Friday!! It's Friday, Friday, Friday.. OOOHHH... June 21st 2013

Sleep! Oh my lord - we can't figure it out.  I'm flying high from last night and stayed up til about 2am (pst) playing in twitter with the Freddie fans.. And then I wake up, daylight through the window.. It's 5:30/6;00 (but 7:30/8 at home).  I look over and Britt is also up! What are we doing? She said that she was up at 4:00 too... We both try to roll over and get some more zzzzs.   If we're having this much trouble adjusting to LA time, we may be in trouble in the UK. Although I'm hoping it will be different because we'll be wanting to sleep in more, not waking up at 4am..

We get ready and we're going low maintenance today - vacation hair - the plan is to do the walk of fame, the Hollywood sign and maybe look for some people on that "maps of the stars homes". Then tonight we have dinner with the other Freddie fans that have come out to be extras on the set at the City walk. It's like Internet dating, but with friends. :)

We have made an error in our food choices again.  I try to blog something, we get ready and by the time we leave it's late (11) and we have not eaten because we have still not purchased food for the house. Duh. Where are those smart people that buy food for us?? We're headed to the walk of fame, Hollywood and Vine area, so we decide to grab food there (it’s famous for it’s eateries – not!).  I'm seeing hungry Brittany again.  It's the evil twin. Brangry..she's a mean one, Mr Grinch...

We get to the walk of fame and park - we're going to walk the "walk", but first we need FOOD.  We're just looking for any place and the guys trying to sell tours are like gnats on our face - one guy walks with is for half a block, with both of us saying no, no, no... Brangy isn't playing and she tells him very directly, "NO! We just want food".. He tells us that there's no food in the direction we're walking... Oh, except for the 3 places right across the street.  He gives us a tour thing, writes his name and blah, blah, blah... Leaving!!

We pick a place that says they serve breakfast... But it's lunch. Whatever.  Hungry!  We both order the steak sandwich and Brittany orders calamari (that I invite myself to snack on).   We sit there forever.. Hungry!!   The news is on one tv and the replay from the Angels game is on another tv - I'm tempted to go over and see if I can see Albert.. But I decide I'm not interested.

Brittany is explaining the news stories to me because there is no captioning.  We don't understand why places point a tv in our face with no sound and no captioning on.  I dictated as she told me what was happening..  And this is.. “The Brittany news”:  “A lady got arrested, something about a high school.  Somebody died. Oh that's Michael Jackson - it's the wrongful death thing.  Something is going on at Delta. They missed something at Laguardia, and this guy is pretty intense about it.  Oh, somebody stole that dude's prosthetic leg... Who would steal somebody's leg?”   Right?  Who would? Aren’t they fitted to people?

They finally bring the calamari - and it's good.  But we could eat anything right now.. So who knows. And finally our sandwiches come. Britt got "truffle fries" which seem to just be fries with maybe a truffle seasoning on them.  Our weird perky (fake perky) waitress convinced her that they were like crack... They're more like caffeine... good.. but..

The famous truffle fries..  (?)

These cute old men come in and sit at the table next to us, and its obvious that they are old friends and meet here on a regular basis. They have a great banter between them (jokes abound about a Bloody Mary at this time of day being a source of vegetables)... And the wait staff all come by to give them big hugs.  One sits down and chats with them and updates them on the excitement from the day before.   J-Lo got her star, right outside!  And she came into this restaurant after... Very exciting. We're breathing air that J-Lo did, just a day before.

After we get food in us we head down one way toward the Chinese Theater (where they do the hand and footprints), and we see lots of stars of people we know along the way. Britt stops to take pics of a few, and we see one (Gregory Peck) that looks almost new – but is obviously not new.  I tell Britt that fans come down to clean the stars of their favorite actors - and later we actually see a guy doing that.  Britt is stunned. “I cannot believe this is happening right now.. “

Cleaning the Stars

 

We run out of stars... And I check the map.  Oops. We've been walking the wrong way, but that's cool, only about block since we left the restaurant and we got to see more stars.  So we cross the street and head back.. And it's our friend with the tour again.. Yay! This time he walks with us a full block.  They will not take no - and as soon as we're out of the range of one, there is another one.  It's enough to make you crabby.  It's worse than NYC because its a smaller concentrated area, and they ask and leave you alone if you say no.

