DAY EIGHTEEN - Monday 2 May 2011: LA & Malibu

It grows on you!  The first impressions gained on Hollywood Blvd are not what LA is all about. It's vibrant, full of people rushing here and there - okay, some of them look a bit dodgy, but it's full of life and creativity. Hollywood is amazingly out of this world. Home to the rich and famous.  Home of the good old motion picture. You'll hate it or love it. A magical place where your dreams can be made or broken.

We decided to hire a car for a couple of days so we could have a nosey around without the hassle of buses, subways etc.  Monday was another scorching hot day - in the 90s - so an air-condition car was very welcome.  We drove up into the Hollywood hills - along narrow winding lanes skirted by security-heavy, spectacular houses sitting under the Hollywood sign.



Neal in violation of the no hiking sign

We didn't really know where we were going after that as we didn't have a map (clever planning) so we drove in heavy traffic through Universal city, Warner Bros land, until we found ourselves asleep at the traffic lights with people behind us going crazy beeping horns and waving arms!  How embarrassing and how dangerous. Can you imagine us both sitting there in the heavy LA traffic, eyes shut... oh dear! Anyway, we pulled into a car park and went for a pizza. Always a good solution, and this particular place (California Pizza Kitchen) was spraying cold water onto the outside seating area - brilliant idea in that heat! 



is he still asleep?

 Refreshed, and awake, we drove on through cowboy country (it really is on the edge of the desert) until, unexpectedly, we found the ocean.  Malibu!  Lovely place and the pelicans were back!

Back to reality and Hollywood... (never thought I'd say that).



is he alive, is he dead - nobody seems to care!