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California With The Pittsburgh Penguins 2020 (Day 3, 27th Feb 2020)

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

No hockey on Day 3 of my California trip 2020 – the day after the first match of the Pittsburgh Penguins in Los Angeles, my favorite musical Rock of Ages was the main event of the day. Since a couple of weeks, the musical is held in a very special location and interpretation in the heart of Hollywood. Thus, I majorly concentrated on sights around the famous Los Angeles borough.

 

A Day without Hockey

Not just in my selection of clothing, Rock of Ages was just the dominating topic of the day. I listened to the Broadway recording of the musical during the sheer endless traffic jams – and thought about “Living now in Glendale, I believe…” (people who know the musical know these words), when I passed the Glendale Blvd exit on the highway. First thought to have a look into Glendale – but as it nearly took me two hours from the hotel to the Hollywood Boulevard, I hard to shorten my program.

 

At the Walk of Fame

I found a parking lot just a block away from the Bourbon Room, where the musical will be played. The theater is on the second floor of a building right at the Walk of Fame. What I especially liked is that the Sir Alec Baldwin star is more or less directly in front of the venue (he played in the movie adoption, but regretted that thereafter #themoviesucks). Oh, the local 7Eleven hat Slurpees… Even Cherry/Sherrie. Sorry for that reference to the musical.

I am not too much a fan of the Walk of Fame. I feel it is very overrated – and as so many people walk over the stars every day, some of them are hard to read. Apart from that, there are too many of them – though there are still some stars missing. And some are just too much.

Even though the local boards seem to try to make the area as attractive as possible, it is not too much of a beauty around the theater. It smells like drugs, sometimes like pees, buildings and stores are run down partially – at least I liked the humor of the local strip club – “1000’s of beautiful girls & three ugly ones”. I did not check it out – but maybe the three ones are having the longest shifts? 🙂

 

A very special star

The Western part of Hollywood Boulevard is more beautiful and covers the key attractions like the Chinese Theatre

I could stand to compare my extremities with the ones of celebrities, though.

Though I don’t like the Walk of Fame too much, I have to admit that one of the key reasons to go for this kind of day was to see a very special star on it. On 27th August 2018, Weird Al Yankovic received his well-deserved (much-more-deserved-than-some-others?) place of honor in his home town Los Angeles. The very special thing about this was that the fans funded the star nomination, which is quite a pricey thing. Time to thank Vikki DeVries and David Rossi, who were the key organizers and fought so many years for this metal star people will walk on and dogs will pee on for generations:

 

Shopping in Hollywood

The Weird Al star is right in front of the Line Friends store, who is selling souvenirs of the cute Japanese cartoon characters. Just had to go into that store and take some pictures – made me smile.

I also went to the Hollywood & Highland Center, which is more or less right across the street. You can enjoy the view on another (in my eyes) very overrated attraction from there.

I just had to visit the Sanrio store. You might have seen my recent visit at a Sanrio Cafe in London – but here in Hollywood, I could not find anything for my Hello Kitty-addicted wife.

In order to relax a bit, I had a couple of games at the Hollywood Dave & Buster’s. The D&B’s are a mixture of sports bar, restaurant and large video game arcades. I just love to hang out in these places – I passed another of their outlets in the Orange Outlets on Day 2 of my trip.

 

Sightseeing in Hollywood – Did (most of) the Classics

Finally, of course it is also my duty as a travel blogger to create some new fodder for this website – places I visit for a proper review. And, my dear readers, I hope I did well so on this Thursday in California. The first tourist attraction I visited is a worldwide classic – Madame Tussauds Hollywood. There were not too many people around that day – and even though I am not too much a wax museum buff, I really enjoyed that visit (also due to a half price admission coupon they gave away on the street).

Did I say that I don’t like wax museums too much? I have to admit, I did another one. The Hollywood Wax Museum is the classic on the Boulevard – and as you can have a “Three Attraction VIP ticket”, I just could not stand to have a look. I rather liked their horror cabinet than the celebs – but at least I had some enjoyable moments:

I honestly enjoyed the two other attractions which were included in that VIP Ticket thing more: my second visit was the Guinness World Records Museum, which was unfortunately not always up to date, but very interactive and thus very enjoyable. Good stop on the Boulevard!

Believe it or not – it was also the first time I made to one of the numerous Ripley’s Believe It or Not places in the USA. I did not expect too much about the visit, but it was really interesting and educative – much better than I thought with a lot of different exhibits. Nice!

For some reason I did not really reconcile, McDonalds granted a free McFlurry during the previous day’s victory against my Penguins. Good reason to have a break with a coffee and an ice cream. I originally also wanted to see the Hollywood Museum and the Museum of Death, but I skipped the first one due to time and the latter one is temporarily closed.

 

Don’t Stop Believing – A Blast in The Bourbon Room

Back to the Bourbon Room. The theater has been designed in line with the musical – and its design is just amazing. You can eat and drink during the show, the actors use most parts of the restaurant for the performance. Due to that, it was not always profitable to be in front row – you had to turn around quite often. But, hey, I know the UK script by heart anyway – there were of course some local adoptions, but overall I had a great time. Like for most places I visited that day, there will be a detailed review of the venue (and the show). They even had a concert with some of the actors after the show, which was a lot of fun as well.

 

California with the Pittsburgh Penguins – Day by Day

Here is the overview of my daily postings on this trip report.

 

 

Flyctory.com Country Music Reviews

Here are reviews of all country music albums and EPs I reviewed earlier on the website:

 

Postings: Museums & Exhibitions

Here are all my postings about all kinds of museums and kind of other exhibitions:

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