Los Angeles is a massive place, with loads of satellite cities that make up the larger city known as Los Angeles.
It's a very spread out city with no particular centre, like other cities, to wander around and see things. Perhaps it is because it's a new city, compared to old cities in Britain and Europe.
We had anticipated staying for four nights, but because it was so wet at the Grand Canyon, we took a night off Los Angeles and added it to stay in Flagstaff to see the Grand Canyon.
We stayed in Pasadena which, seemingly, was like several areas in LA, with very rich and very poor areas.
To be fair, Pasadena was a nice place and we enjoyed ourselves here. It was a good base, assuming you have a car and we'd stay there again.
LA also has a reputation for drive by shootings on their freeways. However, we understood that there hadn't been any incidents of this nature for quite some time....but, when we were there, two shootings occurred on the freeways. This was interesting and a bit of a worry but what the hey, we continued to drive on the freeways, which in itself, was quite an experience.
The freeways are fairly hectic and the cars are all driving pretty damn quick and close to each other. I took the conservative options mostly, but then figured that it was better to be reasonably aggressive and forcing my way in from time to time.
All was fine though and we managed to drive around OK, despite only having a sketchy guide book map.
In LA, we went to Santa Monica Beach, which was OK. It's a long beach, with a pier featuring amusement rides. We also visited Universal Studios which again, was OK, but not the most interesting place in the world.
Hollywood Boulevard was quite interesting, if a little dirty. As you can see, Samantha had her hands in Marylin Monroe's handprints. Interestingly, a friend of mine asked if we had thought that maybe people urinate on these every night! Probably right too! Ha...funny one.
Melrose Ave is close to Hollywood Boulevard and that was quite a decent place to shop for various clothes and shoes.
We also had a look for the Hollywood sign on the hill. You can't really get close to it, although we did try driving around to get close to it.
Beverley Hills was sorta interesting. Wide streets, big houses, but we didn't see any celebrities, which was fine by me.
Overall, LA was an OK place. Glad we went there but in no great rush to head back as Sydney has everything (except amusement parks) LA has and is better, more interesting and with less pollution.
