Hollywood, Conan, and a lot more

It's now over two weeks that we came back to Finland and we've had time to reflect what we did. All I can say is that it was definitely the best trip I've ever made and I've never experienced so much in so little time. Now we will finish our blog that we didn't manage to complete while traveling, had too much fun.

Day 29 / 10/01/2012 / Woodland Hills, CA - Burbank, CA [Conan @ Warner Brothers] - Hollywood, CA [Mel's Drive-In]- Woodland Hills, CA

Monday we had one of the best things to do on our trip. We had tickets to go see the taping of Conan in Warner Brothers studios. The show is recorded early in the afternoon and it takes several hours of waiting from the audience. We decided to wait the whole time in the waiting area, which is in one of the parking buildings outside the studio area. They gave us a time when we should be back but since the parking building was kind of in the middle of nowhere and we didn't want to lose our parking space, we decided to just wait there. In the 106 Fahrenheit/42 Celsius degrees I think we made the right decision by choosing the airconditioned waiting area.

At the studio, they are very strict about nobody having any cameras when going to the studio area but phones they don't take away even though for example my phone has a better video recording than our camera. They do supervise that nobody uses their phone once inside the studio. Even though the day was very hot, the wait wasn't too bad as the area was air conditioned and they even gave us popsticles and some Gatorade and a bus ride to the studio.

Before the actual show started the studio host, Jimmy Pardo, came to tell us what we can and can't do, and to also warm-up the crowd. He was very funny and worth looking up online. After the studio host the band came up and played a couple of songs. After this it was time to get it on. The show was good like always and when we, of course, watched it later on TV, it was pretty much exactly like the one we saw. Just the monologue was shortened by maybe a minute or two. And after the show we got to see something you don't see on TV: Conan sang his end of the show song and thanked the audience. Also it was interesting to follow Conan, Andy, and the guests when the camera wasn't on them. This was definitely one of the best things on our trip.

After the show we went for a drive around Hollywood and walked on Hollywood Boulevard and went to eat in Mel's Drive-in which is a great diner just off the boulevard, close to the corner of Hollywood and Highland. It's a fifties style diner with great food and jukeboxes in the booths.

Day 30 / 10/02/2012 / Woodland Hills, CA - Hollywood, CA [Paramount Pictures & Walk of Fame] - Santa Monica, CA [Santa Monica Pier & Terry Prince] - Woodland Hills, CA

On Tuesday we continued our theme of movies and tv by going to the Paramount Pictures studio, the only studio still in Hollywood. The morning we got a first taste of LA's traffic as it took us twice as long to drive to Paramount than it should have. The tour we got was really great. We got a lot of details on how movies and TV series are made, we visited some sets to some TV series and talk shows and Paramount's famous New York. There you can modify everything from the trees to street lamps and door knobs and you can even rent It for your birthday party for $30 000, I'm already saving money for it. The tour was great and it couldn't have ended to a better place, the place where you can see the Hollywood sign.

After the tour we headed once again to Hollywood boulevard and spent more time walking on the Walk of Fame. And we couldn't help going to Mel's, again. We spent a few hours walking around, spotting the stars and visiting some of the tourist stores there. We walked all the way to the Capitol Records and then back the street to the Chinese Theater before hurrying to Santa Monica Pier.

We had spent more time on Hollywood Boulevard than we had expected so we didn't get to spend as much time on the pier as we would've liked. Still we got there just as the sun was setting. Also Liisa spotted the same artist, Terry Prince, who had been playing on the pier four and a half years ago. It was a nice coincidence as he had just returned back to LA from a tour in Europe.

Day 31 / 10/03/2012 / Woodland Hills, CA - Orange, CA [Now & Then Second Hand Store] - Yucca Valley, CA [Pioneertown] - Barstow, CA [Skyline Drive-In] - Yermo, CA

It was once again time to drive on. It's the halfway of our trip and it was time change our direction and head back to east. I left with Liisa, and Markku struggling with a flu, stayed in the hotel and was going to take a bus ride straight to Las Vegas while we took a detour to Death Valley.

Our first stop was to a thrift store from the TV series Storage Wars that we have been watching for a while now. Now and Then Second Hand Store is located near Anaheim and it was a fun stop after watching the show.

 

 

Next ahead of us was Pioneertown, a western movie set town in the middle of desert. Nowadays it's only used as a tourist attraction and it has a few stores for tourists like a really nice store selling potteries, the owners even gave us a tour around the store. Also the only restaurant/bar in town, Pappy and Harriet's Pioneertown Palace, was really good, we've realized that the crappier the place looks, the better the food is.

We drove to our campsite of the day, KOA in Yermo and before sleeping, we went to see our first drive-in movie. The movie, Hotel Transylvania, wasn't that good but it was great to watch a movie that way.

-Riku

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