Hurray For Hollywood... & Good Morning Baltimore!

...or, as I would say it... hurrah and thrice for Hollywood!  Day 4 of CHA dawned bright and early and saw us going to say our goodbyes to all the lovely peeps we had met over the weekend... and... how's about this... I got... a signed set of Tim stamps! Signed by Tim of course lol  I cannot wait to play with them, which might just happen later today as we have an inky afternoon and evening planned.  Anyways.  Once we had said our goodbyes to the convention, we set off on a rather exciting expedition to LA.  HOOOGE thanks to Anita who organised and arranged our excursion, seriously, this is one of the most amazing things I have ever done... our driver, Trevor, was a veritable mine of information and knew all the best places to take us.  Here are just a few of the photo's that I took:

Check this one out..... our first glimpse of the Hollywood sign... 

And of course, no trip would be complete without the company of our Freckles.  He is still a smidge sad because he is missing Pinky, I think he was a tad smitten you know ;O))

Our first stop was at the Dolby Theater (note American spelling, cos, you know, it is American) It used to be the Kodak Theater and when Kodak went bust a few years ago, Dolby took it over.  It is where the Oscars are held you know!

And here are we girlies, all posing because we are on the actual stairs that actual stars walk on to get to the Oscars!  We were all supposed to be looking up but ...erm... I got neckache and decided to spoil it rofl

Next we went to the Walk of Fame.  The actual Walk of Fame!  I did a few dolphin like squeals... I can't describe just how exciting it was to be standing there, on that street, with all those iconic stars in the pavement (sidewalk)

But imagine this, the dolphin squealing reached a crescendo when we turned a corner and saw this...

Yep, Mann's Chinese Theater... WOW... and thrice WOW!

And look at some of the handprints... these are just a couple of the famous names... Bette Davis, the star of my favourite film,  Now, Voyager and Cary Grant, star of many a woman's dreams :O))

And Ellen and I  recreated a very famous pose... how cool is that!!!

Another shot of the Hollywood sign...

And after a quick pitstop for lunch, we returned to the car to find this little fella tucking into my stash of Cheeto's!  Mmm, guilty look on his face!

Next we drove up into Beverley Hills and stopped outside none other than the Playboy mansion - we didn't linger too long because old Hugh might have spotted us and tried to keep us all there (ahem...)  After driving through Bel Air and seeing the home of Gene Simmonds from Kiss... and spotting him driving past us, and seeing the home where Michael Jackson passed away... and Janet Jackson's modest 42 bedroom palace (ok, slight exagerations there but it is mahooosive)... we ventured on to Santa Monica Pier.

Where the funniest thing in the world happened.  So, Candy says "I gonna buy you all a Churro... "  So, what is a Churro?  It is a long crispy donut stick with cinnamon and sugar coating... oohlalaaaa...nomnomnom.  That is the noise I made just before saying "Oh you dirty b******d"... when we were pooped on by humungous seagulls. Apparently, they too like Churro's!  I got lucky and only got the poop on my hand and shoulder, poor Anita with her beautiful long locks got it all in her hair!  Dirty little scavengers they are!  Mind you, it was so funny we were holding each other up cos we were laughing so hard... Here I am with my Churro... I know, it is ever so slighly rude but....

And oh boy was it cold and windy... you can see in this pic how chilly it was, Candy and Anita look frozen!  The blue skies more than made up for the cold  though, it is hard to be grumpy when the skies are this blue...

As we were walking along the pier we were browsing in some of the little shops along the way when I found these... especially for our Kaz who loves her moustaches... how cool are these sunglasses!

One thing I love about America is their patrotism.  To see their flag flying makes me smile, I think we Brits should take a leaf our of their book and fly our flag more... instead of just when England are playing footy or there's a Jubilee going on!

Then it was time to say goodbye to California and to my beautiful CHA Sisters.  I had the best experience at CHA but without a shadow of a doubt, those girls made it perfect.  So a hooooooge, big, mahoosive, ginormous thank you to Ellen, Candy, Anita, Linda, Cheryl, Yvonne and Susan for making the weekend so fun filled and for making me laugh so much I couldn't breathe.  Here's Anita and me, acting the goat as usual... 

So, Wednesday saw us all flying off to our various destinations and I hopped on a couple of planes to get to Baltimore - it was a shame that Ellen and I couldn't get on the same flight but we made it, eventually.  When I got to the airport, Ellen's hubby Jack was waiting for me... with this sign (and he hand drew this too... clever!)  I fair pee'd my pants when I saw it... something tells me that my addiction to Cheesy Chester Cheeto's isn't a secret...

Anyways... yesterday we went off to Five Guys for the best burger in the world (really, truly, THE best!) and then we went and did a little *ahem* browsing in Michael's, AC Moore and Bath & Body Works where I subjected the poor sales assistants to some proper Yorkshire charm - well they did ask me to tell them some rude words that we Brits used so the venerable word "chuff" had to be used right?  Today we are off to see Queen Patti at The Queen's Ink - a smidge more browsing *ahem* and then lunchingtons at The Rams Head where they do the most amazing Chipotle chicken (yes, tis all about the stash and the food!) I best get a wiggle on... I am in full on lazy-mode at the moment lol   Thanks for looking... have a good day!  I Skyped Grim earlier and he showed me the snow!  Wow, you all have snow... I am hoping it is still there when I get back on Tuesday - I need to build a snowman lol   TTFN!

Hels x