LA, You're A-Ok

It was our final full day in LA today, and it was a good one.

LA gets quite a bad reputation, and yes it's more obviously grimy than other cities but it really does have some real things to love about it and we found a new one today. The Warner Bros Studio Tour.

I'd been previously a little reluctant to go on a studio tour (Universal doesn't count for me for some reason) but I wanted something to do today that was easy and reasonably quick. I've never had the desire to drive past celebrity houses, unless Bradley Cooper wants to invite me in and speak French to me) so this studio tour fit the bill.

Reading reviews of the tour, there was a heavy mention a lot of shows that I wasn't interested in - Pretty Little Liars, Hart of Dixie etc so I wasn't expecting a huge amount but there was a lot of things of my era (a clearly ancient era, as earlier demonstrated by while waiting for the tour pick up, we got caught in a mini mob scene over a former Disney star turned singer - Austin someone or rather and we had no idea who he was). I may have squealed at the sight of the morgue from Pushing Daisies and props from the Veronica Mars movie.

(Meh, I'm trying to add a photo here and it's refusing to play nice. So just imagine me standing with Veronica Mars stuff - see Facebook for actual photo.)

Sorry, I'm watching The Blacklist while typing this so I'm being easily distracted. So what is Tom up to?!

It's genuinely interesting to see the creativity that goes into film masking, especially the vision of the designers who can think how to revise sets from one thing to another.

We got to see the soundstage that Two Broke Girls is filmed in and saw the main sets. It's funny to see how small they are. Aaron was most disappointed that he didn't get to see Kat Dennings. That was the only part of the tour we couldn't take photos of. We could take photos in another set though, the set of Central Perk from Friends. Did you know that the actor who played Gunther was only ever intended as an extra, but they needed someone who could use the coffee machine for a scene and he could. The rest is side character history.

Oh and because it's me, I had to pose with Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny statues on the way out.

After refreshing in the hotel, we then went to Morton's in Beverly Hills (except it's not actually in Beverly Hills as far as I can tell).  We had the best ever dining experience there a few years ago and hoped to repeat it. And oh my goodness, the food was so good. The best mashed potatoes and the fillet steak was cooked to perfection. It was the real hero of the dish.

So an early start tomorrow morning, as we fly from LA to New Orleans, a place we haven't seen before which I'm hoping to really love.

Ooh Alda and Spader in a tense scene together, fabulous.

Off to bed to get up for that flight. Night!!

Sugar High.

Today's guest bloggers were going to be my legs, however after spending 6 hours walking around LA (noting how unfit I am) my legs have sulked off to the corner, just glaring at me. The only words they seem to be capable of aren't repeatable so I've cancelled their appearance.

Our hotel is about a 20 minute easy walk to the Grove LA and the Farmer's Market. The Grove has a Cheesecake Factory. The strawberry lemonade at the Cheesecake Factory is very possibly my very favourite thing in the world. So us heading to the Grove at some point on this visit was a foregone conclusion. We got to the Grove (fancy shopping mall - often featured on TMZ!) about 11:15, thought it was a little early for lunch and so had the very difficult task of hovering in the giant Barnes and Noble bookstore next door.

Oh Barnes and Noble. I love you, I could spend forever in you.

After half an hour, we went next door, we were very quickly seated on the balcony (weather is gorgeous here). If you've seen the photos on my Facebook, please note our mains (meatloaf and shepherd's pie) were the SMALLER lunch size. The portions are insane. Also insane was the Oreo Exreme Dream Cheesecake I attempted for dessert. It beat me, but be assured I put up a big fight. It was heaven in a spoonful.

After browsing around more and a visit to the Farmer's Market we decide to walk another 15 minutes to the La Brea Tar Pits and LACMA (LA something something Art). Some excellent photo opportunities to be had. There's something amazing about palaeontology work happening in the middle of LA.

We slowly strolled back to the hotel after that, slowly because my legs had begun their campaign of hatred against me.

Tonight we've just grabbed a pizza and brought it back to the hotel, as I hadn't watched HGTV in about 8 hours and I was missing watching people browse property on shoestring budgets with huge wish lists.

Really, today was all sugar. And frankly, I'm okay with that.

G'day LA

Hello from California :)

I started drafting this blog on the plane, but reading back, and considering I was realising we weren't even halfway when I started the draft, it's fuelled with grumpy thoughts so I've scrapped it.

So long story/flight long. The flight was okay. It's over 14 hours it's pretty much what you imagine what it was like.

Today has been dedicated to food and sleep! Oh and a little shopping.

We had early check in at our hotel - the Sofitel - which I've decided is probably my favourite ever hotel - which was great for a refresh. This room has the best shower - one of those giant showerheads that hangs from the ceiling.

Then we celebrated our arrival with lunch at Johnny Rockets. For those unaware, it's a chain of 50s style burger joints. It's really fun, and sets my America pop culture meter off. I had a Philly Cheesesteak, Aaron a burger and we both had floats (spiders as Australians may know them.) The floats were huge!

