03/10/18 Yesterday I drove to Santa Cruz first and had a look at the nice beach, then to Monterey.
Before Cambria, which was supposed to be my stopover, I found a grocery shop in a little town nearby and as it was dark, found a quiet residential street where I parked for the night under a magnolia tree.
Today it rained most of the day, but I drove through the streets of Santa Barbara. The city is smaller than I thought and is beautiful. Even with the rain, I enjoyed the palm trees and cactides everywhere, and the red roof houses and buildings. I didn’t cross that many homeless so I felt a lot safer too. I walked through the Nuevo Paseo shopping zone, checked what the beach looks like and drove to Santa Monica. I passed Malibu which didn’t seem to be interesting from the road. I parked in a residential area of Santa Monica for the night.
04/10/18 The sun was up when I woke up and the sky was almost clear. I parked along the beach, took a towel and walked down to lay on the beach for 2h. At 9.30 there was already 20 degrees and the wind was not strong so it was really nice. By midday, I turned on my mini burner for the first time and cooked my broccolis in the picnic area of Palissade Park (even though it was prohibited – could not find a safer place to light it on).
I moved the car closer to the Pier, explored the area and ordered a scoop of ice cream which turned out to be blue. The pier was full of tourists and souvenir shops but the weather was great so I enjoyed the entertainment (magician, musicians and street artists). I even found a guy who writes names on a grain of rice, which reminded me of Crete, 15 years ago where I saw it for the first time when I was on a family holiday.
Later I drove to Beverly Hills, along the streets boarded by nice shops and houses. I walked on the Walk of Fame (where stars’ names are built in the floor in a star shape) but I didn’t stay long as the area was surrounded by homeless and squatters so I thought I should get going and moved the car somewhere else. I found a spot for the night in Mar Vista area.
05/10/18 I thought I might spot some celebrities at the Grove, a nice shopping district close to the Farmers Market but I was not lucky today (or did not recognise any famous face walking incognito). As the weather was still nice so I drove to Venice Beach, full of artists and homeless people. It was fun walking there in plain light but I would not feel safe once the sun is down.
I heard on the radio that the movie ‘A Star Is Born’ was coming out today, casting Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper and as I was intrigued I booked my ticket at a local theatre. The movie was very touching and is a remake of an old movie of the same name. One thing kept banging my mind during the movie, I need to download the soundtracks! I read later that both actors created most of the songs together for the movie and Lady Gaga insisted to perform all songs live. They are both really good singers and performers.
I parked near the Warner Bros Studios for the night to avoid traffic as I booked a tour tomorrow morning.
06/10/18 I had time for breakfast in the car then drove straight to the parking of Warner Bros Studios where I went on a 2.5h tour of the studios. Cha you would love that they have their own Starbucks on site ?. They take us on an electric cart by group of 14. We drove along the streets of the WB city, bigger than 100 acres. There are 29 studios, numbered from 1 to 30 as they skipped number 13 (artists are very superstitious).
Our guide, Tyler took us inside multiple studios where TV shows are made like Mom, Lethal Weapon, The Big Bang Theory or the Ellen Show (P&P you would have loved it). We didn’t see any famous actors but it was a Saturday. We visited a museum on Harry Potter and a few superheroes and stopped by a garage where they have a few Batmobiles, all real vehicles used in the movies. I learned about how the production of a TV show schedule works, the audience laughter, how the sound of a movie is made. It is very interesting to see that world from backstage. The site is huge and in many locations they have fake and adaptable decors that can be reused depending on the show/movie needs. For example I recognised a front building as the Bradley’s sanitarium from Pretty Little Liars, also used as embassies in other films. They just change the flag on top and voila, you have a new embassy. The Warner Brothers were 4, their father immigrated from Poland.
Some girls feel like princesses at Disneyworld, my thing is that I get really excited near a music backstage or a theatre (and airports for some reason but that is off topic).
Being there reminded me how much I dreamt of working in the cinema industry. Few of you might remember I almost signed up for an infographics school and looked for sound engineer careers before I decided to study international trade. I highly enjoyed the exhibition on Pixar Studios in Vancouver as well and I can’t wait for my VIP tour of Paramount Pictures booked in 2 days.
In the afternoon, I drove in Hollywood suburb to catch the famous Hollywood sign (just to prove I was there ?) and got back to the car not really well parked just before getting fined (this time at least, phew!). Then checked in at the hostel where I will sleep and shower 2 days in a row. Yoohoo!
07/10/18 I spent most of the day backing up my photos and updating the articles for the blog now that I found a (time consuming but working) trick to do it without Windows telling me it does not recognise my device. I have to keep up with the article posting as I am about a month behind thanks to my friend Microsoft.
I had a nap in the afternoon and during that hour I became the favourite menu item to the local mosquitos, so this time I brought the big guns and use my giant mosquito net, as I have the bottom bunk bed I have plenty of spots to fix it. Take that future threatening suckers! I hope you enjoyed my A+ liquor because you will have to find SOMEONE ELSE’s sweet blood tonight. I am out of business (can you read the joy of my miserable victory of this one battle?) I know I won’t win the war, but peace of mind of not being bitten by mosquitos for 1 night IS a victory. At least for people like me. You know, sweet blood discriminated minority.
To celebrate my efforts to win this fight, I walked to a Thai restaurant and brought back a red curry to the hostel. It smelt so good in the house that everyone came to the kitchen and I was happy to share it with a girl from Chicago and our host, you know how the thai food portions are always too big for 1 person anyway. Later I met a group of 4 French people from Lyon (Quentin this one is for you ?) staying for another night too. They were planning to go for a little run the next morning… (just 20 miles you know…).
08/10/18 I packed everything and went to the Paramount Studio for my exciting VIP tour. I received a complimentary drink on arrival and Erin introduced herself as our guide for the next 4.5h. These studios and the site itself look more classy and well maintained compared to the Warner Bros one, even though Paramount studio is about 10 years older. The founder was Austro-Hungarian. The tour was better than WB studios but I paid the price too, to get access to archives, backlots, costumes, special effects or signs workshop. A nice lunch was included and Erin gave us a lot of details and anecdotes on shows and the studio’s history. The signs workshop visit was great as Lenard, the manager shared a lot of his work with us, despite that they were 1 man short and had big deadlines for a Monday morning. We all received a free poster as a VIP gift, I chose the movie Suburbicon with Matt Damon but I haven’t seen the movie yet.
Many other studios can also rent the space for their own production.
