I made it this far. I'm making my way. (:

Los Angeles is nothing like in the movies. It's dirty. You can't see anything due to the smog. the sun literally can't emerge from behind it until the afternoon. And the Walk of Fame is located in an extremely dingy and kind of shady part of town. I don't know where they film "Los Angeles" in the movies, but I know it isn't here.

The Walk of Fame was actually pretty cool though. Some of the stars' stars (hahahha) that we saw included Cloris Leachman, Kermit the Frog, Chris Farley, Drew Barrymore, Forest Whittaker, Sandra Bullock, Dr Seuss, and, my all time favorite, Danny Kaye (from White Christmas!) to name a few.

The stars lead us over to the Kodak Theatre, where the Oscars are held annually. FUN FACT: When the Oscar's are not being held there, it's a mall. No joke. It's just a mall, hahah. Mom had fun walking up the stairs and pretending it was the red carpet. XD

Then we headed just a few buildings down to the Chinese Theater, where all those handprints and footprints of the stars are. My personal favorites were the cast of Harry Potter (seen at the top of this post :D), Bing Crosby, and Robert Downey Jr. :D


Simon also loves Robert Downey Jr. He was super excited. :D Hahah.

By the way, California is like freezing cold. It's been an average of 50 or 60 degrees here daily. I never thought I'd say this, but I miss Indiana weather. D:

After we finished slumming around downtown Hollywood, we headed to the Dodgers' Stadium. (Max's idea, of course.) Well, we attempted to. It proved impossible to see, and we weren't allowed past a certain point. So Max got a picture of the sign instead.


Then we headed out to Santa Monica, to the famous Santa Monica Pier. Santa Monica was gorgeous, although it was cloudy there as well. People were still on the beach, but it could hardly be considered crowded. It was by far the coldest I've been on this trip yet.

There was a theme park on the pier, complete with a supposedly solar powered Ferris Wheel. I mean, I don't know for sure, because the sun wasn't out. XD I had my first corndog of the trip (I've been going through a withdrawl, hahahah) at one of the stands on the pier, but the birds were AWFUL.

I'm sure most of you know how I feel about birds. I hate them. A lot. And these were flying everywhere, like a scene out of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. I seriously feared for my life, haha.

Here's the view from the pier of the city:

We then set off on a five hour drive towards San Francisco, driving on Highway 1 (which is right next to the ocean) through Malibu, which was also very nice looking. Most of the houses were actually built into the sides of the mountains. And, I must admit, I was secretly looking for Tony Stark's mansion, because I am an Iron Man nerd. Hahahah. We saw a few surfers, but they were all wearing full wetsuits, due to the sheer freezingness of this state, haha.

Right now, we are in the town of San Luis Obisbo, somewhere between San Francisco and LA. We're going to San Francisco tomorrow. (: We ate at an Irish pub here in town, called The Kilt, where, you guessed it, all the servers wore kilts. XD And I swear I heard Celtic Thunder on the in-restuarant music system, so, of course, I thought of Sarah, haha.

This trip has been fun, but California (besides Santa Monica, really) has been a bit of a disappointment. I can't help but hope that San Francisco is better. (:

- Rachel (:

[Title from "This Is How We Live" by The Summer Set]

Max's videolog, recapping the past few days. This still makes me laugh, hhahahahahahhahahahahhah.

By the way, we're all laughing because Max doesn't know who Gene Autry is. XD