Los Angeles - a big sprawl, but a nice one!

Rollerskate dancers on Venice Beach
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Anyways, back on the road, and drove to LA.  I knew LA was big, but this was ridiculous!  We seemed to be driving through the city for ages.  It appears that instead of having subways or extensive bus services throughout the city (although I did see a subway station, so I'm not sure), freeways run right across town, with exits on to city streets.  So while out of town the exits might be signed to another area, in town they're signed 2nd Street, that kind of thing.

We had a coupon for a motel, and tried that.  The guy at the desk wouldn't give us a room at the quoted price, so we bobbed down the road to a phone box and tried some other places.  Our luck was out, so went back and had the shady dude knock about $30 off the price, and took it.  It turned out to be a massive room, which was nice.  We settled in, had a few drinks, only to discover that our toilet was blocked.  It ended up getting pretty messy, with water flooding the bathroom floor.  So that had to all be sorted, while we sat on out beds, watching tele.  I've found my new favourite American TV programme.  People contact a show cause they think their partner is cheating on them, and this shows sets PIs and secret cameras on the suspects.  The evidence is then shown to the upset individual, and they then confront their partner, who in some cases is naked in the hot tub with his bit on the side, cameras and all.  It's brilliant television.  And amazing to think what people will allow to be shown on the tele with a bit of money offered to them.

No really, I will, honest
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Anyways, bathroom sorted, we got ready and headed out for the night.  Rick had read on the net about a place on Hollywood Blv that he thought was pretty similar to 5th Ave - everyone's favourite Indie club in Manchester!  So we headed there.  It turned out to be three clubs in one, with an indie room, a house room, and a hip-hop room.  It was cool.  It was also super expensive.  Nikki wasn't too impressed when they charged her a dollar for tap water!  Apparently it was for the cup...

Dancers on the beach
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It was a pretty good night, Nikki even mustered the courage from somewhere (the bottom of a glass of vodka, perhaps?!) to get up on the podium and dance her little heart out.

Nikki and I headed home after that, and the boys went out for a bit longer.  Some random drunken texts and phone calls later, we nodded off.

The next day we were woken by a 9am phone call, informing us that someone would be over to fix our toilet properly.  We tried to stay awake for it, but couldn't, and just let the guy knock himself out.  It was a bit of a nothingness day to be honest.  Mike and I went up and got breakfast (McDonald's) for all of us, and we sat around eating that.  The other two couldn't face moving, so we jumped in the car and drove to Venice beach.  Not just because it was a tourist attraction, but also because it was in Mike's 'Tony Haw's Proskater' game.  He's such a nerd.  (Mike I mean, I can't really comment on Tony Hawk.)

I could be a lifeguard on Baywatch!
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Venice beach is cool.  It was a Sunday, so I don't know if it's always how we saw it, but I liked it.  There are the usual shops along the beach, selling all kinds of stuff.  But there are also loads of hippie types, including one group we saw sitting on the street with a sign saying "I will work 4 marijuana."  We took a wander over to where the skate park was, although according to Mike "in the game you can skate everywhere around here!"  There were loads of guys skating on one side, but at another section there was a bit of a roller rink thing going on.  Except that rather than 8-year old girls on their rollerskates, it was 40-year old men, dancing to music.  Some of them weren't even on skates, they were just 'dancing'.  Weird.

Bet this has never been done before!
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A bit further over, on the beach, we came across a mad disco.  It looked like people had just taken their drums, maracas, and any other instrument they had at hand, and taken them to the beach for the day.  So a massive group had formed.  Basically the guys with the drums formed a circle, the crowd formed around them, and in the centre was a load of hippy dudes, dancing to the beat.  Some were cool, some not so much.  Some should just have put a shirt on.  It was nuts.

The jolly officer at Universal Studios
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We wandered back by the water to the car, and I was surprised to find the water was quite warm.  It was 5 in the evening by the time we had got to the beach, so it wasn't exactly bikini weather, but I had expected the water to be a lot colder than it was.

On the way back to the car we also found Muscle Beach.  I don't get it.  It's just a gym on a beach.  How vain do you have to be to work out on a beach in front of everyone?  There were some MASSIVE dudes there, lifting some pretty heavy weights.  There was also one really skinny fella, we couldn't figure out if he was having a laugh or not.

On the drive back, I spied some mini canals beside the beach, so we headed over to investigate.  They were really pretty, and lined with really nice (probably very expensive) houses.  I wonder if that's why it's called Venice Beach?  That's one for the internet geeks.

We got back to the motel to find the other two barely out of bed, the lazy beggars!  We headed out to Thai town for food, where Mike took the opportunity to show off his knowledge of Korean to the carpark guy.  We weren't sure if we'd get the car back...

The next morning, after a bit of hassle trying to arrange the hire car return, we set off for Hollywood, took some pictures of the sign, then turned round, and went to Universal Studios.  A strange thing to do on September 11th, I know, but that might explain why there were no queues.  So we shouldn't have wasted our money on the fastpasses then.  Oh well.  Universal Studios was alright, but not great.  We took a tour of the place, round the sets where loads of films have been shot, and where they were currently doing some filming - I think Desperate Housewives was being shot while we were there.  They still have some of the sets on display, so you can see the Motel from Psycho, and the airplane crash scene from War of the Worlds, although I've never actually seen that one.  Other than that, we went to a few shows, saw some trained animals, and went on a couple of rides.

After the day there, we got back on the road.

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