At Home in Hollywood!

So its Sunday, our last night in LA. We've been away from home a whole week now and are slowly adjusting to live in the USA.

Our flight on Monday was good, in terms of entertainment - we watched Glee, Modern Family, and many movies on V Australia, the food was also pretty good. The bad part was that got very little sleep, in fact not any real sleep at all - while everyone around us seemed to sleep like babies!

We arrived in LA exhausted and over it. We got a shuttle from LAX which only cost us 16 bucks! Our hotel is really nice with breakfast included daily. -I may have od-ed  on cinnamon rolls and bagels! We are at the holiday inn express which is just up the block from the walk of fame and Hollywood and highland center. -which is very convenient!

After crashing Monday night and sleeping in a bit on Tuesday, we explored the area - walking up and down the almost the whole walk of fame, and looking at the Chinese theater.

Wednesday was a huge day for us. We headed off in the morning to Warner Brothers studios to do the tour. It was awesome and we wanted to buy pretty much everything in the gift shop! We were the most enthused on the tour and the guy was nice enough to point out Pushing Daisies locations to us! There were also Ned and Chuck costumes on display in the WB museum. In addition to PD stuff, we saw tons of great Gilmore Girls and The West Wing locations. Plus the Central Perk set from Friends, and Bartlett's desk from TWW.
-We also got to see a scene from Chuck being filmed. Then Adam Baldwin from Firefly (and the other guy in the scene) came over to talk from the group. He's SO tall!


After the tour was over and we had purchased our goodies, we headed off in a cab - which the tour desk girl (who looked just like Kristen Wiig) called for us. He took us the long way to The Grove which was annoying and costly. But eventually we got there and after looking in some shops headed over to the CBS studios to line up for the Craig Ferguson taping. We were lucky enough to get to see Monica Potter from Parenthood being interviewed and Craig was funny...however the warm up guy was SUPER annoying.
After the show, we looked in more shops and headed to The Farmers Market to get a light dinner and then called a cab to get back to the hotel. -I called 1 company and the woman was the biggest bitch to me, and refused to take my directions/address even though that's what the people in the stores told us. 2nd try around we got a response...but they never turned up. So we took one passing by and all was good!

Thursday we hit Universal Studios. The studio tour was AWESOME. We saw Parenthood stages, and filming locations. As well as How I Met Your Mother and others. There was also a big Wicked poster on the side of one of the stages which was exciting! We then went on the Simpson's ride...which sucked AND made Ness' neck get out of whack and ruined her day. We did all the shows, the animal one was really cute. Then I went on the Jurassic Park ride and then we headed home again.

Friday we headed over to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills....it was pretty, but kinda boring after a while of looking at shops you will never buy anything from. -I did however managed to find shampoo and conditioner which I needed.
The afternoon was spent separately. -Ness getting her neck fixed and me exploring. I went inside the Roosevelt Hotel -which was SO pretty and made me miss Angel. (I also spent a little time trying to figure out where they put the bar in Gaza of The West Wing).

Yesterday we went up to Griffith Park Observatory. It was really nice up there and the air was better. But you couldn't see very far because of the smog. In the afternoon we headed over to Siverlake to see a play called Sad Happy Sucker. It was a 3 person play, but was very funny!

Today we went down to Santa Monica and were amazed by the fog in the early arvo. After some shopping, the sun had come out and we went back to the pier to take the pretty pictures.

Tomorrow we are packing up and going to Disneyland. YAY! But Ness will have to be picky about the rides she goes on.

Notable moments so far:
-Apparently no one can get my name right! I got called over the loud speaker at Sydney airport because we got held up at customs when transferring from Virgin blue to VAustralia....and they called me "Charlie Sheehnan" ...I mean, I've had both before, but that's bad! -Also when I order coffee in the US they think my name is Kelly....but finally today I put on the accent and not only got the right name but the girl even spelled in the proper way and that NEVER happens!
-US buses are weird, but can get you places.
-people are really nice here. Let you use their phones, help you out etc.
-US ads on tv are both weird and entertaining.
-tipping and taxes are annoying...but we're slowly getting used to it.


Hopefully will get a chance to write more soon.

-Carlie