The City of Angels

After our 2 day drive along the coast, we arrived in Los Angeles, though we didn't really see much of the main part of the city itself as we stayed in the Hollywood Area. Personally not expecting much from this part of the trip, I was pleasantly surprised. The city itself was more or less everything I was expecting it to be, a bit of a generic concrete jungle, but it was the people here that made the place. Among the more pretentious crowd who seemed to make a point of trying to ignore your very existence was a network of up and comers and wannabes: a group of dreamers whos friendliness to everybody they met was both beneficial for themselves and the atmosphere of the place we were staying. Along with these people were those with the "regular" jobs: the cabbies, the hotel staff. Individuals in particular so friendly and so helpful. It is clear that there are many reasons that these people might be like this, but as an outsider looking in, it felt refreshing and friendly. Despite my reservations about the city itself, at no point did I feel out of place and I was always comfortable here.

We didn't get up to much on our first day here other than checking out the area of the Sunset Blvd that we were staying. Don't let the dreamy name fool you by the way. This is a busy, noisy 6 lane road that is a far cry from the idyllic nature its name suggests.

Day 2, we took a walk into main Hollywood where we found the Walk of Fame, Grauman's Chinese Theatre which is used for a lot of movie premieres and took a tour of the Kodak Theatre, home to the Academy Awards. This tour was enlightening and the host was extremely charismatic and entertaining, though admittedly, having never sat through an Oscars ceremony and with only a passing interest in celebrity and movie awards, this was definitely part of the trip that was more in tune with Leigh's interests rather than my own.

Day 3 saw us take the VIP Experience at Universal Studios Hollywood. No trip to LA is complete without a visit to Universal Studios and the VIP Experience, though expensive, was really incredible. I appreciate Leigh has already talked a little about this, but it was almost as exciting for me as it was for him, though for different reasons. The set piece and effects examples were tremendous, including the flooded Mexican town and Subway earthquake, but highlights of sets from real shows and movies included the Bate's Motel from Pyscho and the 747 crash site from War of the Worlds which was incredible and haunting in equal measure. Perhaps the highlight of the whole trip was the mini tour around the street set of Desperate Housewives. I'm only joking, of course, it was certainly not the highlight, but it was awesome to see Wisteria Lane up close and personal, complete with a deer munching on the flowers in Susan's garden! I'm going to regret admitting that aren't I...

The theme park tour was pretty cool too, though I must admit, there didn't seem to be much there, perhaps there's more rides at Universal Florida? That said, the Terminator 2: 3D experience was pretty incredible. For someone so familiar with 3D graphics and modern technology, I even surprised myself by ducking out of the way at one point. For a 15 year old production, it was fantastic. The Simpsons ride is certainly worth a nod as well, making you feel like you're riding a rollercoaster despite never actually moving.

So that was pretty much our LA experience done and dusted. We went out for drinks pretty much every night, meeting the random up and comers to the movie industry as well as visitors from outside the city and spent our last day waiting for the clock to tick over before heading to the airport. It's always the sad bit of the holiday, but after a painless flight back and journey up the M40, I'm really looking forward to my own bed! That is, of course, after I've got all my washing sorted, bugger!

I'm sure Leigh will probably want to add a little more to this: LA was very much his playground and his dream so it's perhaps a little unfair for me to write so much about our time there, but I felt it needed doing while it was still fresh in my mind. You'll see more of it in his video shorts too I'm sure!

For now, I'm going to leave the blog. I'd like to do one last passing conclusion of the trip as a whole, but the tiredness from our two-day travel is beginning to set in and I'm in work tomorrow, so I need to get my head down! That's it for now!

Driving Down The 101

Well, mostly California State Route 1 actually, but we hit the 101 on a few occasions. So, after our last night in San Fransisco, we went to pick up hire car and after a brief panic of not being able to find the damn thing, we set of on our trip down the Pacific Highway towards Los Angeles.

This was the first time I'd driven abroad, so getting used to driving on the other side of the road from the other side of the car was a bit strange at first, but I quickly got used to it and we were rocking around the streets of Frisco on our way out the city.

The car was a Chrysler Sebring Convertible, as Leigh already pointed out. Now we paid pretty much double the price of the other cars for the benefit of getting a convertible. It still wasn't ridiculously priced (the most expensive bit was the $25 a day surcharge they added for me being under 25), but in retrospect, I wished we'd have used the money we'd spent on a different, non-convertible, better-powered car. The Sebring was laughably underpowered. It made a lot of noise under heavy acceleration, but offered very little in the way of transferring that to actual movement. To make matter worse, it handled the road like... well, most American cars, I imagine. Along the highly tight, cambered cliff-top curves of the coastal road, driving the Sebring felt like trying to throw an Ikea furniture set down a bowling alley. To rub salt into the wound, most of the time, the weather wasn't even good enough to drop the top down. It was dry and fairly warm, sure, but it was hardly the sunny Californian paradise I was expecting, so the convertible aspect of the car was a bit pointless.

But that road. That road was simply incredible and it really didn't matter what car I was driving. It had everything; typically long, straight roads that stretched out to the horizon with beatiful sweeping vistas on either side; roads through stereotypical American towns and villages; the tight curving cliff-top sections between Monterey and Cambria; the Outrun-style high wooded stretches with wood cabins lining the road. It simply was the most incredible stretch of road I've ever driven and comes highly recommended. It almost makes a trip to California worth it in itself, though I believe Leigh's brown trousers may disagree! The only thing I'd advise is to get a car with a bit more punch. Even in something relatively day to day like a Golf GTi, this road would have been an even more amazing experience.

