Final Day in the States

Hellooooo!

I'm only writing this now, a couple of days back into New Zealand life. I was soooo tired when we got back, I was just like, naaaah can't be bothered.
But I defs had to finish off our adventures.

So here's how the last day went...

I got up bright n' early (I reeeaally didn't feel like it) and went down to the gym. It was so good because each treadmill had its own TV so the time flew by!
I was watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
Although, I think the big body builder guys behind me were laughing at me for watching it.

Then I showered and stuff and went over to the hotel's restaurant for breakfast.
Oh, look who joined me:

No one.
I breakfasted by myself and had a whole booth.
It was actually quite cool, I got to know myself a bit better.
And I'm awesome.

I had a yummy bowl of oatmeal, with brown sugar, raisins and almonds:

The big guys from the gym were sitting in the booth opposite me (they turned out to be Aussies) and the waitress was hilarious. She kept visiting their table, honestly like at least every two minutes to ask them what they were doing with their day, night, lives etc.

Then she tried recommending all these clubs to them and she was annoying them heaps. It was pretty funny.

We all caught the 10am shuttle to Universal Studios.

Here's the big globe out the front:

And me standing on the red carpet:

Total movie star.

When we found out that the Jurassic Park ride wasn't open (devastating for everyone, especially Jack), we went to Springfield to visit the Simpsons.
Dad, Jack, Kate and I went on the ride at Krustyland.

It was kinda cool, but it made Dad and I a bit queasy. 
And they squirted you with water!

We refreshed ourselves at the Kwik-E-Mart:

The guy actually said to Kate "Thank you, come again."

Classic Kwik-E-Mart gag.

We drank lots and stayed in the shade a lot after that, it was reeeally hot. Like, 35 degrees.

We went on the Universal Studios tour next.

That was so cool.

They drive you through all the different sets and stages where films and TV shows are made.

Like, where all the Back to the Futures were shot and Desperate Housewives (we drove past all their houses).

We drove through a big lake bit (where they filmed Jaws) and a massive Jaws comes out of the water at you.

We saw some cars from different movies:

And drove through Whoville:

This is where War of the Worlds was filmed:

And they created rain, and flash floods.

In one part, we drove through a tunnel where there's and "earthquake" and this huge flood comes rushing at you, there are fires everywhere and a whole train comes flying at you!

But then it stops, don't worry.

Peter Jackson came on the screen as we entered Skull Island and the bus drives into this massive 360 screen room. You're surrounded by forest, dinosaurs and King Kong.

And the whole bus is like, lifted up and thrown side to side when the dinosaur and King Kong are fighting.

It was so real.

They even squirt you with water in there too.

After that, everyone was so hot I think we all just needed to sit down and die.

So we just had a quick breather and some refreshments in the shade before going theme-park-shopping one last time.

Then we caught the shuttle back to the hotel and drove straight to the airport.

Well, kind of.

We stopped off at Walmart to pick up some lollies and chocolates to take back home.

Once at the airport, we tried to check our bags in but we had to redistribute the weight across the bags because one was too heavy. No, it wasn't mine, it was Mum's.

She was carrying all the heavy stuff.

Final family selfie in America at LAX:

The flight was pretty good, I got through two movies (The Bridges of Madison County with my girl Meryl and Rebel Without a Cause) and played some PacMan.

Mum, Jack and I all had annoying people in front of us who shoved their seats back right when we had our trays down and food on them.

Dad and Kate had lovely, considerate people in front of them.

It was me and Jack.

Then we were back on NZ soil in Auckland and had one more flight to go!

But dramas at the airport because somebody had taken Kate's bag instead of their own.

So we got that sorted out and by then it was pretty much time for our Wellington-bound flight!

Once back in the beautiful Wellington, we said hello to Bear and gave him lots of cuddles.

And unpacked!

Got all mine done in the one day!

Phew, still exhausted, but had such a great time!

I think we all got annoyed with each other a lot, but overall we're all good.

We're totally a cultured and cosmopolitan family now.

Looking forward to getting back into uni routine (kind of..) and rugging up for the storms ahead!

Will probably continue blogging about the rest of my super fantastic life, I really like it! But it definitely won't be as regular. Could NOT be bothered to do that.

Plus, my daily life is not as exciting as a holiday in America.

So, ciao (for now) and thanks for coming along with me on our USA trip!

Madeleine 

xoxoxoxox :D

Searching the Stars in Hollywood: Day 13

Heeeeey!

Tonnes of pictures today!

