Wow, three goals achieved in three days! I’ll be finished by Christmas if I can keep this up!! On Saturday I experienced indoor skydiving in a vertical wind tunnel, yesterday I completed my journey across Route 66 by finally arriving at Santa Monica, and today I headed into Hollywood to complete my goal of seeing Los Angeles.
Evan has very kindly lent me his car for the week while he is away, and my first job this morning was to fix the cigarette lighter socket, which wasn’t working. Without that I am unable to charge my GPS, and heading off into downtown LA without it would have been foolish. So it didn’t take me long to have the whole centre console of Evan’s car stripped out. It took a bit longer to get it all back together – don’t worry Evan, it’s all working well now!
Once sorted, I was off, and got parked at the Kodak Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. The first thing I wanted to do was to see the Hollywood sign up on the hill, which is for me the iconic image of LA, and just around the corner, there it was, high up on the Hollywood Hills.
I took a wander along Hollywood Boulevard, down Vine Street, and then back westward on Sunset Boulevard. I was surprised to find that among the glamour and the glitz there are quite a few closed down businesses, and that parts of the area are pretty run-down. However, at the westward end of Sunset Boulevard, where it becomes Sunset Strip, it becomes pretty exclusive and expensive.
In the evening I met up with Ari, who lives just off Sunset, and works as a voiceover artist, doing voices for movie trailers, adverts, and any other project requiring voice acting. Check out some of his demos in the links at the bottom of this section. He had contacted me through the website, and offered to buy me a pint – how could I refuse?
We met in the Trocadero on Sunset, and after a couple of beers we headed to Sushi On Sunset to eat, which was absolutely fantastic. The Firecracker Chicken was the highlight of the menu. Huge thanks to Ari for a very entertaining evening, and for picking up the bill too, I reckon it would have cost about a week’s worth of my travelling budget!
Every now and then I keep realising what I am doing, and where I am, and this evening, sat eating dinner I had one of those moments. “I am sat in an incredible restaurant on Sunset Strip in LA, eating dinner with a Hollywood actor!!” What a amazing experience! Cheers, Ari.
More on Ari Ross: