Photos - Erith and Marcus about to ride the Matterhorn at Disneyland, Erith with Captain Jack (a struggling actor), Erith at the Mulholland Drive lookout and our pool near Disneyland.
Marcus says:After the customary customs hassles, we eventually flew into Los Angeles. We couldn't believe how brown it was as we flew over - we knew that they'd been in drought, but there were large areas where it was a struggle to spot any greenery at all. Not being familiar with LA, I had booked a place on Santa Monica Drive in West Hollywood - they were familiar names, so I figured the place would be at least reasonable. I asked a cabby how much to West Hollywood and he told me $40 - two dollars less than all I had with me as I'd only changed the Canadian money I was carrying.
The cab ride took forever - like all travel in LA it seems, you have to plan for it to take ages to get anywhere. Our cabby was talkative, telling us where to sit on all the best rides and how to best the crowds at Disneyland. He also advised us that West Hollywood was an area where "boys like boys and boys want to be girls". I thought we would be staying in the equivalent of Oxford Street, but it was a long way from that - aside for banners advertising a gay film festival and a slight change in the mix of couples, there were no signs of gay society. I can't help thinking that our cabby may not cope well with Mardi Gras, but he was a nice enough guy.
We got to the hotel - the impressive sounding Radisson Plaza. It was Fawlty from the moment we walked in. We'd paid for a suite for two nights, but they'd somehow overbooked, on top of not having our booking from Wotif.com. We were deserted for 10 minutes while the desk jockey sorted it out, during which time more and more people tried to obtain their bookings unsucessfully, some being told to phone Hotels.com. It wasn't a good sign, but as I'd already paid, he was going to have a very hard time with me. Perhaps he realised that as he finally came back and told us that even though we'd booked a king-sized bed, they could only give us a queen. No problem, though it turned out to be more like a double when we got up there. All the same, we were there and settled for 2 days. Within 2 hours we had done our laundry and were set for clothes all the way back to Sydney, provided we were careful.
We went out for dinner and decided to walk up to Sunset Strip, three blocks away. We wandered along there for about 5 minutes before stumbling onto Mel's Diner, which was used for the early episodes of Happy Days as well as for American Graffiti. We had to stop there - the burgers were good and Erith got a milkshake with whipped cream and a cherry on top, as well as the aluminum cup with the dregs in it. We watched the limos go by - there was a pretty steady stream of every type of luxury car and the odd stretch Hummer just for that classy touch.
We went back to the hotel and decided to spend the evening in the pool as it was a hot night. The pool area was nice and we got straight in. After an hour or so, we noticed that when we leaned our backs against the wall, we felt a prickling sensation. At first I thought it might be 12 volt electricity, as I noticed that one of the pool lights wasn't secured in its housing, but when we eventually got out, we realised that it was coming with us. It must have been fiberglass from pool repairs and our (ahem) enthusiastic frolicking must have stirred it up. Whatever it was, it was very annoying - just one more reason to steer clear of that hotel.
The next morning we knew that we had to catch up on the blog and book a hotel for our last two nights in Los Angeles, so we headed to where the concierge had directed us. We (okay, "I") was suffering from internet withdrawal, so we spent a couple of hours at it, eventually ending up with a hotel in Buena Park, 6 miles from Disneyland and having deleted the requisite 4 squillion junk emails that accumulate every few days while I'm not watching.
Having pretty much everything out of the way, we decided to hit the beach for the afternoon. Santa Monica beach was just down the road apparently, so we thought that the bus should be a reasonable option. About 45 minutes later, we got off near Santa Monica pier - it wasn't a long distance, but the shockingly bad traffic made it seem longer than it was. The bus attracts a different clientèle as well and while I didn't feel we had a need to be scared, I was cautious.
Santa Monica Pier was interesting - it seemed to be a reasonably close split of locals and tourists. We watched the fishermen occasionally pull in a mighty hundred grams of pure, unbridled fightin' fish. (Okay, they didn't actually fight, but what a boring paragraph if I didn't put that in...)
