Tuesday, September 6, 2011

The Sights... Hollywood!

Hollywood Blvd and the Chinese Theater - many celebrities have imprinted hands and feet in cement outside of this theater. As I walked around and saw the famous names laid forever in dried mud, I wondered what it must be like as a current actor to be asked to lay your name beside the greats... I would never feel worthy enough.

Shirley Temple is one of favorite actresses. She was so young and spent many an hour inside bars with her mom and manager, while they discussed her work and pay she would just sit patiently and wait. My great-grandfather was a bartender inside a frequented bar and one day decided to create a special drink just for her, maybe you've heard of the Shirley Temple? When I was young, that too was my drink! So awesome!

Although difficult to see, in the upper left hand side is a sign at Hollywood and Vine. I knew this intersection was famous but could not recall what for, according to Wikipedia it gained fame in the 1920s for being the center of radio and movie-related businesses. Although there is not much there now, you can see that the sidewalk is adorned with Stars as part of the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The Hollywood sign - this is about as close as we could get. It sits amoung a beautiful area in the mountains and looks over the city, as seen in the picture below.

This is the Griffith Observatory. It's a great FREE way to learn a bit about space. The dome to the left contains a high powered telescope that scientists use to observe the sky, day and night. Of couse, it is also the location for many a movie scene. Can you think of your favorite?


For those of you that are fans of Kat Von D, here's a shot of her tatoo parlor, LA Ink. Only minutes from my cousin's apartment, it's not in the best part of town.


This picture did not turn out great, but the top sign is a higway marker for the famous Route 66. In my previous blog post I included a picture of the "End of the Road" in Santa Monica.

Although these are only a few of the sites to see in LA, we managed to cram it into a day and a half. Not too bad! I look forward to returning and being able to spend more time exploring to see the beauty and infamy that's almost at every corner!

Food!!!

Food - it wouldn't be vacation if I didn't talk about it!

There are so many famous places to eat in LA, but we had only so much time. One necessary stop was In-N-Out Burger. These will never move to Colorado because it would be too far to transport their never-frozen meat, so one must consume it when one can. We managed to squeeze into this one during the noon-hour and after fighting our way to a table, wolfed down fresh cut fries and yummy burgers!

As we walked toward Hollywood Blvd., we came across this gem. You may have seen Ron Howard hanging out here in the film American Graffiti (not exactly this location, but you get the point). We had already stuffed ourselves full of In-N-Out so stopping was out of the question, but still a great landmark!

Donut shops were a common site whilst driving around LA. I snapped a picture of this sign while we were stopped at a light, later I found out that it's actually part advertisement for a Neon Sign Museum - it's a shame we didn't have time to look around.

As I mentioned in the previous blog entry we ate at the North End Cafe and Pinkberrys, both mentioned on TV.

We were lucky in that our breakfast was provided by the hotel every morning. This made it easy for 4 of us girls to grab a quick bite and then get ready for the day. On Tuesday we visited Santa Monica and had dinner along the promenade at a great Italian place. The waitress, although nice, was a little overly excited about being in Hollywood and finding out about goings-on around town. She was giddy when my sister explained she had just tried out for The Voice... at least she's enthusiatic.
Wednesday night we treated my cousin to a mexican dinner at a great place on Sunset Blvd. The margaritas were huge and it put us in the mood for swimming!

Along our journey towards Hollywood Blvd., my cousin took us into Yammy's Pizza. Come to find out her roommate is empolyed there and is trying to make it a landmark in LA. They recently installed wood panelling on the front of the counter - sign your name and praise the pizza!!!