And I Would Walk 9.4 Miles

THAT is how much we walked yesterday. That's also 15.1278336 km for any foreign folks that may be reading this. Yup, I reverse mapped it out just so you lucky readers could know that I'm a boss and my friends are also bosses (and also because I was really curious).

Rose and I had known that our travel plans included quite a bit of walking but I don't think either one of us expected quite that much (and I don't think our friends expected anything even close to what we put them through). The day started with a .5 mile walk to the train station so we could take the metro to the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Using vertical pano

When we got to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, I pretty quickly realized that getting a star there might not be the greatest thing ever because I'm not sure I want people walking on me. Yes, they will stop to take pictures of my name, but still, thousands of people are stepping on them every single day! The Chinese Theatre was also very cool. I spent some time there playing around with my camera trying to figure out how to get the best shot of the whole place with the least about of other people in it. Some celebrities have crazy small hands and feet; Natalie Wood's footprints were so tiny that I'm not entirely convinced she had feet at all.

After that, we did a little bit of lollygagging and a lot of trying to figure out if we were really going to walk two miles. I was game from the get-go but everyone else took some convincing and it wasn't until we realized that there was no easy way of getting where we wanted to go using public transportation that we set off on foot. So, we headed down Sunset Blvd. for 2.8 miles, bringing our beloved Book Crawl to the West Coast.

Walking is good, I like walking. If we hadn't walked, we wouldn't have stumbled upon the Samuel French Film & Theatre Bookshop and that was a very cool place for our posse and pretty perfect considering we were on route to another bookstore. I didn't buy anything because I just had too many choices but it was a great find and I have a feeling that Ellen, Cara and Phil will be back there soon. (I looked for monologues for ya, Mandy, but there just weren't any books or plays I thought were right).

We continued on, finding our way to the very glamorous West Hollywood where we arrived at Book Soup. It was a wacky little bookshop, but nothing incredible in my opinion. The next stop on our book crawl didn't take us too far -- it was just next door. Or I guess I should say, next door and through a secret passage.

MYSTERY PIER BOOKS INC. Oh my goodness, this store gave me life! They ONLY sell first editions. Let me repeat that -- every single book in their store is a first edition. Some aren't that impressive, but when you're just inches away from the original printing of all of your favorite authors in a single room, you're gunna nerd out a bit. We weren't even allowed to touch the books! That's how fancy this place is. Some of the books were signed. All of them were way outside of our budgets, obviously, but it was pretty easy to see why this is the favorite bookstore of one Johnny Depp!

Just down the street from this wonderful place is the landmark Viper Room and the Hollywood history nerds in us deduced that that must be how Johnny Depp found out about the bookstore in the first place. I couldn't buy a shirt since Johnny has cleaned them out apparently (thanks a lot!) so I bought a bag -- which are apparently normally the shopping bags that they send the books home in -- to be aspirational. Someday I'll be back there with enough money to get that first addition copy To Kill a Mockingbird (original US printing -- none of that UK edition or 35th anniversary nonsense for me) and more!

I'll be back.

Mmmmmmmmmm.

Having already walked 3+ miles in the day, it was time to get some sustenance. The natural thing to do was obviously walk another two miles to Doughboys Cafe & Bakery just because I read about it on a Buzzfeed list (I've been having really good luck with these Buzzfeed lists! Probably should have stopped in to say thanks when we walked past their office). Doughboys is famous for their red velvet cake. Oprah has eaten this cake and now I have too. They make little six inch cakes and Rose and I split one. I don't think I could have handled one on my own but isn't it beautiful?! I even ate the frosting, which was also delicious! Cara, Ellen and Phil will definitely be going back there someday soon as well because they have a lot of breakfast options that all looked yummy (but after walking five miles, I deserved some friggin' cake!).

After cake and after Rose was totally oblivious to the waiter who was flirting with her, I still hadn't had enough walking or dessert, so we followed our noses (and Buzzfeed) another 1.5 miles to Milk, which is one of the 27 ice cream shops you have to visit before you die according to our internet guru. I got...a vanilla milkshake (I know Mandy is rolling her eyes right now -- if she's even reading this -- but if this is one of the places I NEED to go before I die, I need to measure how they stack up) but I know I'm in good hands when my milkshake comes with a spoon. Rose got an Thai Tea ice cream sandwich, except that they don't just use cookies for their ice cream sandwiches, they use macaroons and Rose is a macaroon-making wiz, so it was very cool.

We were pretty tired at this point and the LA transfers were starting to get cold as the sun went down (hey guys, it's still like 65 degrees out, you shouldn't be shivering just yet) so we started back towards the train station. Just another 2.3 miles to go! On our walk back, the vegetarian convinced everyone that they needed to stop at Pink's Hot Dog stand which was all any of them have talked about since I got there. Apparently it's legendary, has been featured on the Food Network multiple times and ALWAYS has a long line. Well, it didn't have a particularly long line as we walked past and I told them that this was their chance and that they better take it, even if they were eating murder (said entirely in jest, you do you, everybody!). They really enjoyed it and it smelled very good on my end.

We finally made it back to the Hollywood Walk of Fame where we found a film shoot being set up and after some investigating discovered that they were shooting a pilot for Fox called Lucifer. After standing around and watching a whole lot of nothing, we got back on the metro and headed back to the apartment where we pretty much died of laughter and had an awesome night after a totally awesome day.