Hollywood, Wisteria Lane & An Update

So today was CRAZY… my road trip from Kingman, AZ was easy and quick, except that something (the smog, maybe?) started making my right eye burn like crazy. By the time I got to my hotel here in Hollywood/Universal City, I was in a fair amount of pain. I checked into my hotel around 3:30pm and immediately took my contacts out and washed my eye makeup off. It didn’t help.

I decided to stay in this hotel at Universal City (right next to Universal Studios) for a few days then move to a hotel over near where my sister lives (in La Mirada) on Sunday or Monday. I figured it made more sense to stay right here since I had plans to go to Universal Studios tomorrow anyway.

Crazily enough, the freeway exit I took to get here brought me right past the Forest Lawn Cemetery – where Michael Jackson