Owning property vs. Living in a House

This is an important distinction and I am not sure everyone understands it, especially people from other countries with limited English. We took an all day tour last weekend to see the sights in L.A. and it included a tour of the stars homes. The tour guide kept using the phrase "this is the property of...." Sarah and I figure this is a good way of saying that the person may own this but may not actually live there. This is not true in all the cases. In fact, it was interesting to see Bill Cosby's house. The name Ennis was above the door in memory of his late son. It was very interesting to see all the houses and the neighborhoods. We drove past Bel Air but were not allowed to go in it on the bus apparently there are restrictions for that sort of thing and only cars and limos are allowed in Bel Air.

I think the most interesting thing about the tour was going to Hollywood Boulevard and seeing the stars on the Walk of Fame and the Chinese Theater. There were these people in front all dressed up like characters. We saw Spiderman and Sponge Bob, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis (very old Elvis), Zorro, the list goes on but there very many of them. There was a sign in the square that assured us (the tourists) that these impersonator's were not associated with the theater but there of there own accord. I guess I don't get it, do they make that much money doing it and is that much fun? Or maybe they are actors and actresses trying to get discovered? Who knows, maybe they are part of a cult or something.

We also got to go shopping on Rodeo Drive I got a sprite and Sarah got a diet coke, I know big spenders we are! There is this store that you have to make a reservation at and it is a $900 deposit. If you don't buy anything over the deposit you lose it. It is a menswear store, I saw a sport coat in the window that looked similar to one I saw at mens warehouse! We saw the Beverly Wilshire where Pretty Woman was filmed and the Chanel store where Julia Roberts was dissed and told she couldn't buy and clothes.

We spent part of the day at the Getty museum looking at art and photographs and gardens and eating a terrific lunch. L.A. was great, It was much different than I thought it was going to be. Of course there were crazy people. Like the woman driving her car on the 405 talking on her phone (no ear piece), eating a sandwich and using no hands on the wheel!!! And the homeless guy with no legs who we saw once yelling at the non existent bats, once in Starbucks enjoying his coffee and then again Sunday morning sound asleep in his wheelchair outside a store.

The Santa Monica Beach is nice, so is the pier. We went on the ferris wheel which is solar powered. They must store the power because it was super cloudy the day we went on the ride.