A sunny 70°F LA day is perfect for being the typical tourist, sitting atop the hop-on-hop-off bus and discovering the lie of the land. The same company that operates many in Europe runs four loops here... we concentrated on the 'Red' loop today doing all the quintessential LA sights... Beverley Hills, Rodeo Drive, Sunset Boulevard, Walk of Fame, numerous diners where stars have allegedly eaten or worked before being discovered... And the La Brea Tar Pits (thanks Becky!) where mammoths, saber-tooth tigers and numerous other creatures from the Pleistocene Era became entrapped. In now-downtown LA in the sticky mud of the tar ponds (that still bubble methane gas) are thousands of fossilised bones. A small museum houses completed animals big and small and a viewing room where we watched scientists and volunteers sifting and sorting through minute scraps, separating vegetable from mineral and bone.

Sadly the bus times are not as frequent as other cities . With connections, we didn't have enough time to thoroughly explore a second route, so took a scenic ride on the blue route which essentially just whizzes up to Universal studios. There's tomorrow for the other sectors.

Besides, we had a concert to dress for!

Brett the limo driver picked us up right on cue - oh yes, no mere taxis or buses for us tonight - and we joined the tangle of cars headed out on a Friday night in LA. This city could do with some serious reworking of it's road layouts and traffic management! It took us an hour and a quarter to travel about 10km.

And then the second-best/funniest highlight of the night... At the VIP ticket collection desk, the lady handing out pre-booked tickets announced "We've been expecting you!" as she fished out our little pieces of paper gold. THEN rang security and relayed "Jenny Bush from Australia has arrived!"
What a hoot!

How often do you get escorted up to the VIP dining area of a major rock show to spend a few minutes talking to an international star?!
With photos.
And goodbye kisses. (Right cheek, FYI)
Not weekly, that's for sure.
Not likely ever again!

The Hollywood Bowl holding 17,000 plus was sold out. It looks possibly about the same capacity as the Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne although steeper and all allocated seating. Collapsible chairs in the first 10-20 rows, park benches in the nose-bleed section and a good half as four-person 'boxes' that would cost around $US800 per seat accordingly to the people behind us! And ours was centre stage on the first walkway up! You could almost imagine us here in the aerial photo halfway down the page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Bowl
We were behind the white spot which would have been a mixing desk.

FAR OUT! Could the night get much better?! Well actually, yes!

Jack Johnson did a great 90 minute act, incorporating the two support acts at times - we had missed them in the traffic - and the crowd was pumped. (The warm night and the $26 large sangrias may have helped - and they were selling 4-6 at a time...)

We stuck to Hollywood Bowl hamburgers and Pepsi and for one night at least, lived an American dream.