Rags to Riches

I can't believe I forgot to mention my little "accident" on Friday night! It wasn't so much of an accident as my roommate backing into my parked car. :-) It was just a slip of the mind, but made a good dent in my bumper and scratched her bumper on her brand new white car. So anyway, it's all working out, but I have to take my car in to be repaired next week. I'm hoping for a different car to drive around while it's being repaired because I honestly am not too crazy about the Scion tC. It's funny that in 3 weeks I've already had a flat tire and a dented bumper on this car where I have had nothing in 5 years of owning my Jetta. (Besides the occasional mechanical malfunction.) So in any case, this is the beauty we were driving around all weekend. I'm sure people thought I was just a great driver. :-)

Previously, on A Tourist in Hollywood...

...we left off after taking a trolley tour of Hollywood. By the time we hopped off the trolley, we were starving and headed over to the famous Farmer's Market for lunch. I didn't take photos there, but after waiting a good 10 minutes to get a parking space, we wandered through the market and settled on a deli for some good sandwiches. Then I got a chocolate chip cookie and John got a milkshake made from handmade ice-cream.

Afterwards, we drove a few short blocks to the La Brea tar pits. And let me tell you, it stank! (stunk?) We were suprised that it was mostly water -- this had been an old tar quarry -- with tar floating on the top. We saw lots of bubbles coming up out of the lake and after wondering if it was from some long-lost beastie trapped underwater (the Tar Ness monster, perhaps?), we read the sign which said they were created by methane gas coming up from the bottom. This reminded me of Rotarua, New Zealand, where it smelled to high heaven from all the sulfur due to volcanic activity.


The museum had put statues of mammoths stuck in the tar to give us an idea of the anguish they suffered (see below). I swore this statue was moving, and it was making me dizzy trying to figure out if it just appeared that way because of the floating tar. But then we figured out that yes, it really was moving back and forth with the water.

I decided to imitate the statue, but it didn't come out so well because you can't see the statue behind us.

So we tried again!

Then we drove up to Mulholland Dr. which I had only been on previously in the dark. There are lots of awesome houses and many stars live up here, but of course they are behind gates so you can't really see their houses, unfortunately. However, there were some incredible views of the San Fernando valley (which is the valley referenced in TV and movies in such ways as being from "the Valley" and being a "Valley girl"). We pulled into an overlook that had views of both sides. On one was the valley and on the other side was a reservoir.

From Mulholland, we drove down through Beverly Hills to Rodeo Dr. This is a photo of part of Rodeo Dr. that is pedestrian and has a little brick street. Some of the stores up here were Versace and Tiffany's. We felt very underdressed walking around here. Even though people were just shopping, everyone else was dressed to the nines.


Okay, so as you may have guessed by now, I did NOT buy this car over the weekend. Sorry to disappoint you all who were hoping to get a ride out of it. I am getting paid decently, but not THAT much. :-) John and I enjoyed pointing out all the sweet cars we passed by, and we saw this yellow Lamborghini drive by on Rodeo Dr. Then, we saw it parked in front of Ralph Lauren and just had to take a picture. A little while later, we saw this car approach a white Lamborghini on the opposite side of the road and thought there was going to be a Lamborghini Rumble! Some other cool cars we saw were Ferraris, Bentleys, and Maseratis.


This was a crazy thing that we saw -- instead of having windows with mannequins modeling the latest styles your store has to offer, this one had the mannequins in the ground! In addition to that, I only realized that there was a store there after someone exited (it appeared to be just a silver metal wall). So trendy.

After a brief stop in the Gucci store, we left the land of cement ponds and headed to Santa Monica. I wanted to show John the 3rd Street Promenade and the pier, but there was only really time to catch the sunset on the beach. We walked down the shore a bit and actually saw dolphins! But this time, not only were they coming up out of the water, but they were doing flips! It was pretty amazing.

Finally, we headed up to Malibu for a late dinner at Nobu. The first time I heard about Nobu, it was because it is apparently one of Dean Cain's (Clark of "Lois and Clark" fame) favorite restaurants. The second time I heard of Nobu, it was because it was splashed across Us magazine when paparazzi caught Britney Spears leaving. I hoped that we would see some celebrities, but alas, we did not. There could actually very well have been celebrities in there, but because of where we were seated, we couldn't see anyone very well.

Nobu is a very trendy sushi/Japanese food restaurant in the Malibu Country Mart. Knowing it was so trendy, we did a quick change-a-roo into extremely fashionable clothes. :-)

By the time dinner was over and we got back to Redondo Beach, we were exhausted.

Thus ends the second chapter in our adventure. Stay tuned once again for the final installment where our champions will eat some delicious burgers, travel to the mystical, far away city of San Diego, and face some ferocious wildlife. Will they make it out alive?? I don't know! You'll have to...STAY TUNED!