Life Lesson #11 - Air Criminals

Standing in the queue to go through security at LAX, I realised I still had my deodorant in my bag. Like the sly fox that I am, I decided just to walk through anyway and let them confiscate it.

They didn't. My bag made it through with no problems. Well, correction, the bag with the deodorant made it through with no problems. They were very interested in the other one. Not one, but three problems with it. Two cans of orange soda pop and my Gucci Envy fragrance. Not my Gucci Envy fragrance! I considered grabbing the Gucci and making a run for it, but it turned out to be under the weight limit anyway. Not so for my soda pop (which I'd forgotten were in there). The guy looked at me like an idiot and threw those out. They were yuck anyway.

And Paul? He got searched too. The reason? Too many books.

When we got to the plane I smugly sprayed on some of my Nivea Dry Impact For Men, feeling somewhat concerned about airport security, but somewhat awesome about my successful thwart. I can't decide what to sneak on board next. I'm thinking either cocaine or a bomb.

Last Day in Hollywood

On our last day in Hollywood we finished off the last few things on our LA bucket list.

We tried to book rush tickets to see The Ellen Show tape live, but there was no chance. It's a bummer, as we registered months in advance but they don't accept anyone from outside the US unless they're already in the country, so we had no choice but to wait for day-of tickets.

After checking out, we visited a special someone on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

We were walking along Hollywood Blvd trying to find a map to locate Celine's star, then I literally tripped over it!

Then we went all over Paramount Studios on a golf cart. The tour was great - nine people to a group maximum.

If you squint, you can see the Hollywood sign through the arch.

My favourite part was seeing Glee's rehearsal space, the outside of their studio, and a few of their trailers. Yes, I am officially a sad excuse for a person.

The golf cart of someone who actually works on Glee! *crazy obsessed fan giggle*

Other highlights:
- Standing on Dr Phil's stage, and then seeing him in person when we left

No photography allowed = blurry photo.

- Seeing parts of the sets for movies like The Godfather, Citizen Kane, Ghost, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Spiderman
- The garden workaholic Lucille Ball had modeled to look just like her own, so she could have photo shoots with her kids and then keep working.

- Sitting on Forrest Gump's park bench.

- Tom and Nicole's identical front doors from eyes wide shut. He walked through the left one, she through the right. The lengths some people will go to to look taller!

With just a few hours left until we had to head to the airport, we took the car for one last spin to The Grove, where we shared a delicious chicken pasta and red velvet cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory to round off our time in Los Angeles.


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Disneyland

Wary of crowds, we arrived at Disneyland when it opened. Partly thanks to their Fast Pass system (where you can be in line without standing in line), we found the queues quite manageable. Unsurprisingly, our favourite things at Disneyland were all in the new park - California Adventure. It seems aimed at an older demographic.

Paul arrives a Disneyland for the first time.

In the Hollywood Part of California Adventure.

The whole park feels like a theme park from the 50s or 60s, including the amazing old-style rollercoaster, California Screamin'.

Our other fave was the Tower of Terror, a Twilight Zone ride that takes place in an old hotel. You get shot up super high in an elevator, and when the doors open you can see outside. Then, suddenly you fall. You keep getting shot back up and then falling again about five more times. It's so cool!

On the monorail passing over the Golden Gate bridge.

The last thing we did was watch the fireworks show and Fantasmic. If you're ever at Disneyland, don't go without watching this!

By the time we got home it was 11:00pm. We were exhausted, but it was worth it. We were a bit sick of all the shameless product placement, but then, we're not really the target market, are we!


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Life Lesson #10 - Always Set Two Alarms

When we went to bed at 3:30am on our last night in Vegas we had big plans to get up early anyway. We wanted to make sure we had time to pack our pigsty before checkout at 11.

Helps if you take you phone off silent when you set your alarm. We woke at midday.

I ended up having to use the crap housekeeping as leverage to convince the hotel manager not to charge us for an extra night. Suddenly using the same towels for three days seemed worth it!

---pics after the jump---

The Pacific Coast Highway

After checking out from our drab Hollywood motel this morning, we headed to the Annenberg Space for Photography. They had an exhibition on called Extreme Exposure which was incredible! It focuses on photographers who risk their lives for the perfect shot.

Paul in front of the Annenberg Space for Photography

When we left, we drove about 45 mins to a place I spotted last night on the freeway to Disneyland: Citadel Outlets. It turned out to be not only the sole factory outlet mall in LA, but also right on our route to San Diego today.

