In Hollywood, you can steal the show...

...It's not what you are, but who you know.

In my case, I knew Andy the bus driver, who took us all on a guided tour through Beverley Hills, Hollywood, Rodeo Drive, the Sunset Strip and finally to Universal Studios. All in all a fairly interesting day. The drive through Beverley Hills was very interesting - Andy was very knowledgeable about the tour (as you would expect, I suppose - he is getting paid for it), pointing out various places of interests, ie. this actress died here, this actor was discovered here, this nightclub is owned by so-and-so, this is where they filmed some movie, this is where so and so was arrested. I've included a few pictures to give you a sample.


For the guys - This was the cafe where they filmed the start and end scenes from Pulp Fiction.


For the girls - this is the oval from the school that played the part of Rydale High in Grease.


What I found more amazing was the amount of money in the area - it is simply staggering. Porsches, Mercs, Beamers, Range Rovers, Cadillacs everywhere - even a Lambo, 2 Ferraris, a Lotus, 2 Aston Martins and a Mclaren Mercedes. Massive mountain houses. Money, literally, to burn. However, it's not all money - there are some pretty weird folks out there as well. This is one of them - what he was doing at the premier of Mission Impossible III dressed like that I have no idea.


Anyways, after leaving Hollywood behind, we moved onto Universal Studios, and did the studio tour first, before jumping onto various rides and viewing live shows. The tour itself is pretty cool - they have loads of old sets still lying around, as well as various gimmicks and tricks, which I'll show at the end of this. Managed to see Eddie Murphy filming a new movie, as well some of the ladies from Desperate Housewives (apparently - this sighting, it should be told, elicited far more excitement in my mother and sister than myself)

It's getting a bit late over here - I've been stuffing about trying to get these photos shrunk from the digital camera size of 3 zillion pixels, and until now, haven't had much success. So, in the interests of brevity and getting to bed before tomorrow, I'll just post the photos I took from the universal studios tour with some brief commentary. Tomorrow I'm off to an aviation museum, so I should have some good photos of world war two era aircraft, amongst others.


Hey, this looks like a pleasant place to stay. I was getting sick of the glitz of Anaheim anyway,


On second thoughts, I'll pass.


I call dibs on the fins. Although I've heard this particular breed of shark can be a bit rubbery.


Smile, you son of a bitch!


I have a bad feeling about this.

It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it. (The old man, posing beside the original bluesmobile.)