We awoke to views of a bustling Ocean Avenue and Tai Chi for politics across the street. It was very LA.
And then we left for the very short walk to our tour. I should have known how it would be. They share a parking lot with:
But even if I had connected this sign as a sign, the tour was pre-booked/paid, so we would have given it the chance.
Here are my posts (and — notes) from the day:
- I think we are on the wrong tour bus. 😥
- And this tour guide is awful…like describing the short skirts of the the all-girls school uniforms awful. — Yes, he sounded like a pedophile.
- And he’s a magat too, based on his pronunciation of Kamala. Ew.
- I put in my earbuds. At least we made it to Rodeo, so it’s more interesting than curvy streets between hidden houses. Oh but some somebody lives at the end of that road. Yawn. — Or someone you maybe might have heard of used to live there.
- And 30mins four blocks from Rodeo isn’t enough time to do anything. — No one shopped.
- But we have seen four Google (map) cars.
(And later,) They weren’t Google map cars. We ended up seeing 8 of them. They are Waymo self-driving cars, which exist in LA, SF, and Austin. - People here are just as bad as Joe Goldberg described. Vapid and self absorbed. — That was from a 15 minute walk near (but not on) Rodeo. We were too far to go Erehwon, the inspiration for Anavrin in You (Season 2).
- All he’s talking about is influencers. He also keeps saying “there” with no direction to look. Since I can’t read his mind, it’s back to earbuds. — Oh, and he talked about cars a lot. Like certain models of certain brands of high-end sports cars. Relevance?
- And no script at all. Just babbling. At this point, I’m just taking notes for my review of the awful.
- And apparently, speed bumps are a personal challenge in this open air van with a shitty transmission.
- And the whole place (LA, not the van) is full of cigarette smokers. Eeeew
…and the stank of bad weed. I don’t mind the smell of good weed but this is junk. Pungent junk. - We saw DONE UP sex worker. Oooh and there went a guy being arrested. At least it’s more interesting.
- 4pm and we haven’t stopped for lunch yet.tour only goes until 5. — We stopped for lunch about 5 minutes later, at a “Farmer’s Market” that was basically permanent food stalls in an open air food court.
- We finally stopped for food. And this market is packed with self centered people and cold because it’s open air. The 45min drive and short walk back to our hotel is going to suck. But at least then it will be over.
- And now he’s making light of suicide and suicide prevention. There is no way to write a believable review about how awful this is.
- The driver/guide did drop us off at our hotel instead of making us walk the <5 minutes back from where it started.
A couple of pics from my seat:
and snagged my jacket more than once
We weren’t even on the worst brand of these tours. We saw a “value” branded one where the van was in far worse condition than ours.
The guide also drove like a whacko, even by LA standards. There is no cause for all the U turning, extra blocks, too many lefts when a right turn would be better, racing to beat lights, driving around the thing to “show” us before letting us out at the thing, etc..
The good thing was that it was a Sunday, so there was probably less traffic. The bad thing was that it was a Sunday so there were more people everywhere. But it’s also a whole holiday week for a lot of people, so at this time of the year, the day of the week is probably moot.
He got out to get some pics of the stars. I just stayed in the van and away from that chaos.
Now for the good part. Three of our bus mates were Russian. It was cool to hear them speak the language.
The other two are from a tiny tip of Prince Edward Island, (north of Nova Scotia), Canada. They are going to the Monday night game at SoFi where the Chargers will play the Ravens. We told them of our summer Canada adventures since they haven’t yet explored that part of their country. I even turned her on to the Vanwives.