Travel Diary: Hollywood to Vegas baby

Here is the American chapter ... 20 April – New Zealand to Los Angeles We checked out of what will be our last hostel for a week (sigh of relief) and caught the shuttle to the airport at 10am to catch our flight to Los Angeles! We hopped on the bus and the guy asked us for our tickets and my heart stopped, I had left it in pocket of the trousers I had just exchanged in the shop! As he was in such a hurry he let us on anyway thank God so now some lucky person will buy those trousers and have a free ticket to the airport! We lined up about for about an hour to check in then when it was our turn the lady asked us for our address in America. We had no idea of the full address of the hotel we had booked as it was right next to the airport. She told us if we didn’t have one we would have to go online and book one straight away. It was now 20 minutes to boarding and we had to wait for the people on facebook to get off the free internet so we could look up the address of the hotel! We were getting very agitated now and then had to go back over to the check in for the lady to be very short with us for pushing in! What a palaver! A quick dash into the departure lounge where we had to grab a Burger King for our brunch and jump straight on the plane! The 11 and a half hour flight wasn’t too bad. It was a day flight so I think we weren’t trying to force ourselves to sleep so we were fine watching films for that long! We arrived in LAX at about 6.30am feeling very jet lagged now it was early morning and not time to sleep! We booked into the Comfort Inn Cockatoo and after a phone call they came and collected us to take us there. When we walked into our room our jaws literally dropped – it was like a palace compared to how we have been living lately! You will all think it’s an average looking hotel room but after living in a van for 3 months and hostel dorms for another month this is luxury at $80. Having serious jet lag we slept for pretty much the rest of the day until tea time. As soon as we walked out of the hotel we could see 1. Why Americans are fat and 2. Why Americans have no choice and get fat – our only dining options were a chicken place, tacos or KFC that was in 100 meters of the hotel. There are no healthy options here. We opted for KFC and ordered a an 8 piece bucket, pretty straight forward you would think but they bombarded us with a thousand questions about which recipe you want, which sides you want (fries not being an option but mac n’ cheese is?), do you want biscuits (which are salty scones) and hot sauce etc etc! We got there in the end and took our dinner back to the hotel as we thought we might get shot sitting in their horrible diner! 21 April - Meet the Parents We had a nice lie in this morning before checking out and getting a shuttle to the airport to pick up my parents!!!! I am so unbelievably excited to see them! Our anxious wait seemed never ending after their plane was delayed. Just as our patience was going to run out they appeared around the corner of the arrivals! Big hugs and tears and smiles followed!! Mum was a blubbering mess! We all caught a shuttle to the Union Station to catch the metro to HOLLYWOOD and surprisingly in this time had summed up our last 6 months!! Not too long  later and we arrived at Hollywood and Vine. First thought ... what a shithole! We were on Hollywood Boulevard and it is nothing like the movies! To be fair we had been warned that it is a disappointment and if you weren’t looking for it you would miss it! A short walk around the corner following dads memory of Google Earth and we found The Hotel Hollywood tucked around the corner. It looks old-school Hollywood 1930s style on the outside and to our disappointment the inside matched! However, one thing did perk me up was that Marilyn Monroe had apparently stayed in this hotel and my room was only 2 doors down from that. And anyone who knows me well knows that I love Marilyn! The rooms were small and smelly and from the 1930’s but it’s an upgrade from a dormitory so we don’t mind! A quick change and we were excited about going for a walk to find the real Hollywood – more disappointment followed as it never appeared and the only reasonable looking restaurant was an Irish one! Dillons the Irish pub turned out pretty good with an $8 round of drinks! After a few more drinks and catching up on the last 6 months we all headed back to the hotel for some sleep. 