After that we went to the Beverly Center to browse the shops. By browse,  I mean Aaron was left in my dust trail as I ran towards Sephora, while giggling like a maniac. After Sephora (I was restrained and only bought something I actually needed), I mysteriously ended up in Macy's. I wasn't going to buy anything but there was a clearance rack and a Ralph Lauren jumper reduced from $109 to $36. I'm sure anyone would agree purchasing it was the only logical option.

After a nap, we went wandering around another shopping centre that had Target and Old Navy etc (no purchases) and then went to a nearby PF Chang's for dinner. That was a good choice, it was fresh and light but a great portion size so we had a good dinner.

Now, back in the hotel obsessively watching HGTV. No real plans for tomorrow. I suspect the Cheesecake Factory will feature.

(I'm having trouble posting things on Facebook so hopefully this works. )

I blame Jackson Browne

The story goes that Jackson Browne had written a song but had got stuck and it wouldn't be completed in time for his next album, so he showed his neighbour who loved how it started, and offered to some more lyrics. Jackson Browne was so impressed, that he gave his neighbour song writing credit and gave it to his band to perform. His neighbour was Glenn Frey of the Eagles and the song was Take It Easy. The line that Jackson had got stuck on was "I was standing on a corner of Winslow, Arizona"... and since Take it Easy was released, Eagles fans such as myself, have seen Winslow as a bit of a Mecca.

As I've mentioned in my previous blog entry, it was the thing I was most looking forward to seeing along Route 66. As a student of American cultural history, with a thesis on car culture behind me, Route 66 was something I needed to cross of my bucket list before we buy a new house this year and commit to a much bigger mortgage, ceasing the international travel, that's almost become part of who I am. The whole upcoming US trip revolved around going on a Route 66 tour through Cosmos Tours.

Monday, we got the news the tour had been cancelled. I was/am completely shattered by it. This trip meant a lot to me, for many reasons, but the main one, was while it sounds odd, I felt like this tour was going to "complete" me, well at least in a for now sense and also because the tour was smack bang in the middle, so many changes would have involved lost money or compromising existing plans. With the confusion over the holiday and the very early stress of thinking about selling our house combined, I had a bit of a meltdown yesterday and the holiday was nearly cancelled.

Then, after a blurted vent on Facebook, some accompanying wide advice both online and off, Aaron and I started thinking about the gaps and what we could do. By the end of the night, we had a new plan, and we were genuinely happy and looking forward to the holiday.

Plans actually changed again this morning, when my mother referred us to this Trafalgar Tour Colourful Trails of the Southwest she found, which fits into our plans perfectly and looks really quite amazing. Monument Valley was the other place on my most want to see list and it's on this tour.

As you can see from the map, it covers a lot of natural wonder places, which Aaron and I love. It also lets us see Phoenix which was on our list of places to fill the gap. So if this tour is still available when my travel agent returns from a conference next week, this will be going in.

It won't let me feel like I'm part of Eagles history, but it's going to be great, and Winslow will be there, giving me a dream to keep going back to when I'm trying to learn how to save money!

2014 - A Huge Year With A Less Huge Me?

2014 is here, and that's as good as time as any to start my blog again. It's also a good chance to see if I can stand doing lots of typing on the iPad. (Current guess is no.)

I've missed blogging, so I'm looking forward to starting again and I think it's going to be useful because I'm expecting 2014 to be a pretty big year. This year will feature another series of trip updates as we're back off to the USA for 5 weeks, and we're looking at buying a new house. Exciting! (And in regards to the house completely overwhelming and terrifying too.)

I feel like I'm also having an epiphany of sorts at the moment. I haven't made any New Year's Resolutions but around the start of the year, in complete coincidence - although possibly heavily influenced by complete festive overdoing - I seem to have just fallen into a pattern of looking after myself more. (I say this as I sit slumped on the couch, watching hours of episodes of Say Yes To The Dress).  I don't feel like this is a conscious attempt at weight loss, thought that would be a nice by product, just as if I've realised I deserve better than the sluggish, uncomfortable, unfit person I am. I feel like it's never clicked that way before. I'm far from doing anything drastic - chocolate, coca cola, cookies and cheese are permanent friends of mine, but I'm getting my thyroid medication finally right, I'm drinking a lot more water, cutting down on takeaway and I've even started waking earlier to use my treadmill. (I know, you couldn't be more shocked than me.) It's just feeling like a natural progression.

Anyhoo, that's boring. I'm going to NEW YORK CITY again. It'll be interesting to see it after seeing Paris, which was always my fantasy city. I think I'm going to love it as much as before - Paris will be more beautiful, but NYC will always feel more like a home.

This trip to the US is intended on being a bit of a last hurrah, as we cut down on travelling to be sensible audits with a bigger mortgage, so it's covering the one thing I felt I still needed to get out of my system - Route 66,  a "Greatest Hits" of places we've already been and loved - NYC, Vegas, Chicago and LA/Anaheim/ Disneyland, and a surprise visit to New Orleans which we added after we had a spare space.