We had a few stops along the way, including Santa Cruz, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Santa Barbara and Malibu, also passing through Monterey and the Big Sur. We stopped at a stunning cliff-top location called Ragged Point, which was by no means cheap, but an excellent location and really well furnished and tranquil with beautiful sea-views. Their restaurant also served some of the best food we had all holiday. We didn't really have much of a choice to stay here as we were losing the light on the first night of the drive and I didn't too much fancy driving the road in the dark as the fog was beginning to settle.

After Malibu on the second day, we finished our drive into Los Angeles towards our hotel in West Holywood for the final part of the holiday.

The Final Countdown

So I'm sat here back at my desk in sunny Coventry (no, really!). I have a hot mug of tea to my right and the washing is in the machine. As Leigh said, it's time to be drawing a line under the amazing holiday we've just been on, but I've realised that actually we've talked very little about the latter part of the holiday from San Francisco onwards.

In the interests of keeping the blog filled with as much information as possible and as a point of reflection, I thought it important to run down the things we got up to while they're still relatively fresh in my mind.



The second day in San Francisco began with a cruise out into San Francisco Bay towards Alcatraz Island. If Saturday could be summised as a day of William Shatner quotes, then Sunday was the turn of Sean Connery. We were indeed visiting The Rock.

This was both fascinating and eerie in equal measure. Neither of us had really appreciated the history of the place from it's beginnings as an Army fortification during the Civil War through to the Native American Indian invasion in the 20th Century as a protest to being forced off their land. It was, of course, the island's history as a state penetentiary that brings it the most fame however - home to the some of the worst of the worst criminals in US history including The Birdman and Al Capone. Perhaps the strange thing about wandering about the prison as part of the audio tour was the feeling that this history really wasn't that long ago, a point made more prevelant by the placing of photographs in areas where the criminals stood, almost side by side by your position as a visitor to the island.

Later that day, we made a trip to the famous shopping district of Union Square via our first of two tram rides. Incidentally, the Americans call these "trolleys" which caused much confusion later in the holiday when I spoke to somebody who said she'd enjoyed riding trolleys round San Francisco. My instinctive thought was "bloody chavs get everywhere".

Union Square and the areas around it were incredibly impressive, home to one of the best shopping areas I've ever seen. Roll over Oxford Street, you're not a patch on San Francisco. Perhaps what made me laugh the most was that, despite the size of the buildings, the class of shops and the friendliness of the people, I couldn't help but feel like the whole of this area reminded me of Birmingham City Centre. Strange, I know, but oddly true.

On the way back to Fisherman's Wharf, we decided to dip out on having a look round Chinatown as we were both knackered, instead choosing the fine dining tastes of the local Hooters. After this, we descended upon a local bar, got really quite drunk, had a moment of scary realisation that we'd spent hours in a gay bar, only to realise that it wasn't a gay bar, it was just a bar in San Francisco. We then finished the night with a fantastic karaoke rendition of Wonderwall by Oasis to an indifferent Californian crowd. Brilliant.

Suffice to say, the next day my head was stinging and I really wasn't in the best of moods to be making the planned cycle trip across the Golden Gate Bridge. So we got the bus to the San Francisco end of the bridge instead and decided to walk it. Word of warning: It's bigger and longer than it looks. Much bigger. It doesn't help when you spend the latter part of the walk aiming for the coffee shop on the other side, only to realise that it's just a toilet block when you get there and have the realisation that you've got to walk all the way back before you can get a drink. Serious missed opportunity here in the ice cream department too.

Anyway, despite almost crippling ourselves walking across and up the hill on the other side to get the fantastic vantage point offered at the top, we headed back to town. It's also worth pointing out that we had some great food during our time in San Francisco, oh and we both got refused service for alcohol by a bar on the pier! Ridiculous!

So a brief summary of San Francisco, from me at least as I know Leigh's opinions are slightly different. Incredible city, really distinct, generally really friendly people, lots to do, awesome shopping district, excellent coastal/bay location and a place to really get your creative juices flowing. It's no wonder that it draws so many visitors each year. After New York, I didn't expect to be impressed by a city again, but San Francisco proved me wrong!

oh and just one more thing?

So this is it, the last of the blogs from the continent of these united states.

To say that this experience has been a good one would be a total understatement. this experience has been amazing. for those that don't know, the whole point of this excercise, as i guess with anyone who travels, was to broaden our minds, help re-invigorate our creative juices, I can now safely say that its done that.

Yesterday we visited Universal studios and yes the rides we're very entertaining, but more to the point we got to travel around the studio lot itself. It was interesting to see that even a hollywood studio, although on a bigger scale, looks on the inside exactly like my old university, sometimes it easy to see only the glitz and glamour of hollywood and forget that behind the scenes there are people working seventeen hour day just to get the props correct, or the set built, dresses fitted, wood cut and faces painted.

What i saw on our tour of the studios will last with me forever, and has pushed me even further to be back here making movies with the best....

On a side note, we saw Jamie Fox heehee.

So the farewell to the states begins keep an eye out for the rest of the video blogs they will be arriving shortly. Jim may say a few words but as from me this is Leigh from Hollywood signing off see you back in blighty...

ground zero

I like driving in my car.....its not quite a jaguar......its a chrysler

So we're about to begin the next step in our trip across america, san fran was beautiful and it shall be missed. We've now got a 10 hour drive down the west coast so as you can imagine not many updates will be available.

Our destination is L.A. the home of all my heroes and villains.

Till the next update TTFN

what a f***ing liberty