January 19, 2012

honeymoon part #2

on friday night we got all settled in santa monica. we went to bucca (an italian place) for dinner, then back to the hotel.

saturday was a big day for us. first we used the computer in the hotel lobby to book hotels for the rest of the trip (because deciding on the HI in santa monica was such a treat), then we drove into down town LA. oh my! what a different world then NW MN. we parked in the parking garage at highland and hollywood which is basically under the kodak theater. then we wandered for a bit, taking it all in, before setteling on the hard rock cafe for lunch.

after lunch we were off to take in the sights, but not before being haggeled to buy some dude's 'rap' cd on the street. do people really make money doing that? and do they really every get 'discovered'? anyway, first was the grumann's chinese theater:
there is just something so iconic about this building. the hand and feet prints of famous people are all over the grond right in front of the theater. holy crap- there were so many people there! you could hardly even take pictures of the famous concrete. i was suprised as to how small this area really is. there aren't that many suares of concrete with hand and feet imprinted in them. they must change them out, but what do they do with the ones that they take out? and who decideds who stays and how goes? because there were famous people from the 30's and 40's still there right along side the twilight trio.

also in that same area (well all over actually) are the stars on hollywood blvd on the sidewalk. i only took pictures of 3 of them because 1) it was so hard to get pictures with all of the people walking around, 2) i didn't want to totally give myself away as a tourist and 3) i didn't really know where any of the names/stars i would've taken pictures of were. so here is one of the three that i took:
i figured it was only fitting to take a picture of mickey's star since we were going to see him while we were there too :) i also took pictures of shrek's star and michael jackson's. then we went on a starline tour where we got to see famous people's houses. here's me and the Mr waiting to get on our bus:

we both just had t shirts on this day. it wasn't so bad until the end of our tour, when the sun started to dip a little. we were in a 15 passenger bus that had the top cut off so it was like a convertible. we both had serious goosebumps when we were done so we made a quick stop at h&m to get shirts with long sleeves!!

the very first thing we saw on our tour (seriously- the van didn't even have to move for us to see this) was the roosevelt hotel. the very first academy awards ceremony was held here, they gave out 12 awards and it only lasted for 16 minutes. i paid very close attention to our knowledgeable tour guide :) and, if i remember correctly, the same guy designed this and the chinese theater (which you would see if you could turn to the right in this picture/if you were sitting where i was)

our tour guide took us way up the hill to this iconic resturant. ok, i know i said i paid a lot of attention to him but i can not remember the name of this place. it used to be a hotel way up on the hill but now it's a resutrant that only serves dinner. anyway, this is where the tour takes you to see the hollywood sign:
since it was kind of foggy, this is the best i could do :( i wish you could see it better. but it's cool to be able to say that i've seen it in person.

other intersting things we saw on the tour:
the hotel where janis jopplin overdosed in room #105, michael jackson's elementary school (the auditorium is now named after him), beverly hills (that sign lights up at night!), and the hotel from pretty woman. it the movie it's call the regent beverly wilshire but in real life it has a different name, and it's right at the end of rodeo drive (baby!).

we also saw the homes of: frank sinatra, andy griffith, christina agulara, david & victoria beckham, jay leno, and desi arnez & lucille ball, as well as the beverly hill hotel where rooms range in price from $300/night to $5,000/night. yes, $5,000 A NIGHT. my stomach dropped too when i heard that.

after the tour (& getting warmer shirts) we were off to madame tussads was museum. which was cool, but a little creepy because they look so life like. you can touch them & pose with them you just can't touch their face or hair and someone comes once a week to touch up the face and hair. i don't think thats a job i could do. here are just a few of the people we got to see and the things that we got to do:
we saw miss gaga herself, our homegirl judy garland (she's from MN!), the Mr told the silence of the lambs guy who's boss, and i practiced my dancing with patrick :)
we also helped the president with some office work (aren't we nice? hehe! it's really a phone connected to nothing and a guest book), and we got to see the Beatles en-enact the abbey road cover.

the outside of the kodak theater- i wonder what will happen to this now that they declared bankruptcy. hmm... anyway, it was a very beautiful building inside and out.
outside of the theater we got to see the transformers!!!!
i have no idea who the guys are in this picture with them, i just wanted a picture of them and i didn't really want to wait to get my picture with them.

this trip also included my first visits to anthropology and trader joe's. i didn't buy anything at anthro. i swooned over lots of things, almost bought a book, and got a great idea for a birthday calendar (it just has the month at the top of the page, a list of numbers down the side and lines coming out from the numbers to write names on, so you don't have to re-do it every year. genius.). but i did make a purchase at trader joe's. i got pita chips, pretzel crisps and:
my very first two buck chuck. it wasn't bad, but it was $2 wine, you get what you pay for. the pita chips however, were devine!! we should've bought more then one bag.

after we got back to santa monica we walked out on the pier to enjoy it at night. so pretty and iconic:

then we asked the girl working at our hotel where the best place to get pizza in santa monica was. she looked kind of puzzeled and she said "like dominos?" no, i want something that we don't have in NW MN... so she directed us to a place called stephen's (i think) where they sell pizza by the slice. it's in the food court of the complex kitty corner from the hotel. so we walked over and they were closed already (it was a little after 9, we ate dinner late while we were on vaca). while, when we had been riding up the escaltor we saw another place called pizza antica so we went over there. we chose to do a build your own style pizza. when we're at home, we really like the chicken bacon artichoke pizza from papa murphy's. well this pizza anitca place had artichokes on the menu, they had oven roasted chicken, and they had priscutto (not bacon, but close) so we had a chicken bacon artichoke pizza in california:
looks a little different then it does in NW MN but it was still yummie. we ate the whole thing. and i drank 3 glasses of diet coke :) i love diet coke from a fountain, so much better then a bottle or can.
this is the beer list from the resturant. i don't drink beer. but i had to take a picture because some of the names of the local brews were so funny:
"mama's little yellow pills" "stone leviathon" "arrogent bastard ale" "victory golden monkey ale" haha!!

the complex that this resturant was in had benches that looked like ice blocks with lights in them:
funny because we really could have ice blocks that big here. as i was taking this picture the Mr was getting frustraded with me, "really, you're taking a picture of that? can we please just go?"

so there you have it, the second part of our honeymoon. next up- DISNEY!!!!!! whooop whoop!!

hope you're having a great day!
love, mrs k

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