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Virtually no-one has had anything good to say about Los Angeles so it was with some reluctance that we entered the city in rush hour (7 lanes of standing traffic) having had the bright idea to skip San Diego to spend 3 days in downtown LA! We reasoned that given the population of the city, surely it can't be that bad and thankfully we were right! We landed on our feet immediately having chosen to stay in a hotel near Hollywood Blvd behind the Kodak theatre, called the Orchid Suites Hotel.By luck, we ended up with a cheap and cheerful 'room' that turned out to be a pretty much a whole apartment that was bigger than our whole house back home! Complete with large kitchen, dining area, it was like a home away from home and we managed to make the most of it by eating proper home cooked meals for the first time on the trip (bottles of Aussie "Big Cahona" wine for a $1.99 helped wash it down). There's obviously been some regeneration around Hollywood Boulevard because its bright, brash and touristy but not as grim and gritty as we'd been led to believe. It was also really close to LA's newish metro system which we meant we could get downtown and to Universal Studios really easily - though we kind of felt we were the only people aware there was a metro - every time we used it, it was empty! Even at rush hour times... Anyway, tickets were only $1.50 which made it very cheap indeed and it was it was interesting to note (given the strikes on the London Underground on reduction in ticket office staff) that all of the stations appeared to be pretty much unmanned (no manned ticket office either; buy from the machines or don't get a ticket).The metro still isn't that pervasive though and to get to the west of LA (e.g. for Venice Beach) you still need a car or bus.
Lonely Planet was making a big play of the fact that downtown LA is now walkable and a new generation is living/working/going out in downtown making it a vibrant place to be, but to our eyes it still seemed like a lot of US "CBDs" - lots of large buildings but very little life, especially in the evening.We did visit the original Mexican area of LA (origins of LA) and it was "the day of the dead" so lots of Mexican people walking around with cool skeletal/ghostly painted faces. The Disney theatre in downtown was spectacular (see photos) and the rest of the theatre district was beautiful but even at 6pm, there was no-one around on the streets apart from a few tourists which was strange given the huge population of the city: for us "no-one walks in LA" still seems to be true.
Probably the highlight of our LA trip was our visit to Universal Studios.I didn't really want to go (even with discounted tickets from our hotel, entry was $65 each so more than blowing our daily budget) but Erin persuaded me and I have to admit within 5 mins I had a big grin on my face having been on my first ride - the Simpson ride, which was our favourite and caught me completely cold as our first ride of the day and scared the daylights out of me. Going on a week day outside school holidays meant the place wasn't crowded at all and we only waited 5 mins or less for any of the main rides so got them all done in a day. Universal also had one of those "only in America type things" where they pumped cold air across the park to ease the 35 degree heat. Pleasant as that was to be misted with cold air while you're waiting for a ride, it did feel a tad indulgent. Other Universal highlights were the studio tour (Keanu Reeves was 'hanging out'!), the plane landing during the waterworld ride and the Shrek ride!
On our last day we visited the Getty Museum which has spectacular views of LA and some great photography exhibits although we needed to spend a day to see all the art there and only had two hours.Before heading to the airport we stopped off at Venice Beach and caught the sunset on the beach which was a lovely and somehow fitting end to the US leg of our trip.California was voting on legalising Marijuana and it was interesting to see the "health clinics" for medicinal Marijuana on Venice Beach with young (stoned) people trying to cajole you in for a "free consultation" to see if you needed medicinal Marijuana - I assume if you indicated you had "painful back-ache" or similar you get a prescription.The other thing we witnessed at the end our of US leg was the Democrats win both the governorship & the senate race in California bucking the national trend of the Republicans taking all. Having been bombarded with political ads on the radio every 20 mins as we drove down the coast and on the TV, we really got into the governor race which was characterised by intense negative campaigning (e.g. "Meg Whitman wrecks jobs") and personality politics (political parties of candidates were barely mentioned).In the end despite spending a purported $140m of her own money on campaigning, Meg Whitman was beaten by veteran democrat Gerry Brown. I hope he can help turn around California and get the unemployment rate down below current 12.5% - it was sad to see the sunshine state struggling and given its usual optimism, it didn't feel right.
So, having driven 2200 miles in 31 days and stayed in 16 different hotel rooms, we were sad to say goodbye to the US after such an amazing few weeks, but also excited to move onto a country - New Zealand - that neither of us have visited before.
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