Our Weekend in Hollywood- Day 3

I just realized I completely forgot to do a recap of our 3rd and final day in Hollywood, so here it is, even though I am a month late!

Our last day in California was probably our favorite. We loved all the hustle and bustle and excitement of Hollywood and Beverly Hills but being on the water is one of our favorite places to be and that is exactly what we spent the day doing. We woke up bright and early (thanks to going to sleep around 6 the night before), packed and checked out of our hotel in Hollywood. We headed to The Beverly Hills Hotel for brunch and it was AMAZING! This was one of my favorite parts of our whole trip. The hotel is beautiful and it is home to many, many years of Oscars parties and so many more events. I pretty much had my mouth hanging open the whole 2 hours we were here...I was in love with this place! Everything is pink and green and smells rich (if that is even possible)....I had their famous pancakes for breakfast at The Polo Lounge and Chris had an egg dish. After brunch we walked out to the pool and did a little shopping in the boutique. If you go to Hollywood, you MUST go here! If you can't eat at The Polo Lounge, at least go to see it! Here are a few pictures we took while we were there:

Next, we headed to Santa Monica Beach. We spent about an hour walking on the beach and the pier. It was a beautiful day and the beach was packed. Venice Beach is just a couple miles south so we drove there and walked around for awhile. Venice Beach is "interesting" to say the least...it is a GREAT place for people watching. The sidewalk is lined with tons of little shops...most of which are little stores with "Kush Doctors" that will give you a prescription for medical marijuana!! CRAAZY!!

Next, we headed north on the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) to Malibu. The drive is beautiful...on one side you have the ocean and cool beach houses and on the other side you have mountains and mansions. We did a little celebrity stalking and saw Kristin Cavallari's beach house from the last season of The Hills and saw Jennifer Anniston's beach house that she lived in right after her and Brad Pitt got a divorce. I know we passed tons of other celeb homes but did not even realize it. Our friend from high school told us about this restaurant called Geoffrey's Malibu so we found that and decided to have lunch there. It was pretty much on the side of the mountain overlooking the ocean and the food was to die for! This is another must if you are ever in the area. After lunch we found a secret passage way that took us down to the beach. We literally had to climb down hundreds of stairs to get down there and worse- climb back up them to go back to the car. It was worth it though. Malibu is beautiful!

Hundreds of surfers next to the Santa Monica pier

Santa Monica Pier

Memorial set up for Veteran's Day on Santa Monica Beach

Trying to fit in with the Venice Beach locals =)

Jennifer Anniston's Beach House in Malibu

Best restaurant EVER! Geoffrey's Malibu!

View from lunch at Geoffrey's- BEAUTIFUL!

Malibu Beach :)

We had an unforgettable trip to California! I can't wait to go back one day!!

Our Weekend in Hollywood- Day 2

I am a little late with this post but I still had to do it!
Our 2nd day in Hollywood turned out to be so much fun. It was supposed to rain all day so we had left it open to do museums and a couple indoor things but we got really lucky and it only sprinkled in the middle of the day for about 15 minutes! We woke up, ate breakfast at our hotel then set out for the day. We walked up and down the Walk of Fame looking at more stars then went back to Beverly Hills and Brentwood to see more celeb houses. We got back to our hotel around noon because The Muppets Movie Premier was taking place right outside our hotel at the El Capitain Theater and we wanted to try to get close to the red (it was green this time because of Kermit) carpet and see some of the movie stars! We waited FOREVER...the stars were all late and there were HUNDREDS of people in front of us, but we did get to see a few cool celebs. My pictures were pretty terrible because of how far back we were and I was trying to take pictures by just holding my camera up above everyone's heads. It was cool to see how a red (green) carpet works though...seeing hundreds and hundreds of paparrazi, news & photo journalists and video cameras, all the entertainment people yelling at the stars to get interviews with them and screaming fans EVERYWHERE. If it was this crazy for The Muppets, I can only imagine how crazy it would be for something like Twilight! Moving on...after the premier we went to have lunch at The Ivy. This was pretty much the top thing I wanted to do. We had margaritas and lobster raviole and 4 flavors of ice cream (great combo huh?). After lunch we shopped at Kitson and other shops along Robertson Blvd. By this point we were exhausted and our legs and feet hurt from standing for so long and walking so much. We headed back to the hotel to take a nap before our dinner & night out plans. Let's just say what was supposed to be a 2-3 hour nap turned into a 12 hour nap. Ugh. We laid down around 5 and planned to get up about 7ish to get ready to head out for the night. Well, we woke up around 8:30 and had zero motivation to get ready and go out so we just went back to sleep! HAHA! We definitely needed the rest but we missed out on what would have been a REALLY fun night. We had dinner reservations at The Polo Lounge at The Beverly Hills Hotel then we had managed to get on the guest list of the grand opening of The Graystone Manor nightclub in Hollywood. But, we missed it all. At least we woke up the next morning feeling rested and refreshed and ready for a full day in Santa Monica & Malibu ( that post will come tomorrow ). Here are pictures from our 2nd day:

OJ Simpson & Nicole Simpson's home in Brentwood. She was found murdered right inside that gate.

Home in the Hollywood Hills where Britney Murphy & her husband both died. You should see the view from this home...it is overlooking all of Hollywood and directly above Sunset Blvd.

Betty White's house in Brentwood! She did not have a gate or any security. You can just walk right up to her front door :)

Entrance to the Playboy Mansion in Beverly Hills.

Neil Patrick Harris @ The Muppets Premier!

Mickey Rooney!

Miss Piggy :)

The Muppets making their entrance on the green carpet!

Jason Segal & Amy Adams that premier

Jason Segal!

Joel McHale from The Soup on E!

THE IVY!!!!! LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!

Chris and I having lunch at The Ivy!


Santa Monica & Malibu tomorrow!!

Our Weekend in Hollywood- Day 1

Almost 2 weeks ago I had to go to Los Angeles for work. One of the great things about getting to travel for work is that sometimes my husband gets to come meet me at the end of my work trip and we will have a mini-vacation over the following weekend! Chris came and met me in LA on Thursday night and we spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and Malibu. I have ALWAYS wanted to go to these places...I wanted to eat at the same places celebs eat, go out to places I have seen in magazines and shows, see spots where movies were filmed, etc. Well- we did it ALL! It was one of our favorite trips we have ever been on. So, here is a recap of our first day in Hollywood:
(Warning: there are going to be A LOT of pictures!)

View of the Hollywood sign from our hotel, The Renaissance Hollywood. We LOVED our hotel. It was overlooking the Chinese Theater and the Walk of Stars, walking distance to Sunset Blvd and only 10 minutes from Beverly Hills.

Me, hubby and the Hollywood sign :)

Me & Michael Jackson's star

Why hello Rob Pattinson!

We took a 3 hour bus tour to see all the celeb homes, places movies were filmed, etc. This was one of the best parts of our trip! You get to see and learn so much in a short amount of time. This is a view of the Celebrity Rehab house from Mulholland Drive. Can you imagine being in rehab and having this pool and view?!

Britney Spears house on Mulholland Drive

love :)

Part of Michael Jackson's house

One of Michael Jackson's many garages

Home that George Clooney is having built

The most expensive men's clothing in the world on Rodeo Drive. You can not even go inside this store without checking in with the "hostess" at the front door.

Rodeo Drive!!

Beautiful restaurant in the Hollywood Hills overlooking all of LA. We had dinner here the first night and loved it!

We managed to get on the guest list of one of the best nightclubs in LA, Eden! We had dinner at Yamashiro then headed here. It was so fun and reminded me of the clubs in Miami!

When we got back to our room late that night the nicest concierge in the world, John, had sent this to our room. Somehow he ended up thinking we were on our Honeymoon! Also, when he made our dinner reservations for us at Yamashiro he must have told them it was our Honeymoon because they brought us a free appetizer and said "This is from John, your concierge" He was so sweet! :)

Our first day included a lot of walking around the Chinese Theater, Kodak Theater, Walk of Fame. We ate breakfast at the famous Du-Par's in Studio City and spent 3 hours on one of the bus tours. We had lunch at the Pig-N-Whistle on Hollywood Blvd, took a 3 hour nap then headed out for the night. Day 1 was a blast!! I love Hollywood!! Next up...day 2- The Muppets Movie Premier, lunch at The Ivy, shopping on Melrose Ave and more!