Hollywood

We bought a Hollywood City Pass to save some money on some of the tours we wanted to enjoy. We took a Redline walking tour of Hollywood that started at the Grouman's Egyptian theater. Our tour guide was a young man that had lived in Los Angeles his entire life and he seemed to know the area well. The tour was a walking tour which was really neat because we walked over a lot of stars on the ground. The stars are divided into 5 categories...film, music, theater, radio, and television. In order to get a star, you have to be nominated in your category, selected, and then pay $25,000. We had the privilege of observing a "star" ceremony. The creator of Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberte, received his star after being introduced by James Cameron, a director and personal friend. Guy said it was only fitting that he was once a street performer and now he had a permanent spot on the sidewalk with his star. It was really cool to be a part of the ceremony as we are huge Cirque du Soleil fans. We ate lunch at Johnny Rockets and were transported back to the soda fountain days of the 50's. We used our City Pass again for a Starline tour of the homes of the stars. We boarded a van that did not have a top so we had an unobstructed view of everything. It was VERY cold while we were driving and thankfully the driver had some blankets in the back. The tour was really neat, but went really fast. We saw a lot of homes, but most of them were surrounded by walls and we could only get a glimpse through the beautiful gates. We thought it was interesting that the older stars like Carol Burnett and Bob Barker lived in small normal looking homes without gates and noone seemed to bother them. Contrast that with Tom Cruise and Jennifer Aniston who had very large homes with almost zero visibility and electric fences. We really liked all of our tours and even though the driving tour included a lot of information, we thought it gave us a really good idea of the neighborhoods of L.A. We did a little bit of shopping downtown in Hollywood and ate supper at the Hard Rock Hollywood. Until tomorrow....