Kirstie's Travel Diaries #6 - JFK to LAX

Catch up with #5 here.

DAY 7 (06/03/12)

Flight #2 was upon us today, it was time to leave the chilly east side and head over to the (hopefully) sunny west side of the US and go to California!!
Yes today was the day we were off to Los Angeles and we were VERY excited. It was alwasys a  dream of both of ours to visit Hollywood, the beaches, the hills and everything else that comes with LA so the fact we were flying to that very place today was baffling! 

Google 

Our flight was at 12pm so we decided that leaving the hotel at 9am was sensible, even if there was traffic we'd still get to JFK in time to check-in and grab something to eat before the 6 hour flight across the whole country.
We hopped in a taxi that was already outside our hotel and made our way towards the airport. In no time at all we were there, lugging our bags and suitcases through departures and heading the the check-in desk! 
We met a few other brits who we had a short chat with, they were from London and on their way to Miami! (Spring break was starting soon)

We checked in all our luggage which luckily wasn't any extra and went to go through security and head to our gate. It was at this point when I looked at both mine and my friends boarding passes and realised we were sitting at different ends of the plane - not.cool.
We ran back to the guy at the desk and begged him to move us next to each other - luckily this was possible and we ended up with the awesome exit seats - hello leg room!!
The flight itself was easy peasy. So comfy with the extra leg room and the flight was actually pretty empty too! I manged to watch part of Harry Potter (DHP2), Horrible Bosses, Friends With Benefits & some of the Glee movie before we landed at LAX. (photos below are from the plane window, us being silly and my friend watching The Smurfs and me watching Harry Potter.... we are so social!)

We were immediately in a good mood as soon as we saw the 'Welcome To Los Angeles' sign and I think I had to pinch myself to fully believe that I was there!

Now.... this is where we had a little teeny bit of trouble! We had realised the night before in NY that we had no transport from the airport to our hotel and knowing that the traffic in LA can be ridiculous we thought a taxi could be quite risky. 
So we found a company online and called up asking if it would be okay if we just showed our confirmation emails on our phones to the driver as we had no way of getting hold of a printer before we arrived, they said yes so we thought that would be enough, we were wrong.
The driver would not accept it and said he MUST have the paper work so we ended up having to pay another $32 between us to get ourselves to the hotel which was very frustrating. (moral of the story, always plan ahead.... we did we everything but this!)
We were the last to be dropped off so we had a little tour around the neighborhood first.
 I don't remember everyone who was in our minibus but I do remember a British couple who got out the stop before us and a couple of American ladies who lived locally and were going home. We talked to them for ages and they were asking us loads about what celebrities we liked and if we were fans of Kate Middleton!

Finally we got to our hotel! The Hollywood Orchid Suites, we had booked this through hotels.com and where it had seemed like a pretty decent place, and it was.
 We had booked our stay in 2 separate parts so for the first 4/5 days we were in one room and for the last part of our stay we were in another.

Google

Our apartment was huge, full-on lounge, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom - was amazing compared to our room in New York (which was tiny!)! 
We thought we'd have a little look around our surrounding area (before it got dark) as we knew we were really close to alot of exciting things. We were behind the Hollywood & Highland centrer and it took us all of 20 seconds to be inside it, through there you come out onto Hollywood Blvd. which is home to the kodak theatre, the Chinese theatre, madame tussdads and of course... the walk of fame! (aswell as soooo much more!)
We had heard Hollywood could be a bit dodgey after dark so after we had spotted the Hollywood sign for the first time we decided to grab some food and drinks for our apartment and get an early night so we could go out and explore everything in the morning!

As we got in the lift upto our floor we noticed a sign of "upcoming events in the area" and there was something going on the next day.... Felicity Huffman (Lynette from Desperate Housewives) was getting her star on the walk of fame along with her husband William H Macy at 11am!!! (We knew wherewe were going the next morning....)

NEXT POST - THE Desperate Housewives, a view of LA, Homes of the stars, Madame Tussauds & more.....