Tinseltown Daze: Hooray for Hollywood

We were feeling extremely lucky that the day had decided to be lovely and sunny… because we would be spending a great deal of it on the top open deck of a double decker tour bus. What we hadn’t factored in was the wind chill.

So our private ( read earth shatteringly exy) transfer arrived as we walked out to the parking lot and off we went to start the day at Santa Monica Pier. Trouble was, nothing opens until 10am which is when we were scheduled to catch the first tour bus of the day. So we wandered down to the beach and took a few photos then took the steep climb back up to road level to find the bus stop.

Before we knew it we were sitting on the top deck with the wind in our hair ( and teeth chattering) we set off through Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and other swanky suburbs with the tour monologue prattling on in our ears about which house someone or other died in, or which house someone or other was born in, or which street someone notable was murdered in. And lets not forget which church held their funeral and then of course, which cemetery they are buried in. Yep… that was the topic of the whole diatribe until we reached La Brea where we disembarked and were assaulted by the tar smell of the pits just up the road.

This was one of DMM’s MUST DO’S so we made our way to the entry of the Page museum and Tar Pits to discover some cultural stuff about LA. The displays of all the animals that have been dug up on this one city block were just amazing. Apparently, the animals ( back in the day) thought that the bubbling tar pits were waterholes and just stepped in and never stepped out. And judging by the ‘tester’ thingy in the museum, it would have been a BIG ask to drag yourself back out of it. The displays ranged from mammoths, to sabre tooth big cats, to Dire Wolves, to vultures to tiny sea shells. I can’t imagine how they figure out which bone belongs to which animal because they all come out jumbled up. Totally cool exhibits though. Worth the trip for sure. Outside on the grounds of the museum you can actually walk around and check out fenced off bubbling and oozing tar coming out of lawns, out of bubbling pits and out of pretty much random places. There are also current dig sites you can peer down into and volunteers to ask those silly questions.

The smell is something else. Asphalt on a hot day and then some… or tar shampoo with a double dose of tar.

One little grumble about the Hop on/Hop off buses… they don’t connect well and you are often left waiting long periods of time to catch the next one. And they don’t always slow down at the stops so then you have to wait for the NEXT one – which happened to us – they sailed on past and we were pretty grumpy to be left waiting again.

Anyhoo… we finally got to Hollywood BLVD and were so freakin hungry that we made a b-line for Macca’s and their free wifi. I think I practically inhaled my lunch ( at 3pm ) as we’d missed out on breakfast already, thanks to the weird connections of the buses.

So shopping for tacky souvies was then next order of the day and buy them we did. We detoured into the Disney Ghirardelli store for some chocolatey goodness and then soldiered on to Madame Tussauds where we met up with a few of our more famous mates. It didn’t take the selfie queen long to be selfie-ing all over the place with the likes of Leo, Johnny Depp, Marilyn Monroe and of course, Thor. And she even had a little chat with Obama himself. Sadly, her movie education is lacking, as I had to try and explain who most of the vintage Hollywood stars were. She didn’t even know Bob Hope, however, I was amazed she knew Charlie Chaplin. Fred and Ginger didn’t even rate a photos as she’d no idea who they were ( sharp intake of breath by the mother at that point). Although, she didn’t know what I was talking about when we came around a corner and were met by Patrick Swayze standing on a log and all I said was ‘nobody puts baby in a corner’… she looked at me like I’d gone mad, so perhaps she is lacking in the 80’s classics too. She did however line up for a shot with Forrest Gump so we had a win there.

We really enjoyed this, despite being rushed for time and only just making the next bus, this was definitely a highlight of the day. We thought we were home and hosed being back on the bus in good time. True to form, the connecting bus insisted on waiting another half hour so that made us late back to our pick up spot for the return private transfer by at least 45 minutes.. we spent a little time on the bus in prayer that this stinky bus hadn’t just cost us a three figure sum in the form of a shiny black car transfer.

Holding our breath and literally bolting down a very steep road to get back to the pier we rounded the corner to see the lights on in a shiny black car still waiting for us - that was worth every single cent.

A long trip home in peak hour but so glad to be back at the hotel and flicking the heater on to FULL BLAST, we dined on leftovers we’d collected in the fridge ( thank god for microwaves) and are flaking it big time because another big day looms in the form of our first official Disney Day.