Sorry I'm only uploading this now, I needed help from other family members to identify some pictures.

But I'll start from the beginning, so it started with breakfast as usual and we went to the hotel's restaurant.

Dad had his usual english muffin, Kate had waffles and strawberries, Jack had pancakes which were "alright" and "the worst hot chocolate he's ever had". Mum had an english muffin dripping with butter and I had granola with berries which was so good.

Our tour man, Scott picked us up from the hotel at 10am and we set off to Hollywood Boulevard, getting to know Scott along the way. He was really nice and he knew HEAPS about celebrities and movies.

His wife is a kiwi so he could understand us and relate to our New Zealand ways.

The tour was a private one, so it was just us being guided.

First, we went to the Chinese Theatre where all the celebs put their hand and footprints into cement squares. 

A selection of them:

 Dad sizing up Nicolas Cage:

Elizabeth Taylor:

My girl, Meryl:

And poor Mel Gibson had a hot dog stand on his one:

The Harry Potter stars:

And the Twilight stars:

And a couple of stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame:

This is us on the stairs of the Dolby Theatre where the Oscars are held:

It's weird, 'cause it's just a mall. With like, shops and stuff.

Across the road was the Jimmy Kimmel Live studio:

Then we went to the Roosevelt Hotel where all the big stars used to stay back in the day (like Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Munroe)

The lobby:

(that's Scott on the left)

The room you can see on the corner was Marilyn Munroe's home for two years:

We got to use the toilets there which were very nice.

Behind this door is where the very first Academy Awards were held:

We went past the apartments where the end scene of Pretty Woman happens:

Then we drove up to see the Hollywood sign.

Scott knew the perf place for the best photos of it.

And apparently there's a mountain lion that lives up there :O

 The fam livin' the Hollywood dream:

And then just me, because I'm a star:

Scott showed us a million celebrities' houses. 

These are just the ones we remember seeing:

Quentin Tarantino's:

• Ashton Kutcher
• Walt Disney
• Sherley Temple (hers was my fave)
• Ellen Degeneres
• Josh Hutcherson (formerly Ellen Degeneres' house)
• Zac Efron
• Justin Timberlake
• Ringo Star (he had a massive star on his driveway)
• Madonna’s multiple houses
• Britney Spears
• Katy Perry
• Tom Cruise
• The house that Michael Jackson died in
• Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner
• Playboy Mansion
• Tori Spelling’s old house (the biggest house in LA)

OMG Bruno Mars' house:

He's on tour at the moment though.
Probably would've invited me in otherwise, but whatever.

Just a street view in Beverly Hills:

Simon Cowell's house:

Jennifer Aniston:

Tim Burton's funky letterbox:

The Fresh Prince of Bel Air house:

A Witchy's house:

We drove down Rodeo drive and this is the shop Julia Roberts went into in Pretty Woman and got rejected by the snobby ladies:

"Big mistake. Huge!"

We also saw the place where Justin Bieber crashed his car and where he had a punch up with the paparazzi.

And where Lindsay Lohan crashed her car and stole jewellery.

Scott took us for a wander through Venice Beach:

Wasn't much action in the Muscle Beach workout station.

Oh wait, there was one impressive person working out:

The fam:

From there we went straight home.
Well, not really.
Omg, typical LA traffic! It took us over 1.5 hours to get back.
But we had lots of interesting talks with Scott about movies and celebrities.

He had worked with Cher, saw David Beckham in the bathroom, Lindsay Lohan used to be his neighbour and his friends had stayed with Harrison Ford when he was younger.
And he had maaany more connections!

Mum, Kate and I drove to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner, but the wait was too long so we just got cheesecakes to go.

 Mmmmmm look at all dem cheesecakes:

It also happened to be conveniently located opposite Kate's best friend, Nikki Sixx's radio Station, Sixx Sense: 

(he's from Motley Crüe btw)

Kate tweeted a picture of her outside his station and Nikki favourited it.

Next door was Ryan Seacrest's radio station:

We passed a Starbucks with a new flavour of tea, Oprah Chai.

Pretty sure it would just be normal chai.

Maybe with a bit more spiice.

Got back to the hotel and ate our cheesecake.

Then we made sure our bags were packed for tomorrow and everyone headed off to sleep!

This is why the others weren't available to assist me in identifying the pics.

I think everyone's ready to go back home now.

Soooooo exhausted!

My next blog will probably be up once we're back in New Zealand, so this is the last blog from America! (writing this in LAX, got about three hours to kill).

Ciao for now brown cow.

Madeleine

xx