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Day
11 (June 16, 2008) Trip to San Diego and visit of Gaslamp Quarter
Before
If we want to visit anything else in L.A. we should wake up
early
as we must drive to San Diego before lunch time. One of these visits
could be Disneyland in Anaheim, a neighborhood at South in our way to
San Diego. Another one could be to other studios, like Warner Bros,
which are close to the hotel.
After that, we should get San Diego at lunch time after 1 hour and 15
minutes for covering the 195 Km of distance between these two cities.
Once in San Diego, we will visit the Gaslamp Quarter, where there are
still buildings from the period where Wyatt Earp and his friends
founded a casino in this city. If we have still time, we could visit
Balboa Park or at least a part of it, so we could complete the visit
the morning of the next day.
A lot of people use to
cross the border to Tijuana in Mexico, but as I’ve read this city is
mainly based on prostitution and drugs dealing, we’ve
preferred
spending all our time in San Diego
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After
Waking up early is not for us and we go out from the hotel
later than 10:00h, after checking out and asking to the guy in the desk
what are the best options to see the Hollywood sign. He has pointed
some spots in our map, and it results one of them is the viewpoint in
Mulholland Drive we were two nights ago, so I’m driving to there.
The views to L.A. city from Mulholland Drive at
daylight are spectacular. The city melts into the horizon and
skyscrapers from downtown are just silhouettes. Then we take the stairs
we avoided at night to get into a small and circled area from which we
can see the letters of the sign at the very left of the city. The sign
cannot be seen from the viewpoint downstairs because it’s this same
kind of tower where we are what is blocking it. We can see those white
and misaligned letters far and laterally and we take a bunch of
pictures posing with them – some days later, when downloading these
photos to the computer I find out the sign is quite unnoticed in the
pictures, so it seems we’re posing in front of an ordinary mountain
with an antenna. This is the reason the picture I put here below is the
only one taken directly to the sign with full zoom -
.
 
The Warner Bros Studios are across the highway, on the back
side
of Hollywood sign, so we take the highway in the direction back to the
Universal Studios direction for a short ride until the exit. We’ve
chosen visiting these studios rather than going to Disneyland because
we liked a lot yesterday’s experience and it is a shorter visit: like a
couple of hours vs the whole day required in Disneyland. Warner studios
is just the sets for movies and TV shows and has no thematic park as
Universal’s.
We find the Studios easily thanks to the map and the famous
water
tower of the picture. The studios are huge, but there are signs to
drive you specifically to the VIP tour parking lot. It is 5$ for
leaving the car, no matter for how long. We walk to the VIP tour
entrance guarded by two colossi, as the Egyptian temples are, only this
time the gods are Bugs Bunny and Duffy Duck. We want to start by taking
pictures to them, but I know they’re not going anywhere and I need to
check how this tour works. This is an unscheduled visit and I don’t
know about times or even if we’re going to be able of doing it as it is
later than I thought now: 12:10h. There is a black, bald and big
security guard with the sort of scanner for the bags are in the
airports. When we put our bags he asks us where are we from, I answer
we’re from Barcelona and he nods. “Do you know it?”, I ask, and he
answers, in a very nice mood: “Of course! 1992 Olympic games!”. Then I
talk about Dream Team and he shows all his sort of smiles to us.
 
Once
we go directly to ask for the tour, avoiding to be distracted by the
things we can already see. We’re explained we can be appointed to the
13:00h tour (which will be called at 12:30h) after paying 45$ per
person. This is how it works: there is a tour every 30 minutes and
people are set to the next available one. There is a one dollar
discount coupon for an ice cream and I use it immediately and walk
around exploring the items in display as the original costumes from MR.
Freeze and first movie of Harry Potter (quite less sizes than in the
last movie, I must say).
When we’re called, we’re seated in a small cinema room where we can see
a documental about the history of these studios and 30 minutes later
we’re ready for going out to the street where a young woman driving an
electric car for groups introduce herself and give state some rules to
be followed by us. One of them is quite exciting, as she is asking us
not yelling or gesturing in case we see a known actor or actresses
working, as we’re going to pass by some areas where they’re currently
filming. She then drives on the streets until going into a complex
through a security control where the sets are. In the way she asks
about Warner products we’re fans of. I can think about Harry Potter or
Batman but I finally mention Friends and Matrix.
The first we see is streets and alleys like in Brooklyn:
bricked
building walls with metal fire escapes. We can see there is a filming
going on in one of these streets, but we don’t get closer as per
knowing details about it. Actually, the area is limited by this yellow
tape for preventing anyone to cross it. In Universal we never saw
people working in any shooting, but it was Sunday, it could be the
reason. It’s lunch time so the rest of people around has finished their
filming work and are clearing up. We reach then an opened area with
houses with garden around a circular park with a church and an arbor. A
big catering is ready and our guide explains these kinds of
celebrations are performed when they finish a season for a TV series.
This specific one seems to belong to “Gilmore girls”, but I cannot
reckon a single person or thing as I’ve never seen an episode of that
show. Somehow, I’ve got the feeling of seeing that park, arbor and
church before. They look familiar. It is not strange as we’re being
told these sets are used for tons of footage for different movies and
TV shows and they look for different angles every time ion order of
making it look different. Our guide points one house specifically to me
because I mentioned I was a “Friends” fan before and because that was
used in the show as Monica and Ross parents’ house. I cannot remember
about that, maybe I’m not such a geek.
 
