Week commencing Sunday 7th May 2000

Sunday 7th May to Tuesday 9th May

Up to Tuesday afternoon was a total nightmare of cleaning and packing...

..."Let us never speak of it again !" (Marge Simpson: Itchy and Scratchy Land 8-)

This is the laptop in the corner of a room in the Jarvis International Hotel at Heathrow. (Wake up Phil, it's gonna get MUCH more boring than this !)

After some thought, I've decided to use 256 by 192 jpegs optimized around 40% - this will give a reasonable trade-off between size and quality. Unfortunately that means that you won't be able to use PhotoShop to magnify the pictures much, but we'll keep the originals in case anyone wants a copy.

Wednesday 10th May

Managed to get up at 6:30am, due to previously formulating a cunning plan - if we check in three hours before take-off, we should be able to wangle one of the 'like-gold-dust-two-seats-together'. As it turned out, we got the last one ! (The plane has a 2-5-2 seating configuration). The flight is just under 11 hours actual flying time - we set off at 11:25am and are due to arrive three hours later, based on the 8 hour time difference. Isn't time travel wonderful ? 8-)

Here's the plane getting ready to load (hopefully) our luggage !

The facilities on-board are very good - we have our own personal screens with an armrest controller to select audio, video or a map facility that shows various views of plane locations and statistics. The service is also excellent - so far, we have had lunch, various drinks and as much confectionery as we can eat !

The route we are taking seems to be via Canada - check it out...

Thursday 11th May

This is the front of our hotel - The Beverly Hilton.
The strange looking object in the centre of the picture is a water cascade (the picture doesn't do it justice).
If you look really carefully to the left of the white pillar, you can see one of the chandeliers in the foyer.
The limos drive in from the right, drop off the rich dudes and then spiral around the water feature down to the underground car park and exit.
The hotel is really excellent. Our room has a king size bed, an office area with desk and an immense shower unit!
However, the best facility is the TV with 42 cable channels, one of which is Fox, which runs The Simpsons twice nightly at 6:30pm and 7:30pm !!
The oddest thing about LA is that people just don't walk anywhere. They seem to be addicted to their cars. We went to check out a mall in Beverly Hills three or four blocks from the hotel, and returned at around 9:30pm. The streets were empty - it seems like even the muggers are too lazy to walk 8-)

Friday 12th May

Today, we decided to take in the 'All Day Around LA - City Tour, Beaches and Shopping'
Here's Irene waiting for the tour bus, which is late, as usual:

First, we visited downtown LA with a stop at 'The Music Center' where the Oscars are held.

The building on the left houses the LA Philharmonic Orchestra and the water dances up and down to the music when they are playing ! During the Oscars ceremony, the water is switched off and this area is covered by a big marquee. Just beyond the fountain is where the red carpet is placed, and all the limos turn up with the nominees. According to our tour guide, the smaller stars can't afford to rent their own limo for the whole event, so they 'share' a limo which collects them from an underground garage below the fountain, whisks them up to the red carpet and then drives down again to collect the next one !!

Here is the famous HOLLYWOOD sign - amazing clarity don't you think ? 8-)
OK, so my digital camera wasn't designed to take long shots, but I had to try !

The front of Mann's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard is where the stars put their mark into wet concrete.

This one is Frank Sinatra's effort back in 1965.

Hollywood Boulevard has hundreds of these embedded stars right along the sidewalk on both sides of the street.

Here's one for Conch 8-)

This is the view from the Hollywood Hills towards downtown LA - the water in the pool looked VERY inviting - the temperature here was in the low eighties !
The 'beaches' part of the tour took us to Marina del Rey which is a small marina rescued from swamplands, followed by Venice Beach which is a bohemian place with lots of odd shops, street performers and of course the famous Muscle Beach with all the iron-pumping poseurs 8-)
The last part of out tour was to Santa Monica where we walked along 3rd Street Promenade with its shops, cafes and live entertainment. Hectic day - we're worn out (could be the jet-lag as well 8-)

Saturday 13th May

Today is our trip to Universal Studios !!

The strange dude in the yellow top and foolish hat is non other than Peter himself !

Irene's got herself a new bodyguard...

The first thing we experienced was Terminator 2 3-D, which was absolutely brilliant !
It started off with a female in a lab coat doing a spoof introduction - she was really funny.
Then we were ushered into the auditorium to see a short film (3-D glasses provided) of a follow-up to Terminator 2, with amazing special effects, including mini flying robots seeming to hover just in front of your face !
Following this, we went on the Studio Tour, showing the history of filming at Universal Studios - really interesting.
It showed us some real sets, including the one used to film Spartacus, and also the model shark used in Jaws.
Next, we went on the 'Back to the Future' ride - a simulator that was extremely realistic - Irene was really scared !
After that, we went on the Jurassic Park ride...

(luckily, our tour guide had warned us to invest in the plastic 'Ponchos' for 75c each, so we stayed fairly dry whilst the others on the boat got soaked !)...

Here's a picture of the end of the ride, where the boat comes flying down a long slope into a lake at the bottom - note the spray !

We decided to dry off next, so off we went to the Backdraft lot, where they showed us a few pyrotechnic tricks of the trade used in the movie, culminating in an amazing display where they blew up a chemical warehouse before our very eyes !

To finish off, we had just enough time to watch the Waterworld show, which was an extract from the movie with lots of pyrotechnics including a full size seaplane that crashed into the water just in front of the audience !

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