In mid-April and on short notice we spent a week in LA. The purpose of the work trip was an "all-hands Sony legal get together", but Tony and I flew out a couple of days early to soak up some Californian sun and American fun.
First and most obvious perk of cross-continental work travel - business class flights and airport lounges. First and most brutal lesson of aforementioned perk - guzzling cocktails and champagne when you first board a 12 hour flight leads to a killer hangover and projectile vomiting when said flight comes in to land. Needless to say, rocking in the foetal position was not how I had envisioned spending the first night of our mini-break!
Fortunately I recovered in time for our planned weekend of shenanigans. After a giant Mexican breakfast (odd concept but really good), we crossed the road from our hotel to explore Santa Monica Pier before meeting up with Pete, Gabby and Nell for a day on the beach. Venice Beach that is. As we sauntered down the boulevard, the boys took turns on the monkey rings, while little Nell pulled out her first class dance moves in front of the buskers, the tattoo parlours and the freak shows that were all blaring out music and spilling on to the boardwalk. We marvelled at two-headed turtles and hot-footed it away from street performers dressed as Darth Maul (after Tony had taken the obligatory photo of course). We also checked out the roller-bladers in speedos, the body builders working out on muscle beach and the people playing pelota/basketball or showing off in the skate-boarding rink.
After the Maces left us to head home, Tony and I went back to Santa Monica Pier, which was much livelier than it had been first thing in the morning. We checked out the people posing for photos at the sign declaring the official end of Route 66, played air hockey in the games arcade and tried our hand at the various dart/basketball/ring throwing amusements on offer. Sadly we didn't come away with a giant, adult-sized monkey, but we did manage to win "Ruff" and "Gruff" (miniature dog and giraffe shaped soft toys), by popping a load of balloons from four feet away. In between all this, we'd got off the pier and gone down onto the beach beside the Baywatch-style life guard huts to watch the sun set out over the Pacific Ocean. The light as it hit the waves crashing under the pier was just magnificent and it was near impossible to drag us away - at least until the light became too poor for more photos.
We stayed at the Shore Hotel while we were in Santa Monica and the one thing worth noting (aside from the view of palm trees, white sand and blue ocean), was the glass wall between the rain shower (and, it must be said, toilet) and the bedroom itself. Interesting design choice, although they'd fortunately informed us how we could bring down the optional privacy screen if we weren't feeling too exhibitionist!
We (I) had hoped to spend the next day at Disneyland, but after discovering that it was spring break and the theme park was going to be overrun with people (not ideal for getting on rides!), we opted for a Super Sport Sunday instead. After off-loading our bags at the work hotel, we got the taxi to drop us off at the Staples Centre to watch the LA Lakers take on the Dallas Mavericks. I'd managed to get the NBA tickets online a couple of weeks before, and after purchasing super-sized soft drinks and the world's most expensive pint, we headed in to our nose bleed seats. Unfortunately the queue at the stadium store had just been too mental to buy giant foam pointy fingers or any Lakers gear... although, as Nikhil had warned me before the trip, if you want to be (or pretend to be) a credible basketball fan, Clippers kit has way more street cred.
The basketball proved to be super exciting, and the celeb spotting with our binoculars even more so. I was first on the board with Msrs David and Cruz Beckham, although I'm told that Cruz doesn't have his own Wikipedia page and so technically doesn't count... I somehow doubt that the cheerleaders, who looked delighted with his quater-time dance routines, would agree!
We came out of the basketball in a bit of a daze to discover that the surrounding bars and courtyards had lost their purple and yellow colour theme, and were now decked out in black and white. After beating Tony in a hoop-shooting competition in the arcade at ESPN Zone, we stopped for a drink, got talking to some locals and discovered that the basketball stadium was being converted into an ice-hockey rink for round three of the play-offs between the LA Kings and the Vancouver Canucks. After a quick look at each other, we were hopping on-line and queuing at the Box Office to try to secure tickets for round two at the Staples Centre.
The seats we scored were very close to where we'd sat for the basketball. After weating through the heat of that game, it was a bit surreal to be back at the same venue three hours later shivering as we watched machines smooth out the ice before the game.
It was a lot harder to follow what was happening in the hockey than it had been during the basketball. Whistles kept blowing and sin-bins were awarded, but without the benefit of commentary or action replays, it was hard to have any idea of what was going on. The only thing that was really clear was how brutal the sport it - and how much the crowd enjoyed watching opposing players get crunched! There was more celeb spotting too, this time with Kobe Bryant, Will Ferrell and David and Brooklyn Beckham. By the time we made it back to the hotel that night, ready (sort of) for the legal conference ahead, we felt pretty pleased with the amount of true-blue American culture we'd managed to cram into the weekend.
The rest of the week passed by in a blur of privacy talks, compliance seminars and networking opportunities, but actually being based on the lot was good for reminding me how cool/exciting it is to work in the movies. We managed to hop on a studio tour one day and saw the studio's Oscars, heard stories about when movies like Spiderman were filmed on site, and got to check out the Foley Studio where foley artists add all the sound effects in post-production. We also saw where they gather orchestras to record movie scores, took a peek at the Jeopardy! set and had photos taken by the original Ghostbusters vehicle. During our lunch hour one day we followed the grapevine and headed down to the lot's basketball court to watch Adam Sandler and his team shooting hoops - Happy Madison Productions is based on site and you can often see Sandler's pimped up Cadillac golf buggy sitting out front. We also tried to hunt out the set of the new Star Trek movie, with rumours that the Enterprise was in one of the sound stages on the plot but all we saw was the tail end of it being dismantled... how disappointing!
In the evenings, when we didn't have group functions planned, Jacqui, G and I tried to make the most of the shopping centre across the road from the hotel, while the boys took the chance to head into West Hollywood to check out some more sights. Those of us left on the final night spent the evening downing giant cocktails at Saddle Ranch and playing with the fluorescent blue candy floss, before Tony and James psyched themselves up for a go on the mechanical bull that held pride of place in the middle of the restaurant! Quite the way to end the trip.
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