We keep going over sets between facades of building with
their
closed stores, as if we were driving through a city, only with no
people, except for the filming groups here and there. We finally stop
in a broad street, looking as a Chicago one, and we know that because
the guide is explaining it along with how easily they can change the
look of this same street for looking from any other city by changing
signs, colors and furniture. There is a big bar which is ready inside
too, but we’re going across the street, where we can see, just aside
the stairs and door used as Gotham City Hall entrance in front of which
The Penguin gave some speeches, a entire hospital. It’s the County
General Hospital and the exterior set of ER series, where George
Clooney got famous. The group walks into the emergency courtyard with
the really fake entrance to the hospital.
 
All are fake doors. You can even see pass ways and doors
inside, but they’re still even faker: the doors are directly painted
over the wall with the handles stuck on it. The famous automatic door
in the picture above at right appears half-open, but it is always
looking like this. People passing through it in the show was an editing
effect: the part before the door was filmed here and the part after the
door was filmed in the studios indoor. Our guide keeps telling stories
about George Clooney and the filming of the series with details you
never thought about it. For example, the tubes over the courtyard,
making concentric squares, were used for making rain here.
A short drive in the trolley take us into a parking lot full
of vehicles for services: ambulances, police, firemen, shipping… I’m
not expected what we’re really here to see is a bar: the “Central
Perk”. As “Friends” TV series has a lot of fans they’ve kept the set of
the bar were the characters were spending the most of their time. And
now I’m in it! Everything is smaller than what it seemed on TV. It’s a
pity a tape is there for preventing anyone trespassing a specific line
in the floor to get in and sit in the couch or playing Phoebe’s guitar,
which is still there, in its place, as can be seen in the picture. This
set is in a big building, “hidden” in a small room after a wooden pass
way.
Then we walk to another building where we can see
an exhibition of vehicles from movies produced by Warner Bros. Here we
can see the Batmobile used in George Clooney’s version of Batman, and
Robin’s motorbike, the “mystery machine” van from Scooby Doo, the
weapons and chariot Brad Pitt “Achilles” used in “Troy”, along with the
helmet, which is far of being made in metal. In the picture at left,
the car beaten by the Whomping Wilow in Harry Potter movies, with the
baggage, including Hedwig’s cage. At right, the car used by Morpheus
and his people in “Matrix” surrounded by some Smith’s figures – based
on the final scenes of “Matrix Revolutions” it must be some hundreds
more of them around-.
 
