The Adventures of Mrs Mesher: Hollywood on the Bus of Shame (1st October)

On our second weekend in the land of the Angelenos the trip continued to Hollywood.
What glamorous stars and wonders were awaiting?
Well, according to my travel guide 'Tinseltown' recently received a long needed facelift(Apparently cleaning out the homeless, prostitutes and drug dealers).
But facelifts have a habit of just looking plain bad, and this was no exception. In my naivety I had expected to walk straight on to a movie set, with some good old fashioned 20's glamour sprinkled all over it. Instead there was a lot of 80's, souvenir shops and neonlights. Trashy, tacky, dirty and grimy(Could have been names for an updated LA version of Snow White and the seven dwarfs maybe).
For a little while we were having fun walking up the streets with our eyes peeled on the pavement stars; Michael Jackson, Harrison Ford, Buster Keaton, Lassie; the best of the best in other words. A few blocks later, after being pursued by three different salesmen selling bustours, we decided to hop on.

We scampered on a minibus slowly filling with tourists of all ages and shapes.
In expected bus fashion the backseat was pretty lively, a womans voice was drowning out the chatter of her friends with her guffawing laughs and non-stop trickle of 'taak'.
Taking a sneaky look, we realised that the hollering voice from the backseat belonged to a 60year old woman, not a sixteen year old girl. Well this was going to be a treat.
True, she made the journey more entertaining with her: "Willyouloogadadkaa??" on passing a Bugatti on Rodeo Drive, and her screaming on the top of her voice "I love you!!" to a glistening muscleman in a bar window, followed by: "I think he heard me!!"
(To which her husband replied: "Everybody heard you.") Good old fashioned husband and wife banter.
I think they got it right. If you find yourself on the bus of shame, you need to embrace it.

Its worth being driven around, not having to find things on your own, sights like the Johnny Depp-owned bar the 'Viper Room', is done in a flash. Lets face it, if Johnny Depp himself isn't there, there's nothing much worth hanging around for, or spending hours trying to find with a confused Sat Nav(or a GPS, as they call it here).

After playing peeping toms parking outside the houses of Christina Aguilera, Eddie Murphy, Will Smith, Britney Spears, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, our bus driver stopped the bus next to a glass building. Pointing to our reflection, he cheerfully said: "There you are! Take a look and wave at yourselves! Now you can take a photo of your tour to remember it by!!
Lots of waving hands came up in the air behind flashing lenses. I told myself to embrace it.
This could be quite a fun photo, to show everyone what silly little tourists we are on the tourbus.
"Willyaloogaddad!!"
My arms holding my camera felt very heavy. I Couldn't do it. Sorry.

We scrambled of the bus feeling dazed and windswept. The street was even busier now than earlier, and when we got to the Grauman's Chinese theatre for the famous stars' hand and/or foot prints, I was so grossed out by the bustle of tourists and tack that the thought of putting my hands in handprint-shaped pools of bacteria was as appealing as licking the pavement outside MacDonalds.
Even the street acts were a sad sight. Sonic?? Come on.
('Street acts' is a little strong, most of them stand around asking if you want to take a picture, for an appropriate sum)
At least the Michael Jackson look-alike took his job seriously, showing real concern when saying"May I see the photo?", making sure he was doing his job of looking like Michael Jackson properly. Oh, and there was someone dressed up as Catwoman too, although she could have been a prostitute, I'm not entirely sure.

The night was wrapping itself around Tinseltown, and I checked our travel book 'Top 10 LA'.
Did we miss anything? Nodagawddamnthang.

Hopefully a trip to Universal Studios will repair the damage.