LA Confidential

It's so great to be back in LA. I really love it here. So much has changed in the last 12 years (OMG, I can't believe it's been 12 years since I was here and went to the FABULOUS Barbra Streisand concert! I feel old...)

They really have cleaned up the city quite a bit - specifically Hollywood. No more seedy sex shops (only a few "classy" ones); loads more fantastic restaurants, bars and places to hang out; the streets are clean and there are only a handful of homeless people every few blocks! So many changes, and the best... no more smog! Previously you couldn't see the "Hollywood" sign unless you were right under it. Now it's quite visible from most locations. 

There were, however, two "new" things which stood out: The Weed distributors, and the fact that Scientologists seem to be buying LA....

The Mile High Club: there are numerous marijuana outlets and "apothecaries" throughout the city. All these "apothecaries" have on-site doctors who (apparently) can diagnose your symptoms right there on the spot, and provide you with a prescription for medical marijuana. 

Xenu Warrior of the Weirdo: the number of Scientology buildings and L. Ron Hubbard exhibitions I saw was quite disturbing and freaky.

We arrived at Hotel Hollywood - former hotel guests include Marilyn Monroe and James Dean! (I'm not sure how true this is, but because the hotel said so, I'll believe them). The hotel was situated one block from Hollywood Blvd, so all the sights were just a short walk away.

We were in Hollywood in the height of Awards  season! How fabulous. Firstly, The Oscars! We headed straight to the  formerly named Kodak Theatre for a quick squizz on how the set up was going.

The red carpet was already rolled out, the Oscar statues lined the entrance to the theatre, the velvet gold curtain already hung - everything covered in plastic of course for protection. More on this to come....

Meryl Streep will walk up these stairs on Sunday!

There's the Red Carpet covered in plastic!

The Independent Spirit Awards

The next day we headed down to Santa Monica Beach to watch the Red Carpet arrivals for the Independent Spirit Awards... this had nothing to do with the fact that Meryl Streep was scheduled to attend.... *cough*. She didn't though... there were Oscar rehearsals that afternoon so I guess she had better things to do.

Anyway, we were lucky enough to arrive there early and got a great position on the red carpet.

Limos arriving

The Press

Harry Dean Morgan

Penelope Anne Miller

Anne Heche

Christopher Plummer

William H Macy

Jessica Chastain

Lou Diamond Phillips

Willem Dafoe

John C Reilly

Benjamin Bratt

Giovani Ribisi

Ethan Hawke

Simon Baker

Laura Dern

Michelle Williams and Busy Phillips

God

Kirsten Dunst

It's a wonderful night for Oscar, Oscar, Oscar

That evening we visited the Kodak Theatre to see the final touches for the Oscars - and to watch "The Iron Lady" at Grauman's Chinese Theatre :-)

Red Carpet entrance

Entrance to the theatre

Ooh, a gold carpet at the entrance

The press boxes

The next day was Oscar Sunday!! My goodness, Hollywood goes gaga! The roads were blocked off for miles all around the Theatre, no traffic going in or out (besides the limos); the press was everywhere; the streets were lined with thousands of people hoping to catch a glimpse of someone; K-9 units; fire engines; bomb squads; circling helicopters and droves of LAPDs finest were out in full force! It was fab! 

Helicopter and the Goodyear blimp

Of course Meryl won!!! Which made the experience all the better.

MERYL STREEP - finally!

Hooray for Hollywood !!

Staying in Hollywood was great, as we were near all the Hollywood sites:

The Walk of Fame

The Start of the Walk of Fame

Babs

Liza

Meryl

Two of my favourite ladies... sort of

Judy

Lucy

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

The Wax Museum

Will I be on Fashion Police later?

The closest I'll get...

The Roosevelt Hotel

The venue where the first Oscars were held in 1929.

Lobby

We had lunch at the hotel restaurant

Hollywood High School

Where Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Elizabeth Taylor and other Legends went to school

Griffith Park and the Observatory

The Observatory

View of Hollywood sign from the Observatory

View of LA

Capitol Records

Dinner at the Formosa Cafe

And other sites...

I have NO idea what this is about...

El Capitan Theatre

Ripleys Believe it or Not

View of the Blvd.

Egyptian Theatre

 

We also met up with some of Liesl's friends for drinks:

Liesl and Joy

Me, Joy and Eric

After 4 days in LA, trying to make our way from place to place via public transport, it became evident where the saying "everyone drives in LA" comes from... because it's physically impossible to use public transport and not suffer a brain hemorrhage from all the stress this causes! So we decided to rent a car.

THIS is the car the Liesl rented... believe it or not, this was the cheapest option!

Once we had our boat on wheels, were able to do a lot more sightseeing. The best part about this trip - I have to mention - is that Liesl used to live in LA, which meant that I basically had a tour guide all to myself as she knew all the best places and how to get to them :-)

We went to:

• Burbank - Liesl's old stomping ground (and great shopping!)
• Santa Monica 
• Malibu
• Santa Barbara
• Venice Beach
• Studio Tours (YAY!!!)
• The Farmer's Market
• Beverly Hills
• West Hollywood 
• On our last day we decided to take a tour of the Stars Homes.

(I'll post these in a separate entry)

We had an awesome time in LA and were very sad that our time here had come to an end. Even though we spent about 13 days here, it still was not enough to see all the sites and get our fill of LA. Wish we could stay forever... but alas the next leg of our trip was about to begin. LAS VEGAS BABY!

I'll post more photos to my Facebook album in the next few days.

xxx