Los Angeles - Day 4 🦣

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Hello there, fellow travellers! Welcome to another day in sunny Los Angeles. Today was to be a day of two halves and a quite cultural one too, but first I had to drag my weary bones and muscles out of bed, which sounds easier than it was after the last two days of marching about.

After a quick shower and breakfast, we were back out for a short drive down to La Brea Tar Pits. You may have seen the iconic image of the woolly mammoths stuck in the tar; that’s where this is from. It’s a very important archaeological site that has gathered millions of ice age animal fossils, which were preserved by the tar pits that are still there today. It was a fascinating museum which has a working fossil lab and fossilised mammoths, sabre-tooth tigers, dire wolves, giant ground sloths and more. We had a good time exploring the inside and the tar pits on the grounds outside before taking a short walk through to the grounds of the LA County Museum of Art (LACMA).

There are a couple of iconic art pieces that you can see without even stepping into the building, so we spent some time walking under “Elevated Mass”; a huge boulder suspended above a sunken walkway.

A short walk round to the other side of the building brought us to another, and possibly more, iconic art installation: “Urban Light”.

After prancing among the lamp posts, we found ourselves at the entrance to the Academy Award Museum for our 11am entry. We spent a couple of hours exploring each floor learning about the behind the scenes of what it takes to make an Oscar worthy motion picture, from conception to award speech. Our favourites were the Barbie and Jaws exhibits, plus the dark room full of props! I may have spent a lot of my time looking for the next bench to sit on.

Our tummies began to rumble just before exiting the museum and we had driven passed an incredibly famous LA institution on the way to this area, which Barry had previously thought would not fit into the schedule and he was very excited to get there!

About 5 minutes later (and a couple of loops around the block to find a parking space), we got in line at Pink’s Hotdog, which began as a simple hotdog cart in 1939 and is now a small building with outdoor seating. There are photos of famous people who visit lining the walls and there don’t seem to be many missing. After perusing the menu of all the different options, I chose the “Shaq Dog” which is a chilli cheese-dog topped with onion rings and Barry chose the “Polish Reuben”, topped with pastrami and sauerkraut. Both were absolutely delicious, and I’m not usually a hot dog fan. We paired them with a black cherry drink for Barry and a homemade pink lemonade for me - perfect lunch!

Tummies satisfied, we drove back to the apartment for a blessed rest for my aching muscles, but today wasn’t over yet, friends, not at all! After a couple of hours of refreshing, we embarked on the second outing of the day, in the direction of Hollywood Boulevard.

We came to the Walk of Fame when we were here in 2021 and were able to spot a few stars we wanted to find and just soak in the chaotic atmosphere, but we headed in a new direction today, taking the metro one stop East and entering one of Barry’s most anticipated stops of this trip; Amoeba Music.

This place is massive and stocks thousand and thousand of vinyl, CDs, cassettes and collectibles, some quite hard to find. Barry was in heaven and I was slightly out of my depth! I tried not to be a limpet and let him venture off to find treasure, but I soon wound my way back to him. I had found two possible options for myself - Laura Marling’s latest album on vinyl or my favourite System of a Down record (Mesmerize). I ended up picking Laura Marling as it was cheaper and she is my all time favourite.

It was a good thing I found Barry in the end, as he had built a shortlist of six records and was finding it super tricky to narrow down to the two or three records that he had limited himself to buying! After about half an hour of careful consideration, he bravely put back approx 8 records and bought two special ones that he felt he won’t find easily elsewhere by NOFX and The Menzingers.

A few days before we left the bright lights of Norwich, Lauren Graham (known best for playing Lorelai Gilmore in Gilmore Girls) was awarded a star on Hollywood Boulevard. Naturally, this excited me and I insisted we pay her a visit. Luckily, it turned out we only had to walk about 25metres along the path from Amoeba to find her! After waiting my turn after a squealing pair of girls who were also excited to find her, I had my moment.

It was a 20minute walk back the way we’d come by metro and it goes by quickly when you’re constantly pointing at stars. “Colin Firth!” “Rupaul!” “Jeff Goldblum!”

It wasn’t long until we were back at the Chinese Theatre and surrounding shopping centre. Here is where we were to have dinner, which was slightly unconventional but we fell in love with Oakberry’s açai bowls in New York and were determined to have it again whilst back in the US, although we have discovered that there are two locations at home also! It wasn’t a big dinner, but that was okay, because we needed to save ourselves for snacks later…

At the Chinese Theatre! This is a Hollywood classic, where movie premieres take place and the stars have left their hand prints in concrete. Barry had a great time nerding out! We weren’t able to get this close last time as Benedict Cumberbatch was here premiering one of his new movies, but today it was our turn to walk through the doors as we’d booked a ticket to sit in the famous Screen 7, where actual premieres take place! The lobby was intricate and grand and had costumes from classic movies like Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. I busied myself with getting snacks and drinks while Barry dutifully scurried around getting pictures of the lobby and the theatre. The man who gave me my popcorn and Milk Duds told me my skin is flawless which caused me to malfunction - I thanked him and made my way back to Barry. It took a second because he was galavanting!

The seats were comfy and actually reclined slightly. We settled in as the movie title was projected onto the curtains. “TRON: Ares”. Perhaps not a movie we would choose to see at home but we were just happy to be sitting where movie magic happens. The gigantic curtains opened the reveal the equally gigantic screen and the previews began playing. No adverts!

We both quite enjoyed the movie overall and agreed that the huge screen and crazy speakers were well suited to this style of movie, which left our ears ringing at times. It was just worth it to sit where the stars have been!

It’s been another jam-packed day and a very cultured one overall!