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Our flight arrived late afternoon back into LAX. Last time we were here was at the beginning of the trip in Venice beach. This time we stayed in Hollywood - sounds glamorous right? Ha!
We had a dinner reservation booked for 8pm at Musso & Frank grill on Hollywood Boulevard. We made it later so we would have time to relax in our hotel room and get ready…..however the airport transfer van, which had another 5 people in it, drove alllllll over LA and dropped us off last. We were literally driving around for nearly 2hrs! I didn't tip the driver and it felt good. So we had to rapidly get changed for dinner and walk to the Boulevard. We chose this particular restaurant because it is one of the classics in Hollywood. Opened in 1919 it was known as Charley Chaplin's favourite place to eat and was also where Marylyn Munroe had dinner when she was in town. They have a rule there that if a celebrity is having dinner, you must respect their privacy and not hassle them. According to Sav, Meryl Streep's daughter was sitting across from us.
After dinner we wandered along the Hollywood walk of fame with all the stars. We followed that until we got to the famous Chinese Theatre where celebs do the whole 'put their hands in cement and sign it' thing. The Hollywood Blvd was a very strange place full of strange people. I imagine once upon a time it would have been very glamorous, but now it seems like it's full of people who want to be famous.
That was about as eventful as our last night got. It was a pretty sobering night. We went back to our rooms and packed our suitcase one last time, thinking about the last 6 weeks. Blown away by how much we had done but also excited to get home and just have a normal week.
Our final day in LA and in fact our trip was inspired by some information we got from the locals the first time with arrived in LA. First we had breakfast/lunch at hooters for a laugh/perv then we caught a cab up to the Griffith Park Observatory. This gave a great view of the whole of LA but was also the perfect backdrop with the Hollywood sign behind us. Next was to make our way to the abandoned zoo. Yes that's right, there is an abandoned LA Zoo. It was possible to trek to it from the observatory but the warning signs about mountain lions were enough to put us off. So we took another cab to the location that Google maps gave us, and sure enough it was there. It was opened in 1902 and closed in 1966. All the animal enclosures' are still there complete with bars. The gates are open so you can go in and get yourself some very eerie photo's. Seeing the ruins of the animal enclosures was morbid enough BUT on top of that, the park was hosting a scare camp that weekend. Basically you pay money to spend the night in an abandoned zoo and have the life scared out of you. They had a budget of $2million, which included props, fireworks and paid actors - who were setting up while we were there. So one minute we would be silently walking around the ruins of the gorilla enclosure and a zombie would appear from the woods and wave. Very unsettling.
Once we had seen the old zoo, it was time to catch a cab back to the hotel and get our transfer to LAX. Oh the drama! The cab company couldn't find our location in the old zoo. We waited for what seemed a lifetime - to the point where we thought we might actually miss our flight because we were in a remote part of the city. Eventually a strange Russian appeared in a cab so we jumped in and got out of there, grabbed our luggage and headed to LAX one last time.
A lot of people I spoke to prior to this trip didn't like LA. I think I have to agree with them too but I feel like Los Angeles is similar to London where you have to get beyond the tourist stuff and experience the everyday life.
Our final flight home was via Sydney, and we basically ended our trip how we started it. Being awake for 30 odd hours it was such a relief to finally get back to Brisbane airport to my car - with a flat battery.
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