22 April - Hollywood City Tour We all met at 10 this morning and went in search of somewhere to eat, we settled for Audreys (as in Hepburn) as it looked like the only decent eatery open. As we sat outside and ate our breakfast we were already seeing the weird side to Hollywood and it’s even weirder inhabitants. Doing the tourist thing we decided to catch the open top city tour of Hollywood. We walked along to the starting point and finally found the famous Gauman’s Chinese Theatre outside the Hollywood Walk of Fame!! Looks a little more ‘Hollywood’ now! I eventually found Marilyn’s stone and I literally cried! My hands were in Marilyns! We saw some more very bizarre people dressed in costumes wondering around the street including Scream and Spiderman and then we hopped onto the bus. The first stop was to the musical walk of fame with all the musicians hand prints. The next stop we got off at was the car museum which was really good. It had vehicles from the first creations all the way up to a gorgeous Bugatti Veyron. Also, in the display was a section on famous cars out of films including the ultimate (and Shaun’s favourite ever car) the Batmobile. Next we drove through Sunset Boulevard and hopped off to grab a milkshake from Millons where they show a video of all the famous people who have been in there. Shaun also managed to sit in a fire engine!!! He was having a picture next to it when the fireman came over and told him to hop in!! The last stop we got off at was the posh shopping area which was really very ‘Hollywood’. In the evening we headed to Johnny Rockets on Hollywood Boulevard as we had been in a different one during the day which looked very American dinerish. But to our HUGE disappointment it was disgusting! Mum and I ordered a chilli dog and Shaun and dad had burgers and they were all sick! Never eating a chilli dog ever again! After this we watched the weird people of Hollywood out in the street and some street performers and ended up in Dillons again for a few drinks. 23 April - Universal Studios We all met at 10 this morning to get the train to Universal City for a day at Universal Studios! The first thing we saw at Universal was the universal globe (like out of the start of their films) which was pretty awesome! Then we queued up got our tickets and headed through the gate into Universal Studios. As we were walking along trying to decide where to go first we were approached by a lady working there who gave us all a free front of the line pass for the universal studios tour just for answering her questionnaire – bargain!! I won’t go through everything we did as we did it all!! Had a really awesome day and didn’t end up leaving until 8.30 pm. We also ended up with a free front of the line pass at the end of the day too as Shaun stood in sick so worked out pretty good for us! When we got back headed to Dillons for a few drinks. 24 April – Los Angeles to Las Vegas baby! Today we are off to Vegas!!  At 9 this morning we all checked out of The Hotel Hollywood and caught the train and bus to the airport to collect the hire car. Mum and dad had already booked a Jeep Cheroke and we had the choice of which one. We chose the biggest one and off we set. We had hired a satnav as the roads here are crazy but it was so painful because it kept announcing the turn off as we were passing it. We eventually made it onto the main road to Vegas and we arrived 4 and a half hours later. As we pulled up it wasn’t quite what we expected! It didn’t look quite so fabulous as the movies and there is a huge city around it when we thought it was just ‘the strip’. Just like the roads the hotels are just as confusing! We parked up in the Luxor car park and walked in to then have to walk the perimeter of the casino to find the check in desk! Our rooms were on the 12th floor so we had to walk back across the casino to the elevator in the far corner! It was all worth it when we got into the rooms though! They are huge and clean and smell nice, such an improvement from Hotel Hollywood!! We all quickly got changed and headed out for a walk along the strip, we had to find our way out of the Luxor first though! We ended up walking through 3 hotels before reaching outside! We eventually found the strip but it wasn’t as we expected! It’s not as compact as the films. It looked more ‘Vegas’ in the night time though. We walked about half the strip and had some dinner before heading back which is more of a mission then we anticipated! We found the MGM which we had come out of earlier and after about an hour walking around inside trying to find our hotel and dad getting seriously angry we had to ask directions!! Mum and dad went off to bed whilst Shaun and I stayed downstairs to start gambling!! Well, we put a few dollars in the machines anyway but we won 10 cent though!! The fun of losing your money wore off very quickly so we were in bed by mid-night! 25 April - Blue Man Show Shaun and I accidently slept in until midday!! We are not used to such comfortable beds! We quickly got ready to meet mum and dad at 1 only for them to be late anyway as they got lost in the casinos of course!! After breakfast we took a walk to see the fountain show at the Belagio. Pretty impressive it must be said! The rest of the day we strolled around the strip thinking how crazy this place is! In the evening mum and dad had booked the Blue man show. Glenn saw it when he came and said it was brilliant so we were really looking forward to it. We took the tram part of the way and walked the rest of the way to the Venetian. This hotel is gorgeous! We were sat just behind the soak zone so we were nice and close but didn’t get splashed with paint! The show was really good and not even like we were expecting. It’s basically 3 men in blue paint doing stupid, clever and funny things involving music, mainly percussion. After the show one of the blue men were having photos with the