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Santa Monica Pier and Warner Bros Tour!
Woo! Today was awesome throughout :D
We started out with a trip to Santa Monica Pier. I had definitely seen it a million times before in movies (especially the carousel, isn’t there a movie were people shoot around it at each other? It seems familiar) and it was awesome to actually go! Santa Monica Pier is definitely just one of those places you hear about through films, television, and the like. It just has that feel to it, part of it is tourist trap and the other part is “magical.” That word seems a little strong but I don’t know how else to explain it. What makes Santa Monica Pier so famous and touristy? I couldn’t give you a real answer but I feel as though the portrayals of it throughout Hollywood have a large hand in its overall feel. It was awesome to actually go to an American landmark like that has played a large part in the Hollywood and Californian history. Yay!
While we were there a few of the ladies decided it would be awesome to ride the huuuuge ferris wheel, so we did. I managed to get some awesome pictures of the beach and the pier and the ladies while we were up there so overall it was worth the $5 it cost to ride it :P
After we’d wandered through a few shops, we met up with the rest of the LA crew for lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. I hadn’t been there since I lived in San Jose (which was foreverrr ago) and it was nostalgic being back. They had the iconic bench outside, the movie and soundtrack playing inside, and movie memorabilia plastered on all the walls. Bubba Gump is definitely a restuarant that only exists because of an iconic Hollywood movie. It’s pretty funny to think that a huge restuarant chain spawned for that reason alone. Hollywood, in many ways, is pretty powerful in its contributions to tourist attactions.
With the end of our delicious meal we headed out to Warner Bros Studios for our VIP tour of the lot. Our tour guide was Stephanie, and while she wasn’t quite IRA, she was definitely a lot better than Omar (better known as NOmar). Our tour started with a quick video that pumped everyone up for Warner Bros (it had so many Friends and Harry Potter clips!) and then we headed out to our little cart-esque vehicles that took us into the Warner Bros lot.
We drove through a few set streets used primarily in shows like The Gilmore Girls and Pretty Little Liars. We also saw the bar used in True Blood and the lagoon from the Budweiser commercial with the frogs (BUD WEIR ERRRR). The main thing I took away from this was essentially that Hollywood can make you believe anything. Houses can be completely missing ceilings and be surrounded by concrete and the finished product that we see looks like a typical house in any neighborhood. It is amaziiing.
Our biggest stop of the day was definitely the set of THE CENTRAL PERK from FRIENDS. It was absolutely amazing. Stephanie really liked our group, so much, that she let us sit on the couch! YES! The couch! So many famous butts have sat on that couch. It was like touching a piece of history. Hollywood history was in my hands. It was brilliant and something I can probably brag about for the rest of my life.
Okay. It took a while for us to calm down from the Central Perk set, but when we finally left we headed to the Warner Bros Museum. Unfortunately they wouldn’t let us take any pictures but I saw so much awesome stuff! It was primarily costumes from movies which included:
THE JOKER (worn by Heath Ledger ): )and The Batman costume from The Dark Knight
Dr. Manhattan’s LED suit and the Rorschach costume from Watchmen
King Leonidas’s armor, plus his wife, plus Xerxes costumes from 300
Joseph Gordon Levitt, Tom Hardy, and Ellen Page’s outfits from Inception (plus Leonardo DiCaprio’s totem!)
One of the creatures from Where the Wild Things Are
And then, best of all…
AN ENTIRE SECOND FLOOR OF THE MUSEUM DEVOTED TO HARRY POTTER.
I almost died.
There were costumes from all 6 movies, and an absolute metric ton of props. It was awesome. It was almost too much. I was soooo excited. lovelovelove.
My favorite costume was Harry’s costume from the end of The Chamber of Secret’s were he fights the basilisk. My favorite prop was the trophy from the Goblet of Fire that was actually a portkey that transported Harry and Cedric to the cemetary to face Voldemort. AWESOME. On a hilarious side note, I was so overwhelmed by Harry Potter everything that I had a dream Professor Hohle was Voldemort. What on earth.
The museum was great mostly because we were surrounded by lots of tangible pieces of Hollywood history. I had seen a lot of the movies the museum featured and it was pretty exciting to be standing less than a foot from costumes that big time celebrities had worn. I was most excited about the Joker’s costume, mostly because it was worn by the now deceased Heath Ledger. I still miss him.. ):
So yeah! That was pretty much our tour. We saw the iconic Warner Bros tower while we drove through the lot and that was also pretty impressive. Any kid that watched cartoons in the 90’s would instantly recognize it due to the Animaniacs. It was pretty awesome to actually drive in its shadow.
After our tour, we went to the Yardhouse for some not really needed food. It seems like all we do is eat, walk, and sit in the van. Ah well, more Woodchuck on draft! -
