Los Angeles, United States

LOS ANGELES

  Los Angeles, United States 

Arriving to the civilization of LA, after spending the last month in the laid back Pacific, was a shock to the system, to say the least.

The urban sprawl of the LA metropolis, which we could see from the plane, just seemed to go on forever, in every direction.

At the airport, we jump into a shuttle bus to take us to our hostel destination. Where? Hollywood of course!

When we arrive at the hostel, the shuttle fare is 32 Dollars, we hand the driver a 50 Dollar bill, and he seriously asks us if we want change! Of course we bloody well do mate, we´re not leaving you an 18 dollar tip, just for doing your job!

01 Marc in Hollywood Blvd

Tipping is well out of control here in the States. I mean, we don´t mind tipping in a restaurant if the service has been good. But when bartenders expect a dollar for every bottle of beer they open, and there´s even a tipping box in the Internet Cafe. What´s this about hey? "Sir, your computers have been performing really well today, so here´s a tip for them, so you can go out and buy them all a strawberry milkshake!". We think it´s out of control, that´s OOC!

We manage to get from the entrance of our hostel to our room tip free :)
The hostel is a bit rough around the edges, but in a perfect location, right opposite the Kodak Theatre, where they stage the Oscars.

After a day exploring the glitz and fame of Hollywood, which included seeing a few famous people and seeing Jim Hill get a star on the Hollywood walk of fame, we spend the next day in downtown LA
.On the end of the CBD, just a stone´s throw away from glitzy high-rises are what remains of the original settlement. Dozens of buildings, many built in an old fashioned Spanish style, plus dozens of Mexican restaurants

02 Hollywood Walk of Fame

. It made us feel like we were already in Mexico.

Despite LA´s size, we discover that downtown LA is actually quite small, owing to the fact that LA is more like a collection of smaller cities, than one big city in it´s own right.

On the way back from downtown, we walk up from the centre of Hollywood to get a close up of the famous sign. It was so cool to see it with our own eyes. We were standing there for ages thinking, "we´ve seen this 1000 times on the TV and now can´t believe we´re actually seeing it for real".

Of course a trip to LA wouldn´t be complete without a nose around Beverly Hills, where the houses look more like countryside mansions, than inner city dwellings. 

And LA certainly wouldn´t be complete without meeting up with Bahareh, a friend of Marc´s who he knows from studying in San Sebastian.
Bahareh and her boyfriend took us out to a Kosher restaurant. It´s the first time we´d tried kosher meat, which we´re told has been specially cleaned and salted before cooking, but we actually think it tastes better than standard meat. We´ll have to check out some more kosher restaurants, when we get back to London.

After eating, we went to a cool Japanese styled bar which had great views over LA. Thanks guys for showing us around. We had a great time! ,

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