Thursday 2nd July - part 1

Today I make my pilgrimage to Hollywood. I check out the train options and voila we are there in about 20 minutes. Straight across the road is the visitor's centre and what luck! If we sign up now as early birds we can get 2 tours for the price of 1. But wait, there's more! "Are you on a budget" Well, as a matter of fact "YES". Anyone who says no to this question is a bit silly. I will pay $30 for a 1 hour tour through the Hollywood Hills and then a 2 hour tour through Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Rodeo Dr, Cedars Sinai Hospital - sick beds for the stars and all the places you see on TV. Chris goes off to do his own thing.

The hills are certainly alive in Hollywoodland, the original name, with extraordinary structures and buildings that are homes to those who have money. We are in an open top truck of sorts and our guide Bruce, points out lots of interesting homes telling us about their owners/history. As a matter of fact some of the homes are under $1 million so they are not out of reach......for some. We see the home Bugsy Siegel built. Madonna owned it for a while and this is the house where someone climbed her fence. When you see this house you will understand the incredible feat this intruder undertook. Mind you we only saw the back fence, or rather the massive wall, so there must be an easier point of wrongful entry.

One home we see is having extensions and what an eye-popper! It is almost 2 houses worth with an above ground walkway between. Phew! Back at the visitor centre we have a quick break and change to a double decker bus. I'm pretty excited but I find the tour underwhelming. Natasha our guide is a born and bred local with a 13 year old daughter so this qualifies her for knowing everything. It becomes evident that she doesn't when she fills gaps by repeating 3 times what she just said, telling us what street we are crossing and the piece de resistance - pointing out a frozen yoghurt store. She was really giving me the shits by the 2nd hour and after mentioning twice that we would be going past the orphanage where Marilyn Monroe grew up, she lost me completely. The tour ends and I certainly am glad I did it as I could never have done it all on my own, on foot. LA is so spread out and huge, the maps do not give you any indication how big it really is.

At this point I will digress a moment. I normally write in the past tense but this time am using the present. If I switch between the two ignore it, I can't be bothered all the time to fix it. Will finish here but there is more to this day.