While I am writing this blog, I am sitting on the airport in San Francisco ready to begin my new adventure in Australia. But I still have to talk about the last couple of days in Los Angeles! So on the 4th on January, we took an Uber to our next apartment, which was located right on the Hollywood Boulevard. You stepped out and you found yourself immediately on the Walk of Fame, what a great feeling. 
On this day, we walked on the famous sidewalk, saw the Dolby Theatre and the Chinese Theatre 
and also made a Tour with a bus that was almost completely open so that we had a perfect view out on the streets and places, we passed by. First, we went up the Hollywood Hills to a look out point in order to get some pretty pictures with the Hollywood Sign. While going up the roads and driving through Beverly Hills, the driver also stopped at some houses where some Stars like Shawn Mendes, Justin Timberlake or David Hasselhoff live. My friend also saw Olivia Newton-John driving by in a big car. Unfortunately, I did not because I was sitting on the other side of the bus.
Afterwards, we drove down the Rodeo Drive and saw the famous Beverly Wilshire at the very end of the road (hint: Pretty Woman :-))
Some other spots we saw were: the bars and cafés where some stars would hang out from time to time (like George Lucas) and also the gym and the service station they usually attend. On the Sunset Boulevard we also saw the Whisky a Go Go and the Viper Room. We had our dinner at IHOP (I had to show this to my friends!), before heading back to our apartment. There we rearranged our bed since it was so loud in the actual bedroom because of all the nightlife outside.
We took it easy on the next day: taking the metro to downtown L.A., where we saw the City Hall, the Walt Disney Concert Hall
and The Broad, a museum where the entrance is free but I am not really that into art, so it was a bit boring for me. We did not stay there for a long time anyway…We then took a Uber up to the Griffith Observatory.
When I was here with my family in 2014, we could not go to the observatory because there were so many people that the roads were closed, but looking back, I have to say that we did not miss anything. It was so crowded, many of the interactive things were out of order and the exhibition itself was not as catching as expected. Once again I learned that I should not have very high expectations. We took the bus home and went to bed pretty soon because we had to get up early the next day. Why? Because it was the day where we went to the Universal Studios!! All the time before, I was so excited about this day and I could not wait for it to finally come!! It was so great. This time, they had the Wizarding World of Hogwarts there but no Jurassic Park attraction anymore. Besides riding the Simpsons, the Minions, Kung Fu Panda, Transformers, the Mummy and both Harry Potter rollercoasters (so everything the Studios had to offer), we also went through the Walking Dead house, took the Studios tour and watched one Special Effect and one Animal actors show.
The highlights of this day were definitely the Harry Potter ride inside the castle, which we did six times, followed by the mummy (we did this one either five or also six times), the butterbeer and the Giant S’Mores Doughnut (enough calories for a whole day but I ate other things anyway). We had our dinner at Panda Express and also Taco Bell, since not everyone was attracted to Chinese Food, and watched the Golden Globes Award. You can tell that at the end of the day we were so tired. But we did continue watching a series that we began a few days ago.
Yesterday, I had to say Goodbye and fly back to Seattle, because today (I stayed one night in a hotel on the airport) I met my group at the SEATAC airport to finally head off to Australia!!
So from now on, I will continue blogging in the section “Gap Year” – “Australia”. Stay tuned if you want to know what’s going on in Down Under 🙂
Let the memories begin 