Farewell, USA & Canada!

Hi all for the final time on our big adventure,

Last night we had a great dinner at the Italian place next to our hostel called 'North Italia'. It was one of the most memorable meals of the trip. We splurged a bit as it was a 'from scratch' kitchen, meaning they make everything down to their own pasta and pizza dough in house. We each had a pizza, mine was fig, goat cheese and prosciutto and was one of the best I've ever had. We also shared some meatballs and a pitcher of sangria, before getting an ice cream and going for a walk. A great final night!

This morning we took it easy, enjoying a last coffee at the cafe over the road and a final Santa Monica Beach walk. There were squirrels everywhere today, it was insane! At 11.30am we caught an Uber to Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, Hollywood. On the way we came full circle, partially taking the same freeway that we drove our hire car along on the first day of this trip towards Yosemite. We wanted to do something today so that we didn't just mark time until our 11.55pm flight, and we've each been to Universal Studios previously (which we could see from the car on the freeway). My friend Luke recommended Warner Bros. and it was a great recommendation. The Warner brothers came from a family of eleven children that migrated from Poland in 1889. Their parents were big supporters of their dreams, selling the family's gold watch and horse for Sam Warner to buy the Kinetoscope that was the foundation of their first moving picture business. When the Warner brothers first started their company they would travel from town to town with their projector showing one silent movie at a time. Their company was officially incorporated in April 1923, meaning it's the 100th anniversary for their company the same year it is for Disney. They then leased production stages until their could afford their own, starting the studios we toured today in 1928. They released the first motion picture with dialogue, 'The Jazz Singer', in 1927. Ever since, their company has made countless classic movies, TV shows and cartoons. The more we read and saw today, the more shows and movies we realised Warner Bros. have produced that we enjoy. I think some of my favourites would be 'Friends', 'Gossip Girl' and of course 'Harry Potter' as well as a number of Tom Hanks movies.

The studio is 110 acres in size, and we started off in a small exhibition before watching a short film. Our guide, Shawnice, then picked us up and took us on a one hour tour of the production lot. We first stopped in an area that can be dressed up as any small town in the USA, and has featured in many shows including 'Seinfeld', 'Pretty Little Liars' and 'Gilmore Girls'. We went inside a church I remember from 'Pretty Little Liars' and a diner apparently used in 'Gilmore Girls' (I have never watched it). We could then see the 'Friends' fountain in the distance, but sadly couldn't go right up to it today due to a commercial being shot in the 'New York' set area behind it, meaning we also couldn't see that area. Shawnice was not allowed to tell us who was in the commercial or what it was for, but said about three times that the actors were very high profile. I'm itching to know who was right nearby us......! I have included a photo from Google of the fountain to show what it looks like.

We continued on and went inside the house used as Monica and Ross' parent's place in 'Friends', with familiar stairs that I remembered from a prom scene. This and the other buildings we had just visited were what Shawnice described as "practicals", meaning the inside can actually be used and can be dressed up to suit whatever purpose it's required for. These don't have any power or water, so when someone poured a glass of water inside Monica and Ross' parent's house, it was actually water from a bucket being pumped by someone outside. This was the only practical set for 'Friends', the rest was shot on location or inside sound stage 24.

We saw some other houses and shopfronts used in 'Pretty Little Liars' and Love's Bakery from the Netflix show 'You', and then Shawnice explained to us that any snow used in 'Gilmore Girls' (which was set in Connecticut, much colder than California) was mashed potato going through a snow machine. We also went through a jungle (the only one at a studios in 'Hollywood', which apparently other studios utilise at times such as Universal using it for 'Jurassic Park') and past a few buildings that feature as motels but actually have offices inside. Every inch of space is utilised productively.

Our next stop was to a sound stage that is used for a show Rob and I had never heard of called 'All American' and then another sound stage for its spin off 'All American: Homecoming'. This didn't mean much to us, but it was still cool walking through a purpose built set of a house and backyard and then a college, hearing about how different backdrops are used and such. Apparently they have a facility here that stores 500,000 props, which is four levels tall and each level is the size of an American football field. The latest movie to have been filmed here inside one of the sound stages like the one we saw was 'Barbie' which comes out soon and I'm excited for. Shawnice said it was the pinkest set she has ever seen!

We passed stage 16, the largest in North America. It's so tall and massive that it holds a 7.5 million litre water tank underneath its floorboards that can be filled using recycled water to film water scenes. It's so big that cast and crew need to take boats inside the tank to navigate it. Once we passed, we could see the writers' strikes going on in the distance here. We were then dropped off at an exhibition and said goodbye to Shawnice.

Inside the exhibition we saw a 'Central Perk' cafe that had been set up to mimic the 'Friends' one, and we continued through to actual sets from 'Friends' and 'The Big Bang Theory' that had been relocated into this exhibition. Interestingly, I read that an actual UCLA faculty member was a Science consultant on the set of 'The Big Bang Theory', and would write actual physics concepts and formulae up on Leonard and Sheldon's whiteboard in the show, changing it for each episode. Some of the things to look at and do in here were also interesting, such as costume displays, learning about the process of casting and assigning sound and dialogue to movies. We even got to try our hand at being recorded reading lines. I got to be Harry Potter, I don't think they will hire me on any time soon though!! Another cool set was a table that made me look taller than Rob as I was sitting closer to the camera than he was even though I didn't appear to. It's not often I appear taller than him!

We were then shuttled to our final stop, an exhibition about the DC universe ('Batman', 'The Flash' etc), 'Game of Thrones' and 'Harry Potter'. We were sorted by the Sorting Hat (which sorted me into Ravenclaw for the second time in my life, so it must be accurate! Rob was in Slytherin apparently.) and enjoyed walking through some mock sets. To finish off our tour, we each got to hold an Academy Award that Warner Bros. won in 1957 for a 'Tweetie Pie' cartoon. Overall, the whole visit was great and we both really enjoyed it, spending about 3.5 hours in total. The best part of Universal Studios has always been the studio tour in my opinion, so the fact that we got to walk around the sets, buildings and sound stages on this one was excellent.

We caught an Uber back and then hung out at the hostel for a bit. They kindly let us use the lounge areas and have a shower despite us having checked out in the morning. This hostel is great, I've now stayed three times and it's always been well located, very clean and good value in an expensive area. I learned this time that the building at the front of it which they use as an event room is actually the oldest building in Santa Monica, Rapp's Saloon, built in 1875. The rest was purpose built between 1988-1994 for the hostel. We are going to hang out here for a bit longer and then have Shake Shack for dinner before catching the bus to the airport.

What a fantastic trip this has been. I can't quite believe how fast eight weeks have flown by, but we have taken every opportunity possible over here to have a great time and have so appreciated the time together. Whilst I am looking forward to certain aspects of home (family, friends, football, a washing machine!) I am dreading us going back to our schedules never lining up and not getting to see each other much. The climate at home at the moment of more taxes, higher cost of living and inflation has us feeling a bit flat about everything back there too. It's been wonderful to be over here and experience so many incredible things together and forget about it all for a while. After a big trip like this, people often ask "what was your favourite place?" or "what was your favourite thing you did?" and we've been to so many amazing places and seen and done so much, that I honestly can't just pick one. But if I had to pick a few, all of the natural places we visited over here such as Yosemite, Zion, Bryce, Monument Valley and everywhere in BC and Alberta in Canada were definitely highlights. As was seeing old travel friends. I also had a ball at Taylor Swift and 'Funny Girl', two extremely memorable nights that will be up there with the best of my life I suspect. I can’t forget Disneyland and Seattle, but that pretty much means I’ve just listed most of the trip which speaks volumes!! We haven't really had a bad day over here, every day has been full of great experiences and time together. We've been so lucky with the weather too, only really having three days of drizzle and not a single day of heavy rain. And nothing bad happened apart from having to cancel my credit card due to a fraudulent charge. Considering we planned the whole eight weeks ourselves and didn't do a single tour, that is pretty amazing.

Usually when I finish a trip, I have another overseas one booked in ready to look forward to. Excluding the pandemic (during the early stages of which we used some lockdown time to start planning this trip, hoping we would get to go on it in 2023), I have had an overseas trip booked upon my return from a trip since about 2012 I reckon. Due to having a pretty major hip surgery on Tuesday after getting home, and the crazy economic climate at the moment, we don't have one booked in at the moment. This has me feeling a bit claustrophobic, but maybe we can go somewhere next year once we see how my recovery and interest rates pan out. In the meantime, I have the Gold Coast and Adelaide to look forward to as footy trips, hopefully a Collingwood premiership if Nan and Pa can pull some strings come September, and a two week Victorian trip with Rob and my friends Alisha and Shannon in January. I'm grateful for these, and for having been on so many overseas trips prior to the pandemic and the crazy rising costs we are currently seeing.

Thanks for accompanying us on this trip via my blog, I hope you have enjoyed the ride as much as we have.

Love to all
Claire
Xoxox

Downtown LA

Hello everyone,

We had Chipotle for dinner one last time of the trip last night and then had an early night.

This morning we had breakfast at the hostel and then grabbed a coffee at the cafe from yesterday and went walking at Santa Monica Beach. It was a nice sunny morning and we saw lots of cute squirrels!

Afterwards, we bought a TAP card and a daily pass, and headed into downtown L.A. I’m lucky enough to have been to the states on four separate occasions now and have passed through L.A. during all four stays, but the only experiences I’ve had in downtown were changing buses and then passing through on a Hollywood tour on our 2005 trip, and attending the NBA at the then Staples Centre alone in 2017.

To put it nicely - downtown L.A. is gross, and a borderline scary in parts! There are some great gems such as beautiful art deco buildings and museums, but you have to put up with what honestly feels like a zombie apocalypse at times of people screaming and being intimidating in the street, peeing in the street and being so out of it I think they don’t even know where they are. As a result the streets are pretty dirty. I think the abundance of homelessness and drug addled people here speaks volumes of the difference between rich and poor though, which is likely worse post pandemic. It’s hard to take knowing that celebrities and rich people are living in the hills surrounding the city while so many people are sleeping and living rough here.

We caught the train all the way in and alighted at Metro Center/7th. This line from Santa Monica was opened in 2016, which is why back in ‘05 we caught buses around. We then walked past Pershing Square and some murals including two of Kobe Bryant, and some cops said hello to us. Rob replied “g’day!” and then they had a chat with him about the job over here. There were police and security all over the downtown area today. In a way this made us feel safer, but it also made me think about why so many of them are needed around the place….!

We then went to Grand Central Market where we shared some donuts and enjoyed the atmosphere, before heading over the road seeing the Angel’s Flight funicular which opened in 1901 and features in the movie ‘La La Land’. We passed Grand Park and admired the beautiful purple jacaranda trees in bloom and then arrived at the el Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument and square (el pueblo meaning ‘the village’). This is where in 1781 a group of 22 people from Mexico were sent to be the first Spanish civilian settlement in Southern California. They were sent to provide food for soldiers in the region and secure Spain’s hold on the area. This square was lovely, with cute buildings and flags and a vintage fire station that we had a quick look at.

Afterwards, Rob and I had a look at beautiful Union Station and he then caught a ‘Dodgers Express’ bus to Dodger Stadium for the Dodgers vs Washington Nationals baseball game. I had seen three other baseball games at this point so gave it a miss and instead stayed to explore more of downtown. I caught the metro back a couple of stops to where we started and questioned my decision for a moment, as a dodgy looking man cat called me as I left the station, and walking down the footpath in this area I was surrounded by people screaming and speaking gibberish. More baseball sounded idyllic at this point, and no exaggeration I later reflected that I think I felt more on edge here than I did in Cairo in Egypt (which gets a bad reputation and I’m not really sure why!). I think the other thing that contributed was having no tourists around as you do in Santa Monica, Hollywood etc. I was the only tourist around.

I went to the Spring Street Arcade built around 100 years ago and had a gelato from Uli’s. The shop itself was closed but they had a vending machine you could buy ice cream from. Everyone around here seemed ok, so after sitting and eating my ice cream I felt a bit more at ease again. From here I went to the Bradbury Building which was built in 1893. It was beautiful, with wrought iron staircases, open cage elevators and a lovely skylit ceiling. Apparently it featured in the movie ‘Bladerunner’.

My next step was the Broad Museum, which was opened in 2015 to house the art collection of philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad. It was opposite the giant silver Walt Disney Concert Hall which I remember passing on our bus in 2005. I was lucky enough to get a free timed pass to one of Yayoi Kusama’s infinity rooms here, which apparently at some points in the year books out a month in advance. This one was titled ‘The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away’. There are a number of these rooms around the world of differing themes, and the one I saw today reminded me of a museum we were supposed to visit in Japan in 2020 that has since closed. I waited 20 minutes in the queue and got to enter by myself. The attendant told me you only got to go inside for 60 seconds, but the security guard got so caught up chatting to her outside that he let me stay in for four minutes which was cool! I got to really stand there and take in the lights and how far into the distance the mirrors in the room made them appear. It was beautiful!

I went upstairs for a while, but the museum was mostly art that wasn’t really my scene. I did enjoy Robert Therrien’s ‘Under the Table’ sculptures which made me either feel like a family pet or a small child being underneath furniture. I also enjoyed a giant balloon dog and some of the works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, as well as another infinity room, this time inside a box and not as impressive as the first. However, my eye floaters went insane up here as all the walls were white, so I left and headed to my next stop, seeing the museum’s storage room en route.

The Los Angeles Central Library was next. Though the idea was started in 1844 as a collection of donated works in a town of 1500 people, the present site opened in 1925 and has withstood a couple of arson attacks and various stages of disrepair. Ironically, the disrepair protected its beautiful murals from the most recent arson attack in the 80s, as the grime covering it saved it. Today the building is beautiful from the outside, and a labyrinth inside. The murals in the rotunda depict various scenes in California’s history and were really interesting to look at.

Finally, I walked past one final art deco building called the Orvatt Building before seeing some really rundown old theatres that were probably once beautiful. At this point I was tired from lots of walking and avoiding dodgy people on the footpath, so I caught the train back to Union Station to meet Rob. All the chairs at all food and drink venues here were gone so as to discourage the homeless from loitering, but I somehow lucked out with an Amtrak lounge attendant letting me straight through. I sat here in comfort for an hour and then met up with Rob before catching the train back to Santa Monica together again. We had a crazy guy screaming his head off and throwing things on this one, and all of us in the carriage were very happy when he got off the train, but only after he pulled the emergency alarm first! We saw a self driving car on the walk back from the station.

Tonight we are going out for dinner, and tomorrow is our last day so I will write one more then. Today was interesting, and I can’t help but feel that those who settled LA and created all these beautiful buildings would be pretty shocked at how dirty and rundown it is these days.

Love to all
Claire
Xoxox