Thursday, July 30th, 2009

4320: LA Challenge Day 1

The Challenge: 3 friends, non-stop in LA for 3 days. Celebrities clubs and chaos.

The Catch: Send a tweet every minute they’re on the ground. All 4,320 of them.

Success: 3 around-the-world tickets on V Australia and Virgin Atlantic.

Failure: not an option.

Here’s what our winning team of V Tweeters (Kelvin, Nathan and Matt- pictured from right to left above) got up to, tweets and photos can be found here.

Day One

800pm: depart VA1 SYD 800pm; arrive 430pm LAX 430pm, same day. The V Australia crew are very friendly and share the excitement of the 3 days and 4,320-tweet challenge ahead of us.

600pm: let the tweets begin with a quick stop at In-and-Out Burger on Sepulveda Blvd. LA is renowned for some of the best burger joints in the world including its chains which include the aforementioned, Fat Burger and All American Burger to name a few.

700pm: check-in to LA’s swankiest hotel, SLS, just down the street from the Beverly Centre.

830pm: rehearsing lines from a remake of the 1980’s homage to 50’s pubescent awakening, Porkies, with actress Cristin Michele Beaver in the SLS Hotel outdoor lounge (foyer)

 

930pm: make a hasty exit from the growing huddle in the SLS Foyer to Eagle Junction / Echo Park in our luxury 7-seater black Cadillac Escalade

1000pm: Vintage Tattoo and Kelvin undergoes his first inking

1130pm: hunger besets the V Tweeters and their entourage (us, the V Crew); pit-stop on Sunset Blvd for New York-style pizza and beers

1230am: Saddle Ranch Chop Club and both Nathan and Matt are cowboys, riding the bucking bull, before changing gears and assaulting us with their karaoke skills

200am: where-else but The Standard Hotel and the all-night diner for the first of many coffees. Don’t miss gazing at the Peter Pan wallpaper in the men’s restroom.

300am: a quick late-night trip to the Walk of Stars on Hollywood Blvd. What better time to match your hand and feet size to pint-sized stars at Manns Chinese Theatre than now? Only now do the more eccentric characters of Hollywood outnumber the tourists, in all their glory.

400am: back at the SLS Hotel foyer, a spot that will become a regular refuge during what is known as the ‘graveyard shift’; weary and bleary eyes set about the task of continuous tweeting while reflecting on what this city has to offer, on its surface and beneath it. LA does have a soul. We saw it each morning at 4am.

600am: showered and refreshed we hit the road en route to Malibu: La Cienega to the fabled Sunset Blvd through West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, Pacific Palisades, past my old turn-offs to some of the best mountain biking tracks (up Dirt Mulholland way), and right onto the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway)

 

700am: V Tweeters, Matt and Nathan, learn to surf at Malibu. The long-boarders are out in force despite a small swell; it’s a classic Californian summer  morning– arid with clear blue skies; the marine layer or June Gloom is no longer with us in July.

830am: back along the PCH to Santa Monica for the Farmers Markets

 

900am: escape the organic fruit and vegetable growers for a breakfast burrito

1000am: stroll to Santa Monica Pier

1100am: time for Botox as Nathan decides the character-filled lines of his 25 years deserves de-wrinkling

1230pm: false start at the pedicurist (are we lost? Has Robertson Blvd deceived us? Are their two #350’s??); so lunch is called …

130pm: bookings at the Ivy for the V Tweeters, fabled more for star-spotting than its food, while we (V Crew) enjoy a healthy alternative at  the Newsroom Café across the road

300pm: I give in, briefly; it’s time for sleep while the V Tweeters nominate Matt for a chest waxing. LA is for beautiful people. Everyone can be beautified.

V Australia flies daily to Los Angeles from Sydney, departing 800pm, arriving 430pm the same day.  Book your own Hollywood weekend at www.vaustralia.com.au

Photos: Brooke George 2009