audience. So mum and I ran up to get in next when before I knew it I was on the floor!!! Some Japanese guy and stuck his foot out and tripped me up so he could get a photo first! Mum was already stood posing for the picture and was looking at me like ‘why on earth are you down there’. The Japanese guy came and helped me up but I was so embarrassed as people had horseshoed around the blue man so there was a nice big audience that watched me fall!! Mum was in hysterics, the blue man was still in character but we eventually got the picture and a nice big bruise too! 26 April – Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam Tour! After standing outside in the freezing cold for about 20 minutes waiting for the bus to pick us up for our Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam tour it finally arrived. We had our little goodie bag of breakfast and an hour later we made it to the Grand Canyon. Unbeknown to us we had to wait for over an hour for our helicopter ride. In the meantime in was freezing!! I mean, seriously cold we all bought hoodies and blankets having all turned up in shorts and t-shirts expecting desert heat! We were finally called and the four of us plus 2 others were taken to the helicopter loading point. As soon as it landed and the group jumped out we were all loaded in straight away. We were in the air straight away and the view was incredible. We went over the West Rim and down into the canyon. We landed on the rocks next to the river and were taken down to the river edge to wait for the boat to arrive. The view from the bottom of the canyon is just as amazing as from the top! We took a 20 minute gentle cruise along the river where it was surprisingly hot! After this we were picked back up by a different helicopter and taken for a ride in and around the huge canyon it really is grand! We were dropped off back at the main terminal where we found out that the other helicopters had just been cancelled as it was so windy, we did think it was a little shaky up there! As we were now really late we were not going to have time to visit all 3 bases around the canyon so we skipped the first one and went straight to the second for our lunch. A pretty rushed lunch and a quick peak over the edge of the canyon and we had to queue up for a bus back to the main terminal. By time we eventually got on the bus we were already late to meet our group where our very agitated driver was waiting for us! Mum got very agitated by this woman’s moaning because we were late I thought she was going to punch her! We waited on the bus another half hour (now an hour late) and the last 4 people still hadn’t arrived so we left without them! We actually left them stranded at the Grand Canyon! Anyway we drove on to the Hoover Dam. Pretty impressive structure but unfortunately we weren’t allowed to stop so we couldn’t really get any decent photos. Another hour’s driver and we were dropped back off at the Luxor. That night Shaun tried his hand at a bit of poker and to no surprise lost - $70 on 3 games it could of been a lot worse. The rules on the tables are completely different to the friendly games at home and completely on the casino’s side. Very easy to see how people can lose thousands on the tables. Still a very good experience. 27 April - Drive back to LA We all got up early this morning so we could head to the shopping centre around Fremont Street. And again the stupid satnav took us here, there and everywhere so it ended up taking us an hour to get to Fremont which is actually just at the end of the strip! We parked up and walked down the street (which is something very much like Blackpool) only to find out there is no shopping here. After some greasy American breakfasts we put some dollars in the slot machines instead. Dad ended up winning $5! Back on the road again and we stopped off at a shopping outlet in the middle of nowhere. Shaun had a shopping frenzy and basically bought a new wardrobe because the prices were so low! Just to let you know how much of a bargain it was he got 2 quicksilver t-shirts, 2 surf shorts and a pair of flip flops for $75 about £50! We hit the road again for a few hours and managed not to get lost until we hit Los Angeles again! The satnav is so stupid, dad even got a nose bleed he was so stressed out with it! Later in the evening we eventually made it to Super 8 where we are staying for the night before Shaun and I catch our flights to South America in the morning. As usual we had no other choice but a burger place to eat dinner so we ended up at Burger King across the street! As our luck would have it the Super 8 is directly underneath the runway so as the planes come into land they are literally about 200 ft above our heads! We had to phone American Airlines to confirm our flight but the voice activated telephone system couldn’t understand me so I had to put on a stupid happy American accent to be understood and eventually put through to a real person! Even though Hollywood was a disappointment and Vegas wasn’t really our thing we still really enjoyed ourselves and had an amazing time with my parents, thank you so much! Next chapter to come very shortly. Jodie & Shaun