My love for Americana, especially my interest in the 50s, car culture and diners (heh heh), has meant that Route 66 has felt like somewhere I've needed to see sooner rather than later, so we're doing a tour. We picked the tour based on the "promise" that they stopped at Winslow, Arizona so I could stand on a corner with this guy.

Taken from TripAdvisor

(Eagles fans shout out!)

So all things seem quite good. I finished 2013 feeling completely stressed, sad and flat, and it's nice that a lot of those feelings seem to have stayed back there.

Here's to 2014. Hope it's great for you.

Last Day of Holidays

So, technical issues (eg lousy internet service) combined with my sheer exhaustion on that holiday meant that unfortunately I wasn't able to do daily blogs of the trip, which disappoints me greatly. I find the daily reports have been really helpful to me when recalling the trip. My intention is to still blog about the trip but I'm going to do it in sections instead. These updates should be done over the next week or so, so look out for them :)

Today, is the last day of our leave, we've been back for a week (can't believe it's been that long already) but we've had this week off, to relax and because I have a tendency to get horrendous jet lag when I get home.

This week has been both good and a write off - because jet lag has indeed hit me like a forklift truck so I've been sleeping badly - we both have - which has meant later starts than intended and a few missed opportunities, but on the flipside, I've been able to have a leisurely breakfast with a fabulous friend, played mini-golf, tried new food places and bought boots - boots that fit over jeans, there's no words that contain my excitement over this (we'll ignore that the boots are too big).

Finally I feel normal today, but unfortunately it's been raining very heavily and we've not been able to do the things we'd planned for today, so the holiday will end quietly. Quietly isn't necessarily a bad thing though, as exciting it is I'm actually looking forward to sorting out my wardrobe and doing some baking. It was still effectively summer in terms of the weather, when we left just under four weeks ago and when I go back to work on Monday, according to the calendar and the weather if today is an example, it'll be winter. I really don't know what's in my wardrobe to wear, so should sort that out! I've also just found a recipe for brown sugar and cinnamon muffins and another for rock cakes that I think a cold, wet day like today is perfect for.

Will be back with travel blogs soon.

The Last Will And Testament Of My Lower Body

Dear all, I have sad news. After they were made to walk for 8 hours around London today, my legs, feet and lower back have all consulted their unions and ordered an immediate stop work meeting. Oh god, they are so stiff I can barely move. Judging by the whimpering coming from Aaron's direction, he's in a similar state.

So today, our first full day in London was a truly busy one. I laughed at one point that I could go home now as I'd seen everything in London already.

An interjection - apologies for this being the first blog of the trip. I had a few drafts started but due to shaky internet access I couldn't complete them. I'll do a summary of the transit (including Singapore) later. Lonag story short - Business Class is really nice. (Surprise.)

So this morning Aaron and I woke up around five, and dawdled around until about 8am where we went to the breakfast included in our hotel room. It was delicious and huge, although I very subconsciously looked for vegemite!

Around 9:30 we met my parents in law outside of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. For those that don't know my father in law was born in England so they decided to meet us over here for a few days so we can see some of his childhood. Today was really about sightseeing though, so we headed for Buckingham Palace.

I was perhaps a little underwhelmed by Buckingham Palace, it didn't feel as spectacular as I expected, but the statue out the front - the Queen Victoria Memorial - with the gold top - I stared at for ages. We then walked through St James Park so I could see squirrels -yes seriously, my love for squirrels is legendary, and then off to Westminster to see 10 Downing Street (well what you can see through the security), Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey (didn't go in), the Boudicca statue - which was my favourite sight of the morning - and walked along the Thames. The weather suddenly turned at this point so we ran through the rain to a pub for lunch.

After lunch - at a very English pub called the Sherlock Holmes - Aaron and I were treated to our first Tube ride. Not at all sure I understand the fuss. The trains were very fast sure, but the stations had so many stairs and paths that I felt like it was quicker (and less stressful on my knees!) just to walk between stops!

Hmmm, I was so tired I couldn't finish this!  So here I am trying to remember what else we did while fighting with the internet here which is nicely free but has very low signal and is consequently slower than well...me walking.

So where we went on the Tube was to Convent Garden, to the London Transport Museum, my father in law's choice. In all honesty I'm a big fan of car history but I can glaze over a bit about the history of public transport, so I'm the wrong person to ask about whether it was good or not, in terms of being a museum. It wasn't bad though as a way to spend time, and it was interesting to note the vehicles that reasonated with my father in law and his early childhood in London.

After the Transport Museum, we headed towards Oxford Street, but decided to walk around Regent and Carnaby Street instead. All it really made me think was about how poor, fat and uncool I was. I'm in no way hipster or aristocratic enough to survive in London!

After a quick dinner of Pizza Hut, we came back here and basically passed out from a mixture of tiredness and the sheer pain. 24 hours later I'm still in pain. 

One great thing of note - zero jetlag - for either of us. At the end of yesterday I was excited to have seen things I always wanted to see, but the sleepiness and pain I felt was really clouding me and I was tired and sore which made me grumpy and I admit to not enjoying it as hugely as I hoped. How do I feel at the end of Day 2? We'll see in the next blog!