Sunday 24/06
We wake up around 7:30am. Good night.
We wake up the kids at 9am; they are still sound asleep. We go to the breakfast, which closes at 9:30am; not great (there are even burgers for breakfast…).
We leave around 10:30am.
We stop at a Best Buy to try to find a battery for my laptop (I got a message from Dell that they couldn’t proceed with my order due to some issue with the payment). But they don’t have such battery.
We go directly Downtown. We park our car near Hollywood Boulevard (at the intersection with Vine). We first walk to Tender Greens, to see this fast-food bio.
We then walk back to Hollywood Boulevard, through the Hollywood Farmers’ Market, where there are very good products and where the people are very much welcoming and happy to engage a conversation.
On Hollywood Boulevard, we stop quickly at a few theatres (Pantages Theatre, The Egyptian Theatre and El Capitan Theatre). We walk on the Walk of Fame, trying to spot the stars of the people we know; there are not that many out of the 2,600 stars…
We go and eat in the Hollywood & Highland (where the Dolby Theatre – where the Oscars ceremony takes place – and the Chinese Theater are located), at PokiNometry. The poke bowls are good but lack a bit of vegetables choice.
The weather is great. We go to Sweet!, a huge… sweets shop. The kids choose some of them.
I quickly go and buy movies tickets at the El Capitan Theatre, to see Incredibles 2. We are very much excited to see this movie, who has been just released a week ago in LA; we loved the first one. I’m also very much excited to watch it in this mythic theatre. We go there at 4pm; there’s already a huge queue on the sidewalk (the show is at 4:20pm). I couldn’t get great seats; we are in the balcony. But the screen is big enough and the room is amazing. We have a nice entertainment before the movie itself (we now understand why the tickets cost 18$…): a pianist, a show with the main characters of the movie and, in preview (‘avant-première’), the last Pixar short movie. The spectators participate by clapping and cheering.
The movie is quite good; kids and Isabelle love it while I prefer the first one.
We leave this beautiful theater around 6:45pm… It’s later than I thought. We hurry up since we want to be at the Griffith Observatory for sunset. It’s not easy to find a place to park over there. We arrive just before 8pm, just on time for the sunset. Nice view on LA.
We then finally go to our Airbnb, located downtown. We reach after 9pm. Kids are tired (and tomorrow we want to wake up early since I bought tickets to the Universal Studios Hollywood). I go and take away sandwiches and salads at the Subway, located right in our building; quite convenient.
The Airbnb is spacious and comfortable; good amenities.
Isabelle and I work on our laptops (I write the day and prepare our visit to the Universal Studios – which attractions to do – while Isabelle works on her post about the Nazca lines). I finish at 2am: I read many websites about tips for the visit of the Universal Studios, mainly to avoid as much as possible the usual long queues during the summer months. I prepare a tentative itinerary. Let’s see if it works…