Los Angeles

Its been a while since I had time to update what we've been doing. So I will have to try to remember as we are now in Seattle. LA - everybody told us not to bother, its big, crowded, polluted and dirty - but it wasn't. It was great. We stayed in Santa Monica at a very plush IYA and visited many a famous thing. Disneyland (see the separate entry) was my highlight but we also did a city tour of the rich and famous. You know, on your right is famous person's house, or at least one of them used to live there etc. It was exceedingly dull after about 5 minutes. Although the houses here generally are really interesting; a far cry from a brick veneer box. We went to Hollywood Bulouvarde and saw the stars names on the pavement, and took pics of LA from the lookout and saw the Hollywood sign. At Rodeo Drive, also pretty dull, we had a chat to a couple of union members on a pickett against a company that was paying carpenters less than the bottom wage. It was quite a contast seeing them protesting in such an affluent place.


We did have fun though when we hired a couple of pushies and rode along Santa Monica Beach through Venice Beach and Muscle Beach (where Al flashed his muscles) and visited the Venice Canals which were a collection of canals with the most beautiful and unusual collection of little houses, like dolls houses, all along them. The gardens were exquisite.


We also tried the "World Famous" hot dog from a vendor at Santa Monica Pier (our first American Hot Dog) which defies description in the worst possible way. eeeerrrrgggg!!!!! I will post some pics later.


We took advantage of the Hostel guided walking tour of Santa Monica with Colin, a british expat. The most interesting thing was a display of crosses put out by the Viet Nam Vetrans for Peace. Every sunday they put a cross on the beach for every American soldier killed in Iraq. They have picture displays of soldiers and civilians and a tally of all those killed and injured. It was very sad and very moving.