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So after our eleventh flight so far landed in Los Angeles, I couldn’t contain my excitement in seeing my Dad. As we came through to baggage reclaim I saw his face through the glass door and I started running towards him. Seeing him after 4 months was just wonderful and after 5 minutes it felt like I’d seen him the week before.
After waiting for an hour for our bags we drove to our hotel in Santa Monica and went for a drink and a very late dinner. It was great being able to relay all our stories to someone after being just the two of us for so long, but I think Dad only heard every other word because we were telling them so quick! We sank a couple of bottles of red wine, some burgers and went to bed for a good night’s sleep before our fun packed weekend began.
The next morning over breakfast we set out a plan of all the things we wanted to do in LA before Daddy left on the Monday. This gave us 2 and a half days to pack in Santa Monica, Hollywood, Beverley Hills, Rodeo Drive, Venice Beach, Universal Studios, a baseball game (LA Dodgers vs. San Diego Padres) and most importantly, dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse – the most incredible place you’ll ever eat steak! Although Daddy and I have already done all those things this is Kav’s first time to the USA so he was very excited. In fact, a lot of things we are doing on this trip I’ve done before but when I was much younger so doing then a second time will be like doing it for the first time.
We started Saturday morning with a walk down the Santa Monica pier in glorious sunshine and then jumped in the car to take a drive north up Santa Monica Boulevard to see Hollywood and the Walk of Fame, Beverley Hills and Sunset Boulevard. As I remembered Hollywood isn’t that nice at all. It’s incredibly tacky and touristy and full of ‘actors’ dressed up in ridiculous costumes asking for money to pose for photos with them. The only interesting attraction is the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre where stars are asked to place foot and handprints into cement for people to see. Next door is the Kodak Theatre where the Oscars (and the American Idol Final) are held, and for 3 miles down Hollywood Boulevard is the Walk of Fame, where all kinds of actors, singers, performers and influential people in the arts have their names written on stars (also where Julia Roberts picked up Richard Gere in Pretty Woman). After 10 cringe inducing minutes and a disappointed look from Kav’s face (he was expecting glitz and glamour with the occasional star walking past) we were off to see the much nicer sites of Beverley Hills. Beverley Hills is the complete opposite. It’s full of lush trees, clean and tidy streets, has hardly any traffic and it’s so posh, they even have their own design of road signs which are far more attractive and go with the whole “I’m rich, you’re not” feel of the place. Beverley Hills almost centres itself around Rodeo Drive which is the equivalent to our Bond Street – you never really feel that comfortable walking down it unless you have a black American Express card or a double barreled surname. Kav was in awe though and it seemed to repair some of damage that Hollywood did to his thoughts on LA. We had a lovely lunch in the sun and then drove back down towards Santa Monica and stopped off at Venice Beach to take a walk and see the sites.
If you’ve never been to Venice Beach before I’ll explain what it is. Venice Beach is a very long boardwalk (by the beach) where many different ‘people’ come to sell things, buy things or generally walk around showing off their tans, muscles or bodies. It’s full of freaks and weirdoes and there is a constant smell of pot and dirty people – think Camden on the beach! There are lots of people selling art, jewelry, ‘Your name on a grain of rice’ or just sat there waiting for people to ask them to tell them their fortune or read their palms. There are people with street acts like dancing, singing or stupid people who paint themselves in silver and stand still for hours at a time thinking this is a talent and asking for money. It also houses the famous Muscle Beach where very muscley and bronzed men come to work off and show off all at the same time – and women say men can’t do two things at once! Venice Beach isn’t somewhere I would go every weekend but it’s an experience and one that cannot be matched!
Now we get to the good part – Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. The Cormack’s discovered this little beauty years and years ago on a USA vacation and we’ve never looked back. They have restaurants in most US cities and every time I’m in the states I try to visit at least once! It is quite honestly the best beef you will ever taste in your life – just ask Kav. Apologies to vegetarians out there, but Kav believes vegetarians aren’t real people and shouldn’t be allowed to eat. This is a man who needs meat with every meal. He won’t allow me to cook anything that doesn’t have meat in it and he would never order anything that doesn’t have meat in it. Plus steak is his favourite meat so Daddy and I both knew he was in for a real treat! I couldn’t wait to see the look on his face and hear the words that would come out of his mouth. Kav ordered a T-Bone (42oz) and Daddy and I both ordered a rib eye on the bone as well as some creamed spinach and some fries. Ruth’s Chris serve their steaks on a small plate which comes out at 250° with your steak sizzling in butter on top. It really doesn’t need any more explanation; just believe that this is the best steak you will ever eat. Even the smell will make you believe it. Our steaks came out, Kav took one bite and the first 3 words that come out of his mouth were “wow”. He couldn’t believe what he was tasting, and Dad and I sat and watched him devour it in complete silence and adoration. Amazingly, that wasn’t enough and when asked if we wanted anything for dessert we ordered 2 cheesecakes between us. American cheesecake is the best and being from Ruth’s Chris we knew it would be good and it was, although had you eaten the whole serving in one go after a steak covered in butter I think your heart would give up while you slept. (Kav and I finished the uneaten cheesecake the next evening in our room!).
The next day (the Sunday) Dad had booked tickets for the afternoon Dodgers v Padres baseball game. I knew Kav was desperate to watch some live American sport while we were here and I remembered having some fun at a baseball game when I was younger so I was excited. But, I wasn’t sure I understood the rules of the game so over breakfast Dad spent 5 minutes going over the rules so I could follow the game. A baseball game can last anywhere from a couple of hours to seven or eight hours and that’s a long time to sit and watch something if you have no idea what’s going on! You have to take the whole thing seriously and by that I don’t just mean the watching of the game, but the experience that goes with it too. First, you have to wear something with a team name on it, so Kav and I got Dodgers hoodies and T-Shirts. Second, you have to know the various chants and musical interludes as well as the “Take me out to the ballgame” song which luckily I’ve known since I was a child somehow, and third, you have to be prepared to eat and drink your own body weight in popcorn, hotdogs, pretzels, peanuts, nachos and beer. We had all of that except the popcorn. As soon as we got in Daddy had disappeared to get beer, peanuts and nachos. Half an hour later (and only 1 inning in) he was up again asking us what hotdog we wanted and getting more beer. The third time he asked we both turned around with green faces and bloated stomachs and informed him that we actually couldn’t eat any more! It was a great afternoon though and I managed to follow the game with ease and thoroughly enjoy it, and the end result was great with the Dodgers winning!
As if we hadn’t consumed enough that day, Dad and I thought it would be great to take Kav to his first Benihana experience. Benihana is a famous Japanese restaurant found all over the world (there’s 2 in London) where chefs prepare and cook your food Tepanyaki style on a hotplate in front of you. Eight people can sit around 1 hotplate and the very skilled and quick chefs make it very fun and entertaining.
On our last day with Daddy, we dragged him to Universal Studios. I’m a huge fan of these kinds of movie parks as not only are there great rides and attractions but a ‘backlot tour’ as well. The backlot tour is a guided tram ride through the sound studios and exterior lots they use for filming movies and TV shows. For example we drove down Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives, saw the Bates Motel from Psycho and drove past a miniature Skull Island they used in filming Peter Jackson’s King Kong. We also saw various cars from movies such as the Delorian from Back to the Future, jeeps and cages from Jurassic Park and cars from the Fast and the Furious. Sadly, two of my favourite parts of the tour were destroyed in the fire last July – the town square and clock tower from Back to the Future and the King Kong tunnel attraction. Kav loved it though and I think even Daddy enjoyed it again too. We did the new Simpsons ride which was just fantastic, the new The Mummy inside rollercoaster and the Backdraft ‘show’ where they tell you how they filmed the movie using so much fire and then put you in a room they used for a scene to show you how the fire is controlled and used – very hot indeed!
After that it was time for Daddy to leave and go back home to London. We said a very teary goodbye and Kav and I headed back into the park to do a few more things before we left. Not knowing what it was we got in line for the House of Horrors. I was still upset from saying goodbye to Dad so wasn’t really listening to what the person on the intercom was saying – something about “they won’t touch you so don’t touch them”. Kav and I were stopped just as we got to the front of the line and told that it would be just a few more minutes before we could go in. Finally we were let in and we started walking through what seemed like a maze, very dark and decorated like a horror house. “Fine”, I thought, “I can cope with that, it’s not that scary”. Boy was I wrong. At this point I now have to get Kav to relay what happened because I was so paralyzed with fear through the rest of the house that I don’t remember very much. After a minute or so of walking, suddenly out of nowhere a person, dressed as a mummy, jumped out of a dark place and scared the living crap out of me. I screamed a blood curdling scream and as I tried to hide behind Kav I smacked my nose on his shoulder and was in a lot of pain. The Mummy then went back to his place to scare the people after us. Basically it’s a scary house that people walk around and various staff members dressed in scary costumes jump out of nowhere or appear in order to scare you. At one point we walked past a Chucky Doll stuck to a wall, and right next to it was a standing Chucky doll, or what we thought was a doll. As we walked past it he jumped out at us and I screamed again and just started running. We then had to walk though a corridor of fake hanging bodies in plastic bags and of course you think one of them will be real and scare you so your heart is pounding harder and harder, but thankfully no one does. You see it’s very clever. Nothing happens when you expect it. No one jumps out of strategically placed dark corners, they come alive when you least expect it. The crunch came for me when towards the end a very tall, big Texas Chainsaw Massacre type character came walking towards us just after I had been scared by someone’s arm coming out at me through a graveyard iron fence. I lost control at that point, screamed and bolted. As I turned to see where this character was I saw it was following me and as I was about to burst into tears and scream at it to stop I saw a light - it was the end of the house. I’ve never been so relieved! When Kav caught up with me outside I was physically shaking but it was the best ride/show/attraction I’ve ever done in my life!! Even now though when I think of that last bit I get tears in my eyes. I’ve never been so distraught in my life thinking in that quite moment that I was in fact going to die.
I’m going to leave you now with those harrowing thoughts, because my next blog will be from when we left LA to where we are now.
Catch you next time,
Lots of love xxx
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