I caught a cab to the hotel on West Sunset Boulevard and met Nick and we headed off to the famous Mel's Diner for burgers and milkshakes. By this time it was about 4am for me, so it was back to the hotel for an early night.
The following morning we woke to a beautiful day (an LA winter's day at around 18 degrees) and went to The Griddle Cafe on Sunset for breakfast - I had (3) pancakes which were literally the size of the dinner plate they were served on! I ate about a third before I had to concede. Nick went for the waffles which were much more on the 'normal' scale, but still huge. Between our hotel and The Griddle was the legendary Chateau Marmont -
From The Griddle we walked to Hollywood Boulevard passing some very cool 1950s Googie-style apartments.
Nick checking out the Kiss star on Hollywood Boulevard -
In front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre -
The Hollywood sign from the Kodak Theatre -
From Hollywood Boulevard we caught a cab across town to The Grove, the outdoor shopping mall. Santa's house -
From there we went to the Beverley Center where we had our first 'celebrity' sighting - Ian 'Dicko' Dickson, the Australian Idol judge. In fact, he actually spotted us as we discussed the relative merits of different iPod sizes in the Apple store in our Australian accents.
After some more shopping (and a sighting of a different Austalian Idol judge, Kyle Sandilands with his girlfriend, formerly of Scandal'us - quite bizarre) we went back to the hotel before heading out for my birthday dinner to the famous Ivy restaurant. Unbelievably it was still warm enough to eat on the patio in front. The food was great and the Ivy Gimlet's even better.
The following day we took a cab to Santa Monica. Nick started the day by making a California-themed CD at the Starbucks Hear-Music. From there it was off to Santa Monica Pier -
The indoor carousel -
From there we walked along the boardwalk towards Venice Beach -
After a quick stroll along Venice Beach we caught a cab back to West Hollywood to Robertson Boulevard (the home of many boutiques frequented by various Hollywood celebrities, including, on this occasion, Pauly Shore and L'il Wayne), and then to the Rhino Records Pop-Up Store and the Wholefoods Market. After that, we headed back to the hotel to collect our bags and off to the airport to catch our flight to San Jose.
We arrived in San Jose fairly late on Sunday night. The next morning, Nick went off to the Skype office for some meetings while I hit the mall to do some Christmas shopping. Traveling to the US on the pound is awesome - basically everything is half price! We were staying on Santana Row, the Truman Show-esque manufactured main street which was very lovely and perfect, but just a little bit creepy -
The next morning we took a car from San Jose to San Francisco where we did some more shopping, got some lunch at the local Mel's Diner (below) and then took a quick look though the SF Museum of Modern Art - finally some culture in a long weekend of shopping and eating (and on the first Tuesday of the month, so free!) After that I caught a cab to the airport for my flight back to London while Nick stayed for one more night for another meeting.
