HOLLYWOOD, HERE WE COME!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

I had a simple bagel and fruit for breakfast at the hotel and TK had breakfast at Grinders, a short walk from here. I mailed our Valentine's Day cards and then decided to walk to downtown San Pedro. There is a Warner Theater, but it is not as nicely kept as ours in Erie. There are antique shops, art galleries, cafes, flower shops, and more and as I walked further it looked a lot like downtown Erie.

Back at the hotel we signed up for the "Movie Stars' Homes, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, and Beach Cities" tour for this afternoon. We are supposed to see the Hollywood sign, the Chinese Theater, Sunset Strip, and Rodeo Drive, etc. I'm afraid a movie producer or director might spot us and want us to be in a blockbuster movie.

In case that does not happen, we may meet fellow cruisers later in the hotel lounge.

Our first stop on the tour was Venice Beach, full of street vendors, sidewalk performers, dozens and dozens of little shops, and kids who should probably be in school. The beach and shops seemed to go on and on. This would definitely be a destination for daytime. We drove by the 100 year old Santa Monica pier that actually has an amusement park on it.

Our experienced tour guide, Arther, (over 80 yrs. old) and has been a guide for 40 years. He was friends with Jimmy Stewart and served as a body guard for Hugh Hefner. He told us to check out the restaurants and if they were marked A, B, or C. “A” restaurants have passed a rigid health inspection, the others have not. Every restaurant must clearly display its designation according to the state of California. TK and I think this is a good idea.

Arther told us that Los Angeles has a population of 3.5 million and when one counts the county’s 47 cities, the population is 7 million. He also said that LA is trying to get two football teams to move there, including the Jacksonville Panthers and the Buffalo Bills.

We drove by Rancho Park, #1 in the fabric industry, and Century City. We stopped in Beverly Hills to shop on Rodeo Drive at Van Cleef & Arpel, Tiffany’s, Gucci, Saks Fifth Avenue, Lalique, Hermes, Michael Kors, Gucci, Armani, and Etro. I especially liked the diamond butterfly necklace and the diamond bird of paradise necklace, but TK would not buy them for me. Arther showed us the spots where Pretty Woman was filmed with Julia Roberts.

We saw the homes of the stars in Beverly Hills, including Jimmy Stewart, Jimmy Durante, Carol Burnett (still), and Walt Disney. The homes were like those along South Shore Drive and Glenwood in Erie-tudors, prairie style, boulevards, lots of property, fenced in with shrubs, slick automobiles (BMW, Mercedes). Arther showed us that the mud slides were just 5 blocks away and cars could not go near. I did not realize that the stars’ homes were so close in the city and that the danger of mudslides was right there—I thought the homes were way off in the distance. The terrain was not unlike the hills in our neighborhood in Erie.

We drove onto Sunset Boulevard / Sunset Strip and saw the homes of Paris Hilton and Halle Berry, the Viper Room owned by Johnny Depp. Arther said this area was the HOT spot to go-burgers are $25.

We spent an hour in Hollywood to get a photo of the sign, which is 81 years old and the letters are 45 feet tall. Besides Grauman Theater (sp?), the star studded sidewalk, the Kodak theater, and the El Capitaine, there was a glorious mall! We saw the stars of John Travolta, Keanu Reeves, and Sandra Bullock. I was looking for Tom Cruise’s star. I did see his handprints and footprints in front of the Grauman Theater.

We stopped briefly at Universal Studios and then returned to the hotel. We saw Karen and Allan from near Detroit, Michigan, Cruise Critic friends from last year’s Grand Princess. Their flight had gone well and we chatted for a while. TK and I went to a late dinner at the nearby Green Onion, another Mexican restaurant.