Gringo Tour 08/09 - Part 5

After a quick stroll down Rodeo Drive - which was decked out in xmas festy cheer - we found another bus into town - but instead of going back to Downtown - we went back to West Hollywood and found a Tex-Mex Gay Bar to have dinner. The 2 for 1 margaritas went down like a treat and so did the over-sized tex-mex burgers with oversized quantities of chips (or french fries).

After dinner - we browsed through a couple of shops. Ant bought the "really classy" Dantes Cove complete series box set on DVD. If there was a gay equivalent of the Razzies - I'm sure Dantes cove would pick up a Life-time achievement award for the worst ever gay TV series or something.

We headed back to Downtown to our hotel - and took a few pictures of me posing in the hotel lobby in front of the elevators and water features. Did I mention that the hotel had little plaques saying that "In the Line of Fire was shot at these elevators" or "Forget Paris was shot at these elevators". I think the hotel is a quasi-tourist attraction or something. Well I've heard of In the Line of Fire and True Lies - but I've definitely forgotten "Forget Paris" with Billy Crystal.

We had to get up at the crack of dawn the next morning because we were leaving LA and heading for "The OC" to Knott's Berry Farm (you know - the snoopy themed theme park near Disneyland). Not only were we heading there - but we were staying at the Knott's Berry Farm Resort... yeh.

We caught the 8-something bus out to the O.C (90 minute bus ride) and it was absolutely chockers. Ant and I were taking up two seats each (one for us and one for our oversized backpacks). Ant was being way to kind when he offered his bag seat up to some weird bald guy who didn't seem to want to move when there were vacant seats nearby - despite Ant nursing his 20kg bag.

When we arrived at Knott's Berry Farm (which felt a whole lot like Orlando with wall to wall sizzlers, IHOPs (aka International House of Pancakes) and fast food joints along the freeway) - we were a little disorientated because although we knew where the theme park was - we didn't know where the resort was. Although we did pick up that it was quite busy around the themepark - a little overly busy if you know what I mean.

When we arrived at the front gates at KBF - it looked somewhat like a war zone. The military were there (with a tank no less) and too - a horde of redneck crazys - all armed with cheap looking presents... WTF?! On closer inspection - there seemed to be some "Toys for Tots" promotion whereby if you bring a gift - then you get free admission to the park (I've confirmed this at - http://www.family-vacation-getaways-at-los-angeles-theme-parks.com/Knotts-Berry-Farm-Christmas-2006.html). I don't know if this is some ploy by KBF to get people into the park because of the GFC - but it seemed to be working. I don't want to sound like a bitch or anything but most of the people here didn't appear to be able to afford the $50 entrance fee for KBF.

Ant and I located a map - and worked out where the resort was (around the side of the park) and headed out there. To call the Toys for Tots queue - "massive" would be an understatement. It had felt like half-3/4 miles long and wrapped around the front bit of the park to the front of the Resort. And it was really hard work carrying the backpack and going against the flow of the queue in order to get to the resort.

Once we got to the somewhat runned down resort and the inappropriately named "Amber Waves" restaurant (see the movie Boogie Nights for more details) - we attempted to check in - only to be foiled and not be allowed to get our room until the afternoon. We dumped our bags at the bellboy and made a bit of a "on-the-spot" decision to not go to KBF (just because of the masses of people wouldn't make it very fun to queue heaps for rides) - so we decided to catch the metro bus to its final stop - Disneyland and do that instead. I guess I was a little disappointed in not going to KBF (haven't been there before) - and it looked like it had its more than fair share of vomit inducing roller coasters and rides which I heart.

It was almost 11:30am by the time we had reached Disneyland - and it decidedly felt a lot quieter than KBF. I hadn't been to the California version of Disneyland for some time now (California Adventure and Downtown Disney didn't exist). We just went for the Disneyland only tickets (instead of the two themepark hopper tickets which were 50% more expensive and I hadn't heard the best of things about the newish California Adventure).

We started things at Disneyland a bit easy by going on Mark Twain Riverboat - which did a lap of the Frontier Land (the most racist of all Disneyland lands) river doh-dad where we got to see an animatronic Native American tribe welcoming the new european settlers with welcome arms (of not the gun variety). The Disney version of "frontier America' was a little glossy and seemed to avoid any facts or things that might upset the kiddies. To top off the racist Frontier Land - I had Ant took my picture in front of the Indian war chief (who looked like an extra out of the village people). Well until next time...