Meeting Eggheads in Los Angeles

Before we had left England, I was told that Americans are really friendly. Like, REALLY friendly. They always say “Have a nice day!”, apparently. So to a Brit, that’s really friendly. So when a guy approached us at an LA Metro station, was really friendly, and within 5 minutes had invited us to stay at his girlfriend’s house in Chile, we were perturbed. Was this how all Americans are? Friendly and hospitable, welcoming strangers with open arms and inviting them on holiday? Or was he a drug dealer / conman / murderer? We will never know, as we declined the invitation. How cynical of us.

On the plus side, we lived to see the sights of LA – Mann’s Chinese Theatre, Santa Monica Pier, Muscle Beach.

We also attended a filming of Family Feud in a real life TV studio! How Cool!! We were given a leaflet on the Santa Monica Pier, and booked our place for a show the next day. We found it hilarious, as when a contestant said an answer, no matter how stupid, we all had to clap encouragingly, then wait for the answer, and then groan, and then clap supportively. Then the whole audience had to read out the answers they got wrong, so there was about 100 people all chanting “EGG HEAD” in a monotone (if that was the answer, that is). It was surreal 🙂

We also went on a tour of the celeb’s homes, which we loved. The driver was really entertaining and we saw the Fresh Prince of Bel Air’s house, and the Playboy Mansion, as well as many celebrity homes. I did feel a bit bad as these were private homes, and poor Jennifer Aniston etc- who wants thousands of tourists traipsing past your front door hoping for a photo of you walking the dog? But if you can put that aside, it was a really fun tour in an open-top truck and we cruised down Rodeo Drive and went to see the Hollywood sign as well. And no, we didn’t see any celebs!