Departing from Fiji Andy, Alana and I exchange final farewell embraces, I won't be reunited with them until back on English soil so it's sad leaving my friend I've spent so much time with but I will have Eliza and Amy for company in Los Angeles. I am staying in a hostel just off the star studded Hollywood Boulevard thus only sampling a small and strange part of the sprawling metropolis that is LA, I will not deny the enthusiasm of people here but everything seems a little over the top, fake and hollow. Nevertheless I took an open top tour of Beverly Hills with the girls, the driver points out numerous locations like Chateau Marmont where Led Zeppelin drove motorcycles, F. Scott Fitzgerald had a heart attack and Jim Morrison fell from it's drainpipes. We follow the coiled roads where James Dean drove Porches, where the Fresh Prince sat upon his throne in Be-lair. I don't know what I was expecting but the rose-tinted stories I had heard from hollywood seemed dull in reality.
Later I decided to explore on my own, hopping on a bus I find Elvis alive and well, he steadies himself on a bus with one hand and takes a swig from a bottle of Jack Daniels with the other, a few homeless guys are also sharing this cramped bus, one muttering indecipherable things. I try to subtly snap Elvis but he notices and is clearly not impressed so I decide to focus my attentions elsewhere, peering out the window, I see the wealth of supercars, hotpants and silicone. To say there is a disproportionate spread of wealth in Hollywood would be understating things, I can't help but think that some of the people living on the streets were perhaps naively drawn here with hopes of fame and fortune, only to discover a unforgiving reality.
