Los Angeles. Sorry for the delay in posting this blog - just catching up....

On our return to LA this time we hired a car - despite my personal preference for trying to use local transport wherever we go, you simply can't get around LA without one. Our car was golden – to match Princess Emily's hair...

Returning to our original motel in Huntington, despite the less than salubrious area, it was well located for many of the sights. Unfortunately we were placed in a room with a restaurant underneath where the owner had decided to hire a disc jockey to celebrate Halloween. The music went on 'til well into the night despite the police being called. We were there for a few nights so when it occurred again the next night we were moved to another, and actually better room.

Since our first full day in LA was a Sunday we attended Mass at the RC Cathedral. An interesting building of modern design with a car park underneath, in stark contrast to our first Mass in the States – in New York's old style cathedral two months before. There were some impressive tapestries on all the transcept walls with a plethora of Saints, including St Dominic, all facing the alter.

Later we bought lunch vittals at the Hollywood Farmers Market – a well known haunt apparently for rubbing shoulders with the stars; we didn't see any.

Close by was Hollywood Boulevard with the Walk of Fame, where entertainment stars names (not just film) are emblazoned on the pavement on both sides of the road stretching for a couple of kilometres. We had great fun finding favourites, Emily being particularly please with Keanu, Johnny Depp and Top Cruise, whilst my preference was for Clint, Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner.

There were the plethora of other characters to engage with....

Emily went to a casting on the Hollywood couch to be a princess, naturally she got the job.

Away from Hollywood we also visited Venice Beach for the sunset – which was excellent, marred only by the excessive number of hobo's settling down for the night and an atmosphere of drug infused counter-culture that leant a rather uneasy feeling the place.

The next day we went up into the hills not far from the Hollywood sign to visit Griffith Observatory – to find that it was inexplicably shut on Mondays & Tuesdays (our two full days in LA).

The view over LA from there would have been excellent but for the pervading smog for which the city is well know; we weren't deterred however and climbed to the top of the hill above the Observatory.

With more time we might have visited the movie studios and perhaps joined a home-of-the-stars tour, but our time in the States and Canada was coming to a close, a flight beckoned and after a brief sojourn to the (rather uninteresting) downtown area, we headed out to LAX – the main airport to catch our airplane to New Zealand. With two months gone, we were half way into our trip. Time to change tack and return to driving on the left once more.