This is L.A....

Ok well here I am in L.A

Dan my new found friend in San Fran was adamant I would hate it as it's ugly and not pretty like San Fran so he said - although he did say he hasn't been here yet.

Well I actually don't mind it!

It is ugly and spread out. It's just so massive... it goes for ages.. Streets go for literally miles and miles and miles! some numbers end up in the thousands...like 16,000 Santa Monica boulevard etc etc.

Savannah Fiora and I drove her from San Fran on Sunday. it was meant to be Sunday afternoon but by the time we left it was evening! it was a pretty flat and uneventful drive. We stopped at this 'famous' pea soup restaurant - yeah pea soup and had yeah - pea soup which was pretty good actually. It was inside this German or Dutch like restaurant motel thing. We were there prettty late but hell - it was busy! The highway from San Fran to LA which i assume is like most highways in the states had no shops or anything on it at all. It just goes and goes and goes... if you want something you have to pull off the highway and enter one of these little highway town kinda things - which is some kind of collection of shops hotels restaurants and takeaways all glitzy and brightly lit - well we did go at night. We apparently passed through a section of the highway which is notorious for it's stench as it is a huge abitoir :( . That was pretty rotten went for ages - we just were holding our noses and trying to be sick until Savannah was sure we had driven far enough away from the smell to open the windows and get some oxygen again. In LA we were told it was most probably the abitoir...so in that respect it turned out to be good we were travelling at night as we were also told there were heaps and heaps of cows etc just standing around that field :( that's not nice.

Sunday night we got to LA in the morning and suitably for what i had imagined a town of highways - stayed in a hotel by a highway. The receptionist straight faced asked Savannah and I - did we want a room with a view of the highway. We were tired and confused but Savannah said no then exchanged looks with me. As if you'd want that. Turned out we did end up with a room with a partial highway view and the noise! Which was a rude change from staying in San Fran at Rowland and Savannahs beautifully quiet homes!

I met Guy a UK music producer my sister is working with in London - but they are all here in LA producing an album for a famous person at the moment, and Andrei my sisters Fiance - who is working on that job and staying in the same hotel. A late night and the next day sightseeing of LA which was horrible! all 5 of us (Savannah/Fiora/Guy/Andrei and I) piled into a Crysler PT cruiser - which looks large but is not inside and drove around LA looking for this famed view of 'the city' from Mullholland drive. I say 'city' as it's more like a an experiment in low rise living or a guiness book or records attempt and creating the biggest urban sprawl on the planet...

now I don't know if i've said earlier but you don't drive anywhere in the states without a GPS. and good one at that. Talking ones are preferred! The reasons for this are: there are a lot of streets, highways don't have names but numbers, and americans don't give directions like Australian are used to - they use north/south/east/west. So you might get ... drive 1/4 of a mile to 988 (a highway) and head south to 760 (another highway). That sounds easy enough but with the ammount of streets and highways/overpasses/one way streets etc etc etc it is hard! That said - it turns out the PT Cruiser had a really average (non talking GPS). So that equalled a day of mostly sitting in the car with people trying to figure out what the unit was saying to us and where the F we were! So we are trying to find a lookout on mullholland drive - but we don't know what the lookout is called - or what street it is near and mullholland drive goes for miles and miles and miles! So the GPS is taking us there but then where do we go! anyway...
we made it to Santa Monica boulevard, Venice Beach, Santa monica boardwalk or something?, Malibu, Beveryly HIlls, and finally Mulholland drive on dark! so we got a lovely view of all the lights etc! Malibu looked ok...but nothing here is as beautiful as back home. So we're talking big homes on long long streets with NO corner shops in site. everyone has a car and they are usually big fuck off affairs (SUVs = big 4wds) built into the sides of hills that have ok vegetation. NOt the blue lagoon or anything like that - more like how i would imagine a semi vegetated desert!

I was supposed to go to a party with my friend Ben Pauly who is a guy i used to dance with in Sydney Monday night but ended up meeting him after - Savannah and I gave up on the overpriced/noisy crap hotel - which Savannah said was good for LA... as most of the hotels are very expensive. Even the crap 3 star ones. And we both went to stay with Ben. It was great seeing Ben. BEn has just moved here from living in Sweden for 5 years. He acts/sings/dances/writes etc. He is actually house sitting a friends house but was totally cool for Savannah and I to stay. He text me his address as corner Sweetzer and WIllougby streets WEHO. I'm reading this at the bar of the hotel to everyone and Savannah and I are going - Where is WEHO?? hoping it wasn't far as it didn't matter where it was cause the GPS would just know... uh-uh... WEHO was short for West Hollywood chorused my sister and Guy! Doh! haha that was lucky as I could just see us in the car typing in fucking weho with nothing! hahah

Savannah/Ben and I had breakfast at this really average place on Santa monica the next day and Savannah took off leaving Ben and I to do a bit of a drive around. which was great! we did that walk of stars, the kodak theatre (where the oscars were the night before), other stuff - blah blah - i can't really remember actually and as you can tell I was so underwhelmed by it all! hahaha! it was good seeing Ben though. We caught up with a friend of his who has been living here for a year and prior to that in NY. Natalie was cool and was getting ready to head back to Australia the next day (today) for a holiday. interesting hearing the dialogue between Ben and Natalie about doing castings etc and the LA scene. Natalie is a singer/dancer.

Later that night we caught up with my friends Nandy and Maya who are twins and ex the Lion King dancers. They have been living here for about 2 years now and doing really well! They dance and do backing vocals for Prince quite a bit and perform in his show in Vegas. They have a site it is http://www.thetwinz.net/ check it out! they're hot! We had a drink and they offered me keys to their place in Vegas (where they stay when they do the show every weekend) so that's hot and i will meet them today to get the keys!

Ben and i hit up a gay club last night which was hilarious! Guys behind the bar with their shirts off and guy dancers dancing in hot outfits on stages around the place for tips! i'm serious! Zak a guy i used to dance with in Australia was performing in the show and Ben and I stayed to watch him...

Stay tuned for more LA antics kids and maybe even some photos!

D