There were some cool musical acts - two young guys singing to a guitar and backing track were very good, as was an older guy doing the blues. It was a tough way to make a living though, as it was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. We got a locker and changed on the pier. (How? Quickly and as discretely as possible.) Then we made our way down to the water. It was great to be in the ocean, even if the waves were poor and the sand and water were kind of muddy. I don't mean to sound parochial, but let's face it - it's hard to find city beaches that compare to Sydney's. The water was nice though and as usual, I had a tough time getting Erith out, but we still had to take the bus home at rush hour and pack so we could check out the following morning.
We got up the next morning and asked the concierge what the best way to Buena Park was
and he recommended hiring a car so as to get the certainty of the price up front. That confirmed what the cabby had told me two days earlier, so we booked one and checked out. The car turned out to be a Lincoln Towncar - a limousine, but not stretched. We felt very important cruising Beverly Hills in a limo, but resisted the urge to lower the windows and do regal waves to our loyal subjects.
After at least an hour, we finally got to our new hotel - the last destination of our trip. It was a Holiday Inn, cheaper than where we had been in West Hollywood, was clean and organised and had a great pool, free internet access and a handy laundry.
We had only two goals for the day - the first was to organise tickets for Disneyland for the next day. The concierge was fantastic - he had us sorted out in less than five minutes. The second was Erith's design - spend the afternoon in the pool. It was a hot day, so I was perfectly happy to do that. We had a great time, staying in until we were badly wrinkled. It was hard not to notice that two of the families that we shared the pool with were obese, as many people are in the US. Not having exercised for over a month and having eaten a lot of junk food, I decided that I'd have to get back to a good routine when I got back.
We got up early the next morning, had a decent buffet breakfast and hopped into the bus to Disneyland. We got there before the gates opened, but we bought our tickets and got into the line. It was less expensive than I thought it would be - I think it about $US 60 each, which when you consider that includes all the rides, didn't seem too pricey at all. It was well-organised, so we got in quickly after the gates opened and headed straight for the Matterhorn. Erith was nervous, but wanted to do it, so we got in the queue. I'd never been on a ride like that with her before, so wasn't sure how she'd handle it, especially since it starts by climbing the inside of the mountain in pitch darkness. She was fine though - her first words when we finished were "I wanna go again!", so off we went. The other ride that we went on twice was Space Mountain, which was a real blast. You hurtle through a huge space, pitch black except for stars. It's so dark that you can't see the people in the car in front of you except when the ride tries to freak you out with spinning lights and other weirdness. They take a photo right at the end - Erith didn't want to buy it the first time because "her hair was in her eyes". Oh yeah, and she had an expression of abject terror. The photo from the second ride was better as Erith had put her hair up, but she still looked terrified. I was laughing my head off, but everyone else in the car was ambivalent at best. We bought the photo - if nothing else, it will be material for Erith's 21st birthday...
My family visited Disneyland about 30 years ago and I had a blast, so I was pretty sure that Erith would too. Of course it's quite different now, but still very organised, great rides, spotlessly clean and aside from what developed into big crowds, it was a great time. The only annoying thing is that just as we decided to leave, they had a big parade up the main street, forcing everyone off the footpaths and into the shops. Also, because you can't cross the street, it's very difficult to get to the gates - they block you in. I'm sure it was intentional and it was certainly effective. We went with the flow and bought plenty of souvenirs like dutiful little mouseketeers.
We caught the hotel bus back and had a quick swim while we did our laundry. Even though we were leaving the next night, we did our usual trick of washing everything except (in this case) a bathing suit each. We decided to go on a tour the next day as we didn't leave until 10:00 pm, so we organised that and a ride to the airport with the concierge, had dinner and konked out, exhausted. It had been a big day.
The next day we got shuttled to another hotel where we hopped into a bus seating 15 and started doing the tour thing. It was okay, but because everything is so far apart and the traffic is so bad, it took a long time to get anywhere. As we spent quite a bit of time on the freeways in LA, it was impossible not to notice how dirty they were. There were car bumpers, tire rims and various other bits of junk everywhere. We saw some interesting things though, getting a good view of the Hollywood sign and the Hollywood Bowl from Mulholland Drive, a bit of a cruise through Beverly Hills down Rodeo Drive, a nice stop at Venice Beach - all the usual things. It was good, as it helped us kill the day.
Eventually, we went back to the hotel, collected our bags, went to the airport and got on a plane. That was it, the holiday was officially finished.