Before leaving this all of us are offered to do a photo in
front
of a green screen where our guide show to us is going to be set an
image of Harry Potter’s steam train in the station to act as we desire
with it. Then, we meet another group coming in to the place and we’re
called by someone. The man from Texas with his son who did the VIP
Experience in Universal Studios with us yesterday are here too, so it
seems we’re following twin plans in L.A.
A new trip on the trolley takes us to where the TV series are filmed
and we’re going to visit the set of one of them. Somehow, before
leaving our vehicle we’re asked for delivering our cameras to be kept
in a closet closed with a key kept by our guide. It’s clear: we cannot
take any photo or video of what we’re going to see. At the entrance we
can see a big logo of the TV show “Two and a half men”. I know what it
is, but I’ve never seen an episode. We can even see the caravan with
Charlie Sheens’ name here. We seat in the elevated stands in front of
the set, which is taking this whole side of this premise long, but it
is quite narrow: just around 10 rows for the audience. Our guide
explains a lot of stories and details of the filming of a show like
this: a comedy with audience which can give hints about the failing
jokes to rewrite them on the fly. We can see in front of us a living
room with a small garden on the other side of the door at left; a thin
wall separates it from the bedroom at right, which has another thin
wall separating it from the empty place at the very right. We’re told
that space is used following the requirements of each episode and be
transformed on a bar, doctor office, etc… in order the audience can
have visual access to all the scenes. The sets we can see now are the
permanent ones in the show and we can realize about the rooms are
smaller than they are supposed to be. Guide explains furniture is
custom-made, smaller, to match with the whole set. It seems it looks a
lot better in camera this way. Later in my room I could see an episode
of “Two and a half men” and I can say what seems perfectly real size in
TV looks as a living room for hobbits in live.
The
next ride stops in front of a building our guide calls “museum”. I’m
afraid I’m going to miss a lot the cameras which still haven’t been
delivered back to us.
The museum is and exhibition
of movie objects. Some security guards are preventing people to take
any picture or touching something too much. We explore the place around
amazed by the costumes in mannequins and objects in showcases: Batman
and Superman ones, Ingrid Bergman dress and Humphrey Bogart suit from
“Casablanca”, along with the piano, which looks incredibly small to us.
Oscars won by the studios - Best movie to "Casablanca" among them -.
Dummies dressed with the original cloths of Morpheus, Trinity and Neo
and the connections actors worn in the nape. I look astonished the
ostentatious machine used for taking the parasite from Neo and the
parasite itself is at its side. Hundreds of things we try to retain as
we don’t know how much time we have to be here and we have no cameras
for taking a memory from here. But there is still more to come: I can
hear the floor upstairs is entirely set for Harry Potter stuff and we
go up quickly.
No way in retaining all we can see
here for the future. We can barely watch to all of it in the present.
The second floor shows all what has been used in the first four movies
of Harry Potter, fifth movie is so new as per being here. All the sort
of clothes and objects as the trunk with all the elements to play
Quidditch with, obviously, the golden snitch, but without wings, as
they’re computer added; or the Tom Riddle’s diary as it ended in the
second movie: stabbed. I’ve even touched the sorting hat! So many
familiar objects which experience with we only could bring in mind.
Tour
ends with this amazing visit and we go out from the building recalling
the experience we’ve just lived. We then make our postposed pictures
with Bugs Bunny and Duffy Duck looking at our cameras and thinking “I
wished have you 30 minutes ago”. Well, I’m coming back to reality as I
must drive but before we put the picture they’ve given to us with Harry
Potter’s train in the bag. Nice gift!
We take the car and drive to Riverside Drive, our though was
lunching in San Diego, but it’s 15:00h now and our stomachs are
recalling to us it is already late for lunch. We park in front of an
Italian restaurant. I think is the first time we park in this country
for free, but this is a big avenue with a few cars, so a lot of space
for leaving the car for a while. “Baco Trattoria” restaurant is empty,
except for an old man alone in his table. Maybe I’ve seen so many
movies but it is recalling to me a typical restaurant from mafia and
this is L.A. and we don’t know exactly where we are. Eva and I share
one dish of pasta and another one of meat while my sister goes for a
big salad with a lot of cheese. Plates are big indeed and we leave the
place satisfied by 40$ in total.
Now finally we drive to San Diego. It’s late, 16:00h, but it must be a
short drive of around one hour. Balboa Park visit definitively is going
to be for tomorrow, though.
We get lost a little to
get Highway 5, which is the way to San Diego, and we find traffic jams
in some parts. When we are in the highway for one hour I pay attention
to the exit names as I’m expecting finding San Diego one shortly, but
the Exit is Anaheim! This is Disneyland exit, so we’re still in L.A.! I
don’t know what has happened. Maybe I did my calculations of time
between both cities without thinking leaving L.A. across it could take
even more time. We can see the Crystal Cathedral far from the highway.
I cannot tell what time we’re going to reach San Diego.
I can tell now: later than 18:00h. We’ve stopped in a place called
“Encinitas” to get fuel but I’ve got lost again when arriving to San
Diego, so we’re leaving the car in a parking lot in 6th Street - the
next of Gaslamp Quarter one, as it is in 5th Street -at 19:52h. It is
getting dark and we just walk along the street up and down. This is an
area with plenty of live and there are a lot of people getting their
dinner or drinks. All the bars are crowded. Some of the buildings are
old and our guide book tells some of them are contemporary of Wyatt
Earp, but it’s the only we can see remaining from his figure
.
 
We talk about coming here for dinner after checking in at hotel.
Before taking the car in the parking I ask about indications for
reaching our hotel to the doorman of a fancy hotel, but he doesn’t
reckon the street or “California Suites” name so he calls to the bell
boy, who doesn’t reckon it either but takes a map in order of looking
for the street. How good I asked here as it results our hotel is
closest to L.A. than San Diego – I’m exaggerating here -! We must take
the highway back to L.A. direction and take some exits at north. Then
we will need to ask someone in around there.
And sure we ask! A lot! When later, less people to ask. Nobody knows
this damn hotel or this damn street. We keep driving around unknown
streets completely lost for hours. I call the hotel, but as I don’t
know where we are they cannot give me indications. Finally, and
“finally” means late night, a man in a gas station can give me clear
indications to get this “California Suites” place and we can find the
street. The “funny” thing is, while we’re looking at the numbers to
find our hotel we find ourselves got into the highway again downtown
direction. I need to take the next exit, driving around for a while
until getting the highway again back to hotel’s exit. I repeat the
exploration of the street carefully and, again, I find the entrance to
the highway, but this time I prefer to drive back – no cars at road
this late – to finding the “hidden” entrance to “California Suites”,
just when the entrance to join the highway starts.
Once in the reception desk I’m explaining how hard have been to get the
place but they don’t care about it. I’m delivered a map of the complex
and a key for accessing the area, which is closing at night. When we’re
resting at room we remember about dinner, then we walk around looking
for a place. We only find a gas station where we can get some
sandwiches to eat at room. I’ve ended sick of car today. In theory, it
was going to be a day with just a short drive, tomorrow is the day with
the longest one. Let’s go to sleep
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