La La Land

I'm going to fess up here, having never been to LA before I was ridiculously over-excited, my expectations were high - I was craving the all-out glamour of Sunset Boulevard, Rodeo Drive and Hollywood Boulevard on a 'Pretty Woman' scale, without the street-walker element, of course. I was hoping to spot Ryan Gosling in Starbucks or Harrison Ford filling up his car at a petrol station. I was well and truly up for some shameless celebrity spotting.

My excitement reached fever-pitch when 50 miles outside of LA the traffic on the 16-lane freeway ground to a standstill. Which we worked out was like driving to London and grinding to a halt around Swindon before crawling the next 50 miles in to town. LA is massive. Thankfully, the slow-moving traffic meant I could peer in the tinted windows of every oversize SUV that went passed in the hope I might see Will Ferrell or someone. I didn't, but it whiled away the 2 hours it took to get downtown.

Anyway, we had bigger fish to fry because the following day we were off to The Magic Kingdom, the stuff childhood dreams are made of. I was going to get a pair of Minnie Mouse ears by hook or by crook. We made a plan of attack, arrive no later than 7am so we could be first into park when it opened at 8am and hit up Space Mountain, Splash Mountain and the Matterhorn Bobsleds before anyone else.

What we hadn't bargained for is that after we'd strolled down the famous Main Street (very impressive) that we'd be corralled with all the other early-arrivals behind a rope flanked by security guards, just in case anyone should try to break in to the Happiest Place on Earth before it opens.
We wonder what would happen to us if we did make a run for it? Perhaps we'd see the ugly side of Disney and be dragged off into a back room where Mickey and Goofy would be waiting with baseball bats.

Suddenly, there's a fanfare, the rope drops and to the strains of Zippidedoda we sprint to Space Mountain, elbowing toddlers out of the way. Space Mountain is awesome. It's all brilliant and so slick - even the tamer rides like Pirates of the Caribbean and Indiana Jones are lavishly detailed and over the top.

But by mid-afternoon we are flagging. We get lost in ToonTown and Frontierland. We can't find Mickey Mouse anywhere and then discover that these days you have to queue up for an hour to meet the mouse himself. The Minnie Mouse ears cost $20. I try them on and then decide that they probably  won't come in very handy on the Inca Trail. Walking around Disneyland for the day is more exhausting that climbing out of the Grand Canyon and you can't get a beer for love nor money either.

However, the fireworks display over Sleeping Beauty's castle at the end of the night makes up for it - it is amazing and I have to say, does rival Sydney Harbour on NYE. At one point Tinkerbell actually flies over the castle with fireworks going off behind her. Magic.

Next day we are decide to visit all the hotspots. We drive up to the Hollywood sign and discover if you actually get anywhere near it you get arrested these days. So we take photos from afar.

We cruise along Sunset Boulevard, because you can't just drive down Sunset Boulevard, you have to cruise down it.  It is a bit of a dump in all honesty - not oozing glamour at all, but lined with 7/11s, McDonalds and not a great deal else. Hollywood Boulevard is entertaining, for about ten minutes - it is mayhem we visit Grauman's Chinese Theatre, walk the Walk of Fame, which is crammed with wannabes dressed up as Batman, Superman, Iron Man who let tourists pose with them for photos for a few bucks. It reminded me of Leicester Square - tacky but one of those places you've heard so much about you just have to visit and then are disappointed when it doesn't live up to expectations.

There is one big plus point about Hollywood Boulevard however, the Roosevelt hotel. The pool bar is meant to be one of the best places to celeb spot and escape from Hollywood Boulevard on Hollywood Boulevard. The only problem is we aren't staying there, because we can't afford to. So we brazen it out, march in like we know where we are going. Find the pool and plonk ourselves down on a couple of loungers. In short, it was the best people watching experience - LA Lakers players, actor-types reading scripts on daybeds, models jumping in the pool, swaying palm trees and over-priced cocktails. It felt like the real LA experience, if only for a couple of drinks. No sign of Ryan though.

But fun as the pool bar was we still didn't feel we had found the true Californian experience, so we enlisted the help of a local, namely one of my old uni mates from journo college who now lives in Santa Monica.
She shows us Santa Monica and Venice Beach and they are both achingly hip and totally unique. Santa Monica beach is like something out of Baywatch - a wide, sandy beach with the classic Californian lifeguard towers and roller bladers along the promenade. We have breakfast - organic coffee and organic acai berry smoothies to wash down our organic, bio-dynamic omlettes. Feeling superhuman - and who wouldn't after all that organic goodness - we take a stroll around the Venice canals. Apparently a while ago some town planner who loved the real Venice decided Santa Monica needed a Venice of its own so he designed the canal system that is now lined with jaw-dropping glass fronted beach pads.

Venice Beach is a different story - it is like Camden on Sea - stalls line the prom offering tarot readings, there are smoke shops, break dancers and even a freak show. It's a circus and it is fascinating. We watch beefcakes pumping iron on Muscle Beach and skateboarders at the skate park. Everyone is there to be seen and the atomosphere on a Saturday afternoon is electric.
My mate tells me that people who live in Santa Monica don't often venture into downtown LA. And I can totally understand why - it has a culture that we didn't find anywhere on Sunset Boulevard. It seems Santa Monicans are well aware that they are living the real Californian dream. Shame we only discovered that on our last day in the USA.

Next stop, Lima and Cusco in Peru...
Love Beth x