Hollywood trip
2006/12/02 No comments yetIrvine is quite close to Los Angeles, that is why as soon as I settled I had the urge to go see Hollywood, specially the sign. It may seem stupid, but you kind of make your own idea of how things are, and you tend to idealize them. Not having a car and not being familiar with the roads around here, we were lucky enough to meet Yvette. A girl who speaks spanish and studies in Pepperdine university that was kind enough to take us on a tour to LA.
That morning we drove up to Hollywood boulevard and walked around the area. We could see the famous hand prints on the sidewalk: Spielberg, Sharon Stone, Nicolas Cage, Tom Cruise, the list is endless…
They even have room for Mickey Mouse! We also visited the Kodak theater where the Oscar celebration takes place. We were right there, where the red carpet lays. The place was packed with tourists; there were also several limousines and some people trying to make a buck by dressing up as movie characters and taking pictures with the turists. The truth is that Goofy fooled us and we had to give him 1$. It was nice, but I expected more from a place which is known all around the world. I think there are many places like this (or better) in Barcelona which most people know nothing about. We had lunch right there, and we took some pictures with the Hollywood sign on the back 
. Mission accomplished!
In the afternoon we visited the Universal Studios. We didn’t actually went into the theme park (in an attempt to save money), but just walked around the area to see what was going on. Again, there were many visitors, going in and out from the many shops. At a certain point, we saw many people gathering in a circle and curious as we are, went to see what was going on. There were two guys collecting donations for some non profit cause. They were asking the people to chip in, while doing some kind of performance. We stayed there for a while, so our turn came and we got asked. As you already know, we all are students who just got to California a month ago, so we almost don’t have money at all. That is why we didn’t participate, yet the guy (who was latino) told us the following: “hey guys, you’re white, so you must be rich“. Our case was the exact opposite, but we were the only ones to get that line, so it got me thinking. Is it a known fact around LA that white people have more money than hispanic or black people?
Everything in Universal Studios is designed to attract people’s attention, but what impressed me the most was this street juggler guy who was completely crazy. He was juggling with a soccer size ball, a burning torch and a turned on chainsaw. I don’t know whether it was for real or not, but if it was, he could easily chop one of his arms off… I’ll let you be the judges of that. Just take a look:
In the end, we headed back, and of course we got stuck in the traffic. A bad ending for a great day. And we owe that to Yvette. She came to pick us up, drove us around, showed us the interesting stuff and at night took us to a club. I don’t know what the catch is, but it was awesome. Thanks Yvette!
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