We walk the full strip, wish I had my pedometer app going because it was quite a ways..and it's hot.  We were promised 72 and sunny.. It's 85 and the sun is blaring..   We make it to the Chinese theatre (it has a lot of construction and it isn't easy) -

 

 

 

 

 

We decide to go to this Disney soda shop that we spotted yesterday when we drove the strip.  It's nice to sit and we get something cool.  James is the cutest little Disney waiter - Britt gets a root beer float and I get a chocolate malt because I can't really fix anything I was interested in. I've been off sugar for about 2 months and I'm not sure how this is going to affect me.  He brings it and it’s a fairly small glass – so that's good - until he sets down the rest of the mixer cup and it has about 2 more of the smaller serving left inside of it..Dude.  Malt overload.  I can't even get through half of the smaller cup, and I even pour some of it back into the mixer cup so it looks like I had more.  Not sure why I felt I needed to do that... I’m such a pleaser.  James comes by and teases me about it not drinking much - but as long as I liked it, he's happy. Britt was much wiser with her root beer float, just one glass and one scoop of ice cream.

 

We walk back to the car, long way back, the sun is beating down and we are crashing from the sugar and ready for naps!!  We take the car straight back to the house and we catch a few zzzzs before we have to think about heading to Citywalk to meet the other Freddie fans.  We have no energy for anything else - so we put off the star maps thing..

I crash hard - once again no blogging and choosing sleep instead.  Not sure when I'll get things posted - but it's all good.  Britt keeps in touch at home, emailing and face timing with Scooter..

At about 4:30 that afternoon we think about getting ready (meeting at 6), and by 5 we're getting "where is everyone" messages from Citywalk (meeting at Wolfgang's)... We're late and we didn't even know it.  Ooops.  So we get ready quickly and head out. We're only staying 10 minutes from there, so we get there before 6:00, but it obvious everyone else has already been there for a while.

It's nice to meet everyone in person, we became aware of each other on twitter as the people who were coming out, and then started chatting through Facebook  and made plans to meet. Two of the girls are going to be on set with us tmw, and then 3 other people are going to set Tuesday - and one of them is also going to dinner with Freddie later in July.  It's a good group. Joan made gifts for all of us – really sweet!

The food is ok - they have short ribs and since Brittany stole my order of short ribs the night before, I take my opportunity to order them. If she gets the last order tonight?  Why, I oughta...   We both get crab cakes too. We thought about sharing them, but the waitress insisted that we would regret that decision, so we got our own.  I think we could have shared and been ok.  :). And the short ribs? Brittany has to rub it in that the ones last night were much much better.  Thanks for that.  I know what Britt would say right now… “You’re welcome”..

As we go along through dinner, there is no cell service in the restaurant and on occasion people get up to send/receive.  At one point Jenny and I find ourselves outside together.  It feels like a smoke break - but today, Esp in LA, that's not cool.  We're outside getting our cell phone fix when a lady approaches us.  She's tall and gangly and not disheveled.. And maybe an air of "something just not right"..  She introduces herself as a freelance reporter for Rolling Stone, and asks if we can take a picture of her.  She has a small (I mean SMALL, like the size of Klondike bar) flip video camera that she hands to me - she tells me that the screen doesn't work and some Chinese man told her it needed to be re-wired.  So I just need to point it at her and click the button.. Ok.  And then we get a whole mess of stories about a boyfriend and how she's working on a big class action suit against the "cop towers" (I ask for clarification... Why? I'm not sure) and she says that if you have parking violations they tow your car and there have been thefts and people have been victimized.  In fact SHE has been victimized - and we should watch for that story because its huge!  She gives me a business card, for a reason I'm still not sure of, and there is no reference to being a journalist.   But she does help organize legal cases.. I tell her that I'm from St. Louis and she says to keep it, "just call that number and say HI"...  Hmmmmm. I decide to leave the card as part of our tip at the table.  I think “crazy” just needed a friend.

We break off from the group because we haven't had a chance to walk around Citywalk yet and we check it all out and make a few Vines (I love a good vine, even if Instagram is going to destroy them – I could give full detailed reviews of both, if you’re interested, email me – that’s a little bit of sarcasm because I know that you don’t care and that you won’t be messaging me – and making fun of myself because you know that I’m totally serious.  And then there will be a segment of you that won’t know what I’m even talking about.).  We go into a few shops and Brit gets a frozen cheesecake on a stick for herself and a big bag of salt water taffy for Scott.   But when she tells him about it later - he insists that he has never liked that stuff.  Brittany is sure he is mistaken.  His parents always get him bags of it.. Yep.  And he hates it.  Fail.

 

My favorite one!

Chocolate covered PEPPERS??

Before we go back we decide to go back by Firefly and get copies of the menu for Freddie and Alyssa to sign - Brittany tells me what I should say to ask for them, and she does such a good job that I know she's the girl for the job.  Besides it will be easier since I'm driving to just pull up, and let her get out and get them.  The mission is a success!   But we notice later that the menu is different - the short ribs and pork shoulder (what we ordered) aren't on there. Oh well - it's all good.

It's back to house and to bed!!! Hopefully we can manage to sleep a little longer tmw.  We have plenty of time in the morning, we don't have to be at the set until 12, but I'm not going to be late this time.  :)