Sunday, January 13, 2013

Venice beach

Ok, so this will be the final post from this US trip. Didn't know that Los Angeles airport had free Wi-Fi.

Had a few hours to kill before driving to the airport, and Venice beach is close to the airport.

It was really nice weather today, and lots of people were already walking the streets. Checked out what people sold, and looked at street art.

Many things were drug related, but some looked like true art.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Time to fly back to Sweden

Will fly back to Sweden later today, that means that this blog once again will go into hibernation.

Don't know when the next trip will be, or to where. But there will for sure be some trips during 2013. :-)

Calico Ghost Town

I had heard about Calico ghost town a couple of years ago, and had wanted to visit it since then. The only reason was that it has an odd building with lots of bottles on the facade.

Calico used to be an old mining town, but people left it when it no longer was profitable to mine silver there. Some guy later decided to restore a few of the buildings, and build some new ones in old style.

There's an entry fee of $7 per person, but it was free now since it was off season and close to closing time.

Superb breakfast in Vegas

Went to Bellagio to have a breakfast buffet. The buffet there is awesome, and we came late, so lunch buffet started while we were there. :-)

Had four plates of food, and actually ended the breakfast with shrimp and beef :-)

Decided to play on the slot machines one final time before leaving. Won back $2 so ended up with a grand total of -$1.

Booked Hilton airport hotel in Los Angeles for the final night, and then started driving back to Los Angeles.

Friday, January 11, 2013

Gambled and walked around

I had decided to burn some dollars on gambling, but it turned out to be very few. I played only 5 dollars on machines, and got 2 back plus a free drink, so we can call it break even.

Took a walk on the strip where all famous hotels are. Nice to see them again. I was here ~10 years ago, and you could still play with coins at the machines at that time. Now you get credits instead, and those credits can later be converted back to money. Not so fun. I want to hear the coins falling out of the machines when you win!

Looking forward to a huge breakfast buffet tomorrow. Will drive back to LA after that. Flying back to Sweden on Saturday.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

The Venetian

We are staying at The Venetian in Vegas. The hotel is huge, just add many other hotels. Everything is great here... except for there Wi-Fi.

We are now about to eat at an Italian restaurant. That is quite close to the canal with gondolas. Yes, they have a canal and gondolas at the second level of the hotel.

In Vegas

Have just arrived. The hotel is really nice, need to take some photos of it.

We started driving just after we had woken up so we had breakfast on the road. Not a healthy one. I tried McRib at McDonalds.

Driving here took about 5 hours, and we had both sun and snow.

Now some gambling.

Worst Wi-Fi ever

The Dixie hotel that we stayed in in Los Angeles must have the worst Wi-Fi in the history. Everything is veeeery slow. Can't publish images and it's even hard to get to the google front page.

Well, we are now leaving this hotel. Are about to drive to Las Vegas and stay at a five star hotel for one night. I how they got good Wi-Fi. Will blog with pictures from there.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Celebrity spotting

Started the morning with a great breakfast at a local cafe, and then took a guided celebrity spotting tour.
It was nice to see where some celebrities live, but it wasn't the best tour of my life. Didn't even bring my real camera, only brought the phone.

The part that I liked the best was when we drove by to very well known rock clubs. Whiskey a go go and the viper room.




The house below is the house where Michael Jackson died.

Hollywood Walk of Fame

We are staying about 4 km from Hollywood Walk of Fame, so it's walkable. But it's better to take the subway one station, and then walk the rest of the way.

Hollywood Walk of Fame is on Hollywood Boulevard, and is lots and lots of stars on the sidewalk on both sides of the boulevard. There is a name of a well known "star" in almost each star, but I saw some without names, and some had names of groups as well. E.g. Bee Gees.

I took photos of some of them. The Chinese Theater, where some well known stars have placed hand and footprints is also located on Hollywood Boulevard.




Santa Monica Pier and Venice Beach

Drove from the Griffith Observatory to Santa Monica Pier. It's very close to Venice beach, also known as Muscle beach. Many people say that you can find really odd persons around Venice beach.

We rented bikes at the pier and biked to Venice beach. It took about 15 minutes. The gym where Arnold Schwarzenegger used to workout is located there.

Ok, people at Venice beach might not have looked like the average man on Manhattan, New York, but they didn't look that odd. Some odd things were however that you were offered to get a prescription for marijuana, and that you saw lots of ladies who offered psychic readings.






Hollywood sign

Took the car from Hollywood Boulevard up to Griffith Observatory to view the Hollywood sign, and get a good look at LA from "above".

It's possible to take an one hour long hike to the sign from the observatory, but we didn't do that. We only walked half way. The mobile can't zoom, so the photo of the sign is very bad. I got better ones in my real camera.

It was a bit hot in the sun. Just below Swedish summer temperature.




Tuesday, January 8, 2013

In LA

Our rental car here in LA is a Mustang convertible. Really fun to drive. Will now drive to the Hollywood sign, and then to Venice beach a.k.a. muscle beach.













I'm the ocean

Well, Americans can't pronounce Kaj, which is my name. It's Scandinavian and pronounced as Kai in English. I always say Kai and spell it as Kai when I'm booking e.g. restaurants here in US. Works very well here on Hawaii since Kai means Ocean in Hawaiian.
So here I only need to book as Kai, and say "just like the ocean" when they want to know how to spell it.

I'm now about to leave Hawaii for LA. It had been great to be here, and I hope that I will get back in the future. Surfs up!

Edit. I'm now in LA couldn't upload this entry while on Hawaii, and attaching images also fails. Will try to fix it for the next entry, but it's time to sleep now.