Sunday in LA – our last day in the land of fun and sun..

We have tickets for the 8:45 tour of WB studios and we have to be there 20 minutes before.  We still have no food in the place, so we plan to head to Mobile for gas and breakfast.  I love to breakfast at Mobile. It’s our last day, so we’re getting packed up and trying to clean things up as we go, making sure we don’t leave anything behind. 

Siri gets us to the WB Studios in time, but we’re having trouble finding the parking area – we’re looking for N – but there is no real signage.  We circle around and look for a gate with people so we can ask – and he tells us to head back to where we just were.  You know that place that looks like a private drive with no signs? That’s where you should have gone – oh, this big flashy gate that looks like the right place?  Actually a private entrance..  so we turn around and we see Ellen’s office  and Britt gets a little squealy. She was really hoping to see her today.

 

We find the parking and get into the studio just fine – the security guard is super nice and flirting with Britt just a little.  The souvenir shop is fun – lots of Harry Potter and Big Bang stuff.  We learn that since our tour is on a Sunday we actually get to see more, “the lot is our playground” because if people were shooting we have to avoid the areas.  The guide takes us past places from “Heart of Dixie” and asks, “Any Heart of Dixie fans?” – Brittany gives her “oh me!” Brittany style reaction, and the guide says, “Wow, I’ve never gotten that kind of reaction for that show before” (and how many times do you think she’s asked that, just like that? It takes Brittany McKay to show her how to be a true Heart of Dixie fan).  Britt recognizes all the places that we go before the guide can say.. this is a house that was in True Blood and Heart of Dixie, and some tree where somebody from True Blood did something in the first episode?  She knew.  We can get out and get pics with the places anytime we want, and Britt gets pics with the building that was in both the shows (I wish I could give you more detail about that) – maybe the picture will help for you fans. 

 

 

 

We see a lot of ER stuff, some Gilmore Girls places (Sookie’s house and the town square) – we see some cool cars from the movies (Dukes, Batmobiles, Matrix) and set pieces from the Big Bang Theory (the space capsule pod that Walowitz was in for the Big Bang Theory (its SO small) – 3 people fit in there. 

Signing "Small"

 

 

 

She takes us on the set of Pretty Little Liars, and there are a couple of teenage girls that are SUPER excited because they’re currently in production, so the sets aren’t covered and you can see everything.  Next stop is the Friends’ set – they kept it and let people see it and take pics on the couch.  We get to see the full Big Bang Theory set – SUPER COOL!  We sit in the audience and see Penny’s apt, the stairs and the boys’ apt laid out in front of us.  I guess I knew this if I thought about it, but the 3 floors of stairs that we see are all the same stairs – they just re-dress the set everytime they change floors the people come in and change the look while the boys go back up to the top of the stairs to look like they’re continuing to come down.  She says that they have it down now, only takes a few seconds to change the “floors”.  And then we hit the ELLEN stage! It’s huge, she’s not there, not taping now – but there is something set up on her stage, “Heads Up”…  WELL that’s John Barrowman’s new game show that he’s in town filming!  We LOVE John Barrowman, and most of you have probably never heard of him unless you’re a Doctor Who or Torchwood fan.  He plays Captain Jack – and we were SO close to him in Beverly Hills the other day.  While we were getting our hair done, he put on facebook that he was in BH getting HIS hair done!!  Britt freaked… I told her that we already had plans (that was dinner with Freddie night).  Britt tweeted him and said that we needed to get together for lunch. J  So it’s weird now that we’re on his set!  Third time is a charm – we’ll probably see him overseas. He has a home in Cardiff.

 

End of the tour and we go to their museum – no pics allowed (lame) but there are things from Smallville that I geek over, and there is a whole floor of Harry Potter costumes and props that were borrowed from the WB tour in LONDON.  We tell our tour that we’ll be going there this week.  They don’t like us, or care.  Oh well.  It’s really cool and gets us in the mood for London!

After the tour we decide to seek out that darn Hollywood Sign – we had googled where to get a good pic of it on the first day and each day since has included a plan to go there… finally on our last day.  It’s a winding trip up into the hills, and we finally just park and take a pic from someone’s house.  Someone was moving into a nearby house and it makes me think of that conversation – where you moving? We can see the Hollywood sign from our house, it’s totally cool!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time for one last burger from In-n-Out burger before we go – and we ask our cashier about the fries with the “stuff” on them.  He laughs at us a little and says that we mean “animal style” – he’s cute and can’t really wrap his head around where St. Louis is.  It’s in the middle.  The fries have like onions on them, cheese, and the same sauce that they put on the burgers.  It’s pretty yummy, and we wish that we had one of these in the middle. 

To the airport!!   Well, to the rental car place!!  Siri, lead the way… only she changed the address on us, lies.  All lies. We end up at this place that is completely unfamiliar, but we find it eventually by searching for a nearby hotel.  Return the car with no issues, and get the shuttle to the airport – we have weird people in line with us to check in (but that’s normal – everyone is weird but us).  One family of 6 wanted to check 6 bags, but only hit 4 and now what do they do? And Britt is next to some lady that wants to ask our TSA guy about a luxury Vegas package?

I don’t have any other notes on the day, so I guess it was pretty uneventful.  We got on a plane at 4:10, landed in St. Louis to wet, humid, rainy weather, at about 9:45pm… and we know that we’ve got to get ready to do it all over again.

LA was an AMAZING experience – as crazy as you think I am for going, or even wanting to go, and as crazy as Brittany was to go along WITH me?  I just have to thank her so much – she was the PERFECT companion for this trip.  She kept me calm, she talked me through it, she made the dinner have a sense of normality, used her easy charms to keep the conversation going and make new friends with people that were pretty surreal to meet.  She was my camera woman, my navigator and my sounding board – and it wouldn’t have been the same trip without her.  Can’t thank you enough Brittany!