the Californian atmosphere was finally present!

Journey back was uneventful. A large drink of coke at McDonald's and another stop in the middle of nowhere, that's all there was to it.

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