We really struck the jackpot! I ended up buying a Levi's jacket for $20 and a blazer from H&M that makes me look like a Dalton Academy Warbler (I think I'll wear it to Celine). But the real find was at a leather shop that's going into liquidation: 60% off everything, plus a further 30%, meant this leather jacket cost me hardly anything. Score!

Very satisfied with our purchases, we continued our drive to San Diego, stopping briefly at the Oceanside Pier to watch sunset.

Paul snapped these great shots of sunset at the pier.

Our accommodation is better than the last place. It's right by the Mexican border, and you can tell because everyone speaks to you in Spanish first, switching to English only when you give them a confused look.

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Life Lesson #4 - My Tummy Feels Funny

Today I learned that it is not a good idea to go through the drive-thru three times on the same day that you visit three theme parks. No matter how much you crave a burrito.

On the famous teacups at Disneyland, just after Mexican and a few hours before In-N-Out Burger.

Three-in-One

I'm completely exhausted. Going to Universal Studios, Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure in one day will do that to you!

We got up early to make it to Universal Studios just after opening. We got the rides out of the way first, to beat the queues. On the Jurassic Park ride, Paul's jeans got soaked completely through. Doh!

The highlight of the park was definitely the Studio Tour, which included a trip up Wisteria Lane and a new King Kong thing that Peter Jackson designed.

When Universal closed, we headed to Disney's California Adventure to see their unbelievable new light, water and laser show: World of Color. We were lucky - when we asked the information desk where to go, the girl behind the desk gave us two fast passes from people who had just left the park, which gave us the perfect front row spots! We got soaked, but it was worth it.

It absolutely blew our socks off. Though by now it was 10pm, we got our energy back and decided to cross over to our third park of the day, Disneyland, and stay until closing.

We had enough time to do the teacups, It's a Small World, and the Finding Nemo Submarines before catching the last shuttle back to our car just after midnight.

It was 1:15 by the time we got to bed. I have no recollection of my head hitting the pillow.

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LACMA

We were hoping to do the Paramount Studio Tour this morning, but it was booked out so we headed off to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art instead. As you can imagine, Paul was in his element!

This cool artwork at the entrance has a whole lot of LA streetlamps placed right next to each other.

Six Flags Magic Mountain

When I came to LA in 2006, my one regret was that we didn't make it to Six Flags. It's a bit of a drive, and we didn't have a car. So this time, there was no way I'd leave without getting there! Six Flags has more roller coasters than any other theme park in the world. All of them break some record or another - it might be the most extreme theme park in the world.

At sunset, when we were leaving the park

The highlight was definitely X2 - the world's only 5 dimensional rollercoaster, where you spin around in every possible direction. Losing my shoe and then catching it when we spun back around was one of the weirdest, coolest, experiences of my life! There's an awesome youtube clip in the post before this one.

We took a sneaky video on one of the rides: The Scream (and you can hear Paul doing exactly that). He chickened out of doing Scream a second time because his glasses were coming off, so I ended up sitting next to teenage girls. My eardrums appreciated it, because the girls didn't scream half as much as he had! I promised to mention, though, that he didn't scream at all on X2. (THAT's how insane it is!)

Life Lesson #3 - The Prodigal Shoe

Next time your shoe comes off on a rollercoaster, I recommend it's the 5D ride X2 at Six Flags, because it will fly away in zero gravity and then come back at you when you flip around again. True story. I caught it!

Life Lesson #2 - What to do With Daylight

Today I learned that daylight savings is even more confusing when you're trying to negotiate jet lag in an already foreign timezone. After 7 hours sleep in the past 72, I could really have done with that extra hour I lost!

On the bright side, it was worth getting to bed at midnight in order to see Esther and Beverly Hills last night.

Esther and Paul

Beverly Hills 90210 by night

City of Angels

We landed in LA just after six this morning, following a 12 hour flight. Took off to this song (one of my faves). Felt it was kinda appropriate.

Our hotel is pretty crappy... but we have an awesome location on Sunset Boulevard, so we don't regret choosing it. Thanks to the GPS system we hired with our beaten up old Toyota Corolla, we arrived promptly at 7:30am... ready to go to bed. Which is when we remembered that check-in doesn't open until 3pm. Aaahh! Though we were struggling to stay awake, we decided to make the most of it and do some of the necessary touristy things. So we went to the most important American icon first: Taco Bell! Then, had a quick at less important attractions like the Kodak Theatre, the Walk of Fame, and this thing: