In fairness, the BBC weather forecast had predicted it would be overcast today, but it hadn't predicted rain, although I packed my rain jacket just in case...turns out I was right to be prepared.
I wasn't best pleased with the start to the day either. I had a 48 hour hop on hop off bus pass, and aside from being slightly worried about whether the buses would accept the confirmation I had on my STA travel itinerary sheet, rather than some official looking voucher, there was also the issue of where the nearest bus stop was. Last night's hostel receptionist was pretty useless and there are no maps in this hostel, which is pretty irritating if you ask me as normally hostels are pretty clued up on things like this. The guy this morning was extremely helpful and phoned up the company (who were confused about which stop was nearest...) and I ended up wandering around for absolutely ages to find the bus. None of the stops are labelled so its a case of wander round, hope for the best and flag down a bus roughly in the right area. Turns out the main reason for all the confusion (other than the lack of bus stop labelling around the route), is that they have changed the route as of a week ago, which actually does include a stop near our hostel, but this also seemed to vary depending on the time of day.
When eventually I tracked down a bus, as predicted the bus driver was confused by my "voucher", but let me on anyway and said I'd need to register it further down the line. I kind of expected this but at least after all this trouble I was able to get on a bus, but still frustratingly I'd wasted half a day.
I suppose on the plus side, the weather had put tourists off and my bus was pretty empty, so I didn't find myself queuing to get on it. I did, however find myself sitting inside, rather than on the top deck (which had been so popular in San Francisco) as it had started raining and was rather chilly.
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| This is where the Oscars are held! |
Even though I was later in the day, it made more sense to head over to Hollywood which involved changing buses, because of the way Los Angeles is designed (there are three hop on hop off bus routes and where I'm based you have to connect at one point to get onto another). At least I was able to find out more about the city, although as I learned, barring facts about celebrities who have spent money/got into debt/died/struggled to make ends meet before coming famous LA doesn't really have much else in terms of history and culture so the buildings aren't particularly interested. When there is a point of interest which says "this is LA's largest cemetery" you know they are scraping the barrel. One of the stops "Pinks Hot Dogs", has individual hot dogs named after celebrities. |
| Harry Potter |
I passed by the stop for Beverly Hills, which I will return to when the weather is better (which is meant to be tomorrow) and headed for the walk of fame and the home of the Oscars - the Dolby Theatre. What I didn't realise is that the walk of fame actually includes musicians as well as actors and they have a different symbol underneath the name of the star. So I found the likes of Elton John, the Beatles, Michael Jackson and so on. There were also Disney characters like Mickey Mouse. I expected it to be a lot busier, and I think the weather and the lack of school holidays was a huge advantage as it meant I got some really clear photographs. Whilst I was there, they were setting up for a film premiere. Not sure what it was for, but I gather this is a frequent event here in Hollywood.
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