Wendy's World: Kasidee & Reeder Week Part 2

Day 3: We have decided to spend the day in LA being Tourists. Kasidee & Reeder had not been to the the Kodak or Grauman's Theater so we made plans to go there and then head down to Santa Monica Pier/Promenade. We mapped out how to drive everywhere and then realized that it would be easiest to just take a Starline Tourbus. That way we would only have to pay once and we might even get to see some other sides of LA. Since I have not really learned my way around LA it was pretty interesting. So off we went. Traffic wasn't too bad it got congested at the 101 but that is typical, then the exit we needed to get to Hollywood Blvd was blocked off, so after consulting Reeder's iphone we figured out where we were. We parked and then off to Grauman's. I did not take any pictures as I have taken them all before so all of these pictures are thanks to Kasidee!

Outside of Grauman's actually taken on the bus tour.

Paul Newman (notice that he did his barefoot, i would totally do that!) & Joanne Woodward

Just for Javi - Cher!

Roy Rogers, his gun, and his horse Trigger. ( I don't know why this one is sideways but I just spent the last 45 min trying to change it and it won't... annoying i know!)

Now turn your head the other direction and this is Denzel Washington's

So I'm not posting the other ones due to how annoyed I am right now with my blog site. So on to happier things.

Then we went to the Kodak Theater where they, like everyone else, quickly realized that it is just a big mall. They hide it well when it is time for the Oscars but overall it is a mall you walk in and immediately see Louis Vuitton and Nine West and a Cupcake store. Go down the hall and run into all sorts of other stores. Now they do have these posts that say the year and the movie that won best picture.

This year's Winner The King's Speech - so good if you have not already seen it you must go!

The we walked around and took the typical pics of the Hollywood sign. Random fact, the state no longer owns the sign, it is in such bad debt that there is a private citizen who now owns the sign and movies now have to pay that person to use it. Also tourists can no longer get anywhere near the sign.

This is with the camera zoomed in as much as possible.

Now if you really squint you will see a red box and 4 black arrows and that is pointing to the Hollywood sign between Kasidee & Reeder. Don't strain your eyes, I will enlarge the picture for you.

Then we looked around a little more at the stars on the sidewalk and laughed when we saw that Godzilla has a star as does Snow White and some other random movie characters. Then we decided to go ahead and get our tickets for the Starline Bus tour.

Reeder & I on one side

Kasidee on the other side.

Yay we took our own pic and it turned out pretty cute!

It was thankfully a beautiful day out so we enjoyed the upper deck. I got a wee bit sunburned as well. Then off we went and saw all different parts of LA, Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, there is an area that has huge painted guitars like Houston has the Cows, and a bunch of different studios all over the place. It was amazing to see how small some of these studios were, one was 64 acres, the lake at Sky Ranch is 90 acres and that seems so small to me. But all that same it was interesting. Oh we also were confused that this was tour of LA and the recorded guy giving us useless facts was British. I guess people would rather listen to a guy with an accent then an American. I loved the way he said Blvd (booleevard). Kasidee was trying so hard to take a picture of the Beverly Hills Shield, because surprisingly there are only 5 around the city, I would have thought that they would have been everywhere, but nope, and movies have to pay a lot of money to use them in a picture. They also pointed out different buildings that were used in all sorts of movies, but all the movies seemed to have been filmed 10+ years ago or were very unknown, so either they don't film much in LA anymore or they REALLY need to update the tour. Also they stopped infront of every hotel and told us which Celebs have stayed there, and most of these hotels were very small and were not all that impressive to see.

On the very left edge of this pic you can see half of the Beverly Hills sign. This was my attempt to help Kas get a pic of the sign and well I failed. She did eventually get a pic of the sign but I somehow did not upload that pic from her.

Here is the new Beverly Hills sign. Did you know that each street in Bev Hill is lined with a different type of tree? And here assumed they were only lined with Palm trees. :)

Fox Studios - Yay Glee!

Paramount Pictures famouse front gates

Part of the Berlin Wall - Kennedy & Reagan's faces = President at the beginning and end of the Cold War.

Then it was off to Santa Monica Pier and Promenade. After we transfered from the Red Line to the Yellow Line it got really cold on the top of the bus and Santa Monica was extremely foggy. I finally could not take it anymore and then headed downstairs to get away from the cold, of course I did this right before our stop for the pier, go me! then when we got off the bus we headed in the wrong direction but quickly got back on track. We walked past the pier but at this point were so cold and hungry that we didn't really even stop. There was a random guy on the sidewalk that asked us if we had bubbles, cause he had bubbles and would sell us some.

Random Fact: Santa Monica Beach was the original Muscle Beach. There were many people around working out, which why pay for a gym membership if there is a gorgeous beach you can use.

We eventually stopped and ate at Chipotle and then went back to Hollywood Blvd. Kas got souveniers for all her family and then we had dinner at a place within the Kodak called Trastevere. We had a fabulous waiter Luis and dinner was delicious. I had butternut squash ravioli and an amazing sparkling wine, perfectly paired by Luis. Then we went back to my apt, packed up and went to bed. It was a great day.

Day 4: We woke up early for Reeder's flight. Got her to the airport by 7:30am. Chloe even came along for the ride. Kas and I went to Starbuck and then had cold pizza for dinner. Around 12:30 I took Kasidee to the airport. Now they are gone and that stinks. It was a great mini holiday, but went by entirely too quickly. So I vote Kasidee & Reeder just move to Cali!!!!

Below are a few pictures my friend Shannon took. I liked them so decided to add them into the blog.

The Beach