Photo's!

Here's a challenge for Drew, who is this actor you can see from behind? This was the first movie set I came across, 30mins after walking out of LAX.


A slightly large guitar, Hard Rock Cafe, Universal City Walk.


See what I mean? This is Jill, Danny, Kaylen and Jason's House. Jason's truck is the 'small' one in the middle. There is a 4th truck in the garage, although to be fair one is up for sale!

Downtown 'in da hood'

Today we went into ‘downtown’ to see Olvera St (Mexican market) and Chinatown. Then we went to Universal City walk
We saw an LA feral – a one-eyed guy hurling abuse at us in our car swinging this massive chain! We were a bit worried until we drove down the street past him and he sort of walked after our car really slowly still yelling at us! We were soon out of his reach!
I saw something that Rachel would have probably loved. A 67’ Mustang convertible with blue exterior and what looked like white leather interior. I didn’t have my camera with me unfortunately! In the same carpark (Baja Fresh, Mexican food) I saw a monster truck!! This is taking the big-car thing to a whole new level. This was a full-on monster truck!!!!!! Apparently you can just buy these and drive them around!?!?!?!?
I got a cool leather bracelet from Olvera St from a really nice guy who custom makes them for you. Going to Hollywood tomorrow and the spaghetti factory!?!? (don’t ask me) I’ll tell you about it tomorrow!
The Mexican food is good here! I am going to try as much as possible while I'm here, the authentic stuff isn't supposed to be as flavoursome as American or Australian versions but is nice. The Americans have chain Mexican places like the place we went tonight for tea - (sorry, dinner) Baja Fresh, as well as Taco Bell and del Taco or something.

I had my photo taken with the Mexican musician who was playing in the mall. Muchos Grazias Amigo!

LAX

Hi everyone!
Sorry I haven't posted yet! I'm still trying to get my bearings and figure out why everyone here has trucks that you would need a heavy-vehicles license to drive back home!

After arriving at LAX, Cara, Kay and Chuck were there to pick me up. On the way back to Jill's place (Cara's aunty) we drove to Venice beach, Santa Monica and Malibu. These are really nice places! Venice beach was very St.Kilda-esque, but different because there were lots of people playing tennis and basketball on the free courts. I saw the world famous gym on the beach. Unfortunately no-one was working out when I was there. Although I did see a guy rollerblading while playing his electric guitar!

Santa Monica was beautiful! For an idea of what this looks like, play GTA:San Andreas and have a look at the long pier with a ferris wheel at the end. The pier was lined with stalls and shops, I put 51c in a machine and it turned my penny into a souvenier of my visit to Santa Monica! I will add a photo as soon as I get organised.

Malibu you can't really see much of because it is so exclusive with small beach houses worth upwards of $3millUS, this is where all the stars have their holiday homes. Chuck says that you can see stars down at the local shops and this is where those magazines get shots of unhappy celebrities hiding underneath a baseball cap and sunglasses!

I've already seen 3 hum-vee's and 2 movie sets! Cara and I stopped down at Venice beach to watch a scene being shot! It was cheesy acting but I guess there are a lot of cheesy american soaps like 'Passions' which need shooting!

The Cars!!! The first thing I noticed coming out of LAX was the size of all the cars! I have seen 1 of those new beetles, 1 toyota camry and 1 new celica type thing, apart from that everyone has massive trucks!! They are as common as our commodores and falcons. For car people, you can look them up, Ford F350 and GMC Suburban. Some of these cars are so big that they have double rear tyres! Danny said they are designed for towing up to 2tonnes! Just in case your semi-trailer breaks down or you need to move your house!

Tomorrow we are going 'downtown' (CBD) to check out chinatown and hopefully some rap neighbourhoods like Inglewood (I don't know if this is in LA or not) and possibly the UCLA campus. Also a st called Olvera st and hopefully we can get to the stars on hollywood boulevard. I will add photo's when I am feeling better tomorrow! (I have a bit of a cold from being tired from my plane flight) Everyone here is so nice! and patriotic! There are american flags everywhere!! they are on lots of houses, stickers on cars and shops fly them out the front. I coutned 10 from one spot on Venice beach!

probably the cutest dog in the world ~ Ella, Nina's puppy!

Half blood prince

only 20 hours to go till the new Harry Potter goes on sale!! I remember when the last Potter came out, 'Order of the Phoenix' Radiohead had just released their latest album 'Hail to the Thief' so where is the new album guys?? J.K. Rowling can write a book and you can't write an album? poor effort. I'll have to pace myself so I don't read the whole thing before I fly out... I need something to read on the 14hour flight.

Also, I found out that my medical records from when we used to live in SA have been shredded!! THAT'S OK I DON'T NEED THEM! THEY ARE JUST MEDICAL RECORDS! apparently 10 years is the cut-off date, after which the government no longer requires them to be kept, and they are destroyed.

I find it interesting that medical records can be shredded after 10 while we have to keep accurate tax records for 7!! priorities!

Countdown

I think it's less than 2 weeks before I leave!! how excitement. I am having my going away party at the edgy next Friday night! and I leave on the Tuesday.

Last minute things are all that's left to do... I'm buying a funky travel pack, telling the uni what subjects I'm doing in Miami and maybe buying some $US travellers cheques if the aussie dollar goes up a bit more......