"You can still see it from there"

- Quote from Jenny, the Warner Bros Tour Guide about the WB Water Tower...

After I left Warner Bros Studios, I waited nearly 45 minutes for an every 10 minutes bus... I wasn't very impressed given that it was around midday and even in the shade it was very hot!

"Krustyland" - The Simpsons Ride

I finally arrived at Universal Studios at around 1:30-2pm. The buses take you to the main road and then you get a little train car up the (very steep) hill to Universal.

A house used in Desperate Housewives

Probably one of the cooler staff
outfits at Universal Studios
#Shrek

With a 3+ Day LA City Pass, Universal is included, which is excellent as tickets are around $95 (nearly £70) separately! I got in the queue (which had no shade) and was stood there for nearly 30 minutes before reaching the front - thankfully it wasn't that long, as not many people seem to go in at lunchtime, but the people in the ticket booths were rather slow... When I finally got to the front of the queue, they then told me that because I had the City Pass, I actually needed to be in the "Special Tickets" queue. I was so cross that they didn't have a sign saying that somewhere?! So off I went to the "Special Tickets" queue, only to have to wait for another 20 minutes with the other 3 people in the queue because there was only one booth open, and the woman at the front was asking some really complicated questions that took forever!

We can just blow up a few
planes for a movie, right?

I think I finally made it in there sometime around 3pm, so I was pretty annoyed as that left me with much less time to do things. I asked the Info desk what the best order to do things in was, and was advised to start with the Studio Tour, as that closes first.

More queuing followed - although that queue had shade for some parts of it, and the water sprayer things on the ceiling which helped, but the shade made it stuffy and there were a lot of hot, bothered, stroppy children both in front and behind me...

Before...

...After

Mum thought I'd love the Studio Tour more than anything - probably because she did back in the 80's - but most of it wasn't that great. They drive you around some of the Film/TV sets, and then you see some of their special effects 'studios'. Some of them were great, like one where they flooded a town in about 30 seconds, and one where they threw a load of train carriages around an underground station and made the roof collapse, but there were lots of really cheesy bits that were just a bit ridiculous and overly American... For example, a lake with a dummy diver in there, the tour guide shouts "This is our diver friend, Steve. Hey Steve", next a Shark appears in the lake behind the diver suit, and the tour guide starts screaming "Ahh, Steve look out behind you" as the shark gets closer and appears to pull the dummy below the water... "Noooo, Steve! Steeeeveee!!", she screams....

10:04pm, 12th November 1955
(Back to the Future)

They had some special "new" 3D bits too - the King Kong and Fast & Furious rides. These are pretty clever as they drive into a garage and display 3D screens on the walls around you, and the floor moves too so you feel like you're being bashed about by a T-Rex and falling off rope bridges and being caught by the King of the Jungle...

After that, I checked out the Shrek ride, as it had a short-ish wait time (around 15 minutes). That was a 3D film in one of those cinemas where the chairs shake and they spray you with water and air etc. It was a spooky, halloween kind of ride which I wasn't so into, but it was quite clever.

At this point, it was probably coming up to 5:30pm. I wanted to see the Waterworld Show at 6:30pm, but wanted to go on some more rides in the meantime. The Jurassic World ride (and a Mummy ride) is on the lower level of Universal, which takes around 10 minutes to get to as it's basically at the bottom of the very steep hill again (although on another side) and so you have to spend ages going up and down escalators to get between the two areas of the theme park.

They are building 

"The Wizarding World
of Harry Potter" 

but it's not open until
April 2016 *sob*

At the top of the very long escalator bit, I asked some Universal staff if I'd have enough time to get down there, go on the Jurassic ride and get back over to the Waterworld show in an hour. "Urrm, maybe not but just wait right here a mo", says one of the (very LA) Universal staff. A minute later, he came back with a Fast-track Queue Jump ticket for one ride. I sprinted down the several sets of escalators/stairs, and shoved my stuff in a locker (it's a wet ride), only to find out that Jurassic has a "Single Riders Line" which, very conveniently, was practically empty.

This was a fun ride. You go on a little boat trip along a river with the Jurassic Park music playing and dinosaurs moving about. Then, you go into a garage sort of thing, and have the T-Rex roar above you, right as you hurtle down a very steep waterfall and splash in the bottom.

I had loaaads of time left, plus my Fast-track ticket, so went for the Simpson's ride too. I waited in a queue for rather a long time (wasn't happy as I was told "it'll be less than 2 minutes"). This one is not suitable for anyone with pretty much any medical conditions whatsoever as it's a "Very Violent" ride - which they weren't joking about. This one you get lined up for ages in a Simpson's themed room before getting directed into your separate rooms with up to 5 other people in your queue. Then you hop into a little car which later on raises up on a pole and very forcefully pushed forwards, backwards, and from side of side while you watch a 3D video of a Simpson's rollercoaster ride with Sideshow Bob...

Waterworld Show

After that ordeal, I ran over to the Waterworld Show which from memory was due to start at 6:30pm (I had about 5 minutes to get across the whole park to get over there), thinking I was going to miss it. I thought it was a bit of a miracle there was any seats left - the only ones available were the non-wet-zone seats (no complaints from me). This was one of those generic shows involving giant spray hoses, jet skis and pyromaniacs supposedly along the theme of the Waterworld film (which I have yet to watch - IMDb only gives it a 6.1/10... I may never get around to it).

Waterworld Pyrotechnics...

Huge American
Hot Dog!

Overall, I'd recommend Universal Studios, but I'm not sure I'd go there more than once (that's a lie, I'll go there again for Harry Potter World, but that's all!). It's just rather overpriced, and it was just so soo hot in August!!

City of Angels, City of Traffic

I made it to LA!

So I arrived in LA at around 2:30pm, and went through customs. That is not a walk in the park, I think he must have asked about 100 questions, and was really suspicious about the fact I was travelling alone. I was asked what I do for a living, when I said I was a student, he got really aggressive about how could I have afforded this trip. I tried explaining that I do temp work and he wanted to know details of the last 5 jobs I've had, what I did, what company I worked for, how long I worked for them. Then it was what my parents did, their dates of birth, whether I've ever lived in another country, exactly what I'd be doing in America (like day by day), my return flight details, if I'd be meeting up with anyone, when, if I was renting a car, how I was getting around when in LA and so many more.

I was exhausted after a 11 hour flight and was struggling with finding words and was trying really hard not to get flustered about the constant quick fire questions, especially as a lot of them got repeated again, worded in a slightly different way, randomly mixed among other unrelated questions, eg. "Are you renting a car? how are you getting around LA? What hotel are you staying in? What date do you leave LA? Where are you going afterwards? How are you getting there? What was your last job? What are you doing on your trip?"

The Airport

Not fun.

Free Shuttle Bus from the Airport

Then I had to wait for my bag, which also took ages. When it finally came out, it was upside down so it was a challenge to pick it up and the conveyor kept taking it away so I had to keep dragging it back again.

Then I made it out. I had to pop into the loo first as I hadn't changed into my summer clothes and I was boiling, so I went and did that, put on sun cream and then tried to find an information desk. There wasn't one so I walked out to the street to see if I could work out which bus I needed to get. I couldn't so after 10 mins, just asked one of the drivers of a shuttle bus that stopped. Apparently I needed that shuttle to the LAX City Bus center - and it was free too! I finally got over to the bus station and missed the bus I needed by 1 minute because I was still trying to drag my suitcase over so I had to wait 10 minutes. 

LA!

I needed to get a travel card but there was no info desk or ticket machines there either. I got the next one that went to Aviation Station, but I didn't have anything smaller than $10 on me and I didn't realise that you have to have the correct change for the buses. I was trying to work out whether it would give change, and the driver was like "Don't go putting thaaat in there. You gonna need something smaller. Don't you have a dollar?" I tried explaining that I didn't have any change yet, and she was like "Well how you gonna get on a train?!" She let me on anyway, but it made me really nervous.

When I got off at Aviation Station, there were ticket machines so I paid $26 for 7 day Tap Card. The machine is crazy fast and times out after about 5-10 seconds of inactivity, which made it really hard as I wasn't sure exactly what I needed at first.

Next it was the Green Line metro train towards Norwalk, and I got off at Harbour Freeway/Transit Station and changed onto the Silver Line bus. This is where it all went wrong as I asked the bus driver to tell me when we got to 1st Hill. He then asked me where I was going and told me he'd tell me when to get off. I went and checked again about 15 mins later about where to get off and he said it was probably best to get off at Figueroa/7th and take the #2 from across the street. I did have the #2 as one of the buses I needed (just a bit later) so decided to listen to him. Just as I was getting off I said "So it's #2 from over there?" and he was like "Yeah, #2 or something like that from somewhere over there" (waving indistinctly in a general direction).

So then I walked "somewhere over there", and there wasn't a #2... so then I spent 30 mins trying to work out where I was and how to get over to my hotel. There are no signs or maps on the bus stops - like a map of the city showing which buses go where would have been really helpful, but there was nothing. Sometimes there is a bus route for a specific bus but if you don't know what roads go where it's really not helpful.

After asking someone in Starbucks and several other passing bus drivers, I decided to just walk up the road. It turns out I literally needed to carry on walking up the road a bit and get the #60, and then cross the intersection and get either #2, #4 or #704 along Sunset. 

Sunset Boulevard

Finally made it and arrived at my hotel! (Thankfully it was right by the bus stop). Annoyingly there was no sign above the door that you had to go through, or a path from the 'sidewalk' so it took me a few minutes to work out how to get in. But I made it! It only took 3 hours from the airport. Only just over an hour more than it was supposed to...

Une Excursion d'une Journée à Caen

On Sunday 28th September, I spent the day in the French City called 'Caen'. The main reason I haven't actually written this until now is because I tend to do these using photos as a reminder of what I did, meaning I have to go through them, discard the blurred/hand/floor photos, pick and choose the good ones, and rotate about a third or more before I can even think about writing.

During my trip to Caen, I somehow managed to take 442 photos, so naturally it's taken me a while to get around to going through them. I've got it down to 180...

Anyway, here's a selection of the photos!

Cherbourg Train Station

A tower in Caen City Centre

There's a big market in Caen on Sunday mornings.
I arrived just before the end of it.

Flower Market

A French/British Restaurant, called 'Dolly's too'.
The Menu was in both French and English.

Fish and Chips!! First one I've found in France.
Rather more Salad/Coleslaw than a traditional British Fish & Chips,
but I'll let it slide this time.

Caen Castle from the outside

Caen Castle from the inside - more of a fort than a castle
(probably was bombed in the war or something)

View of the Cathedral and city from Caen Castle

Caen Castle and some beautiful blue skies

The Cathedral through the Castle gates

I think this was a museum - there were two here

The other Museum/Library

Very strange sculptures -  Mythical creatures made from metal on wooden posts...

The Statues from behind

Gate with steps leading downwards...

Caen Cathedral

A very old building (16th Century) on one of the high streets.
The Americans were amazed - American history isn't very old
so they're probably lucky to find anything from the 18th Century in the USA.

Plaque on the very old building

Little Café (Le 101) where we stopped for an afternoon snack.

Very tasty Chocolate Fondant Cake. Yum!

I feel like all my visits to foreign cities are dictated by the need to find toilets.
We finally found some free toilets - they looked quite nice on the outside...

Or not...

BRISTOL!

More Toilets. This time in Subway, and much much nicer!

A Memorial with a golden angel statue on top.
Looked very pretty with the oncoming sunset.

Another large church

A World War II Memorial Plaque with Fresh Flowers.

"Here lies the ashes gathered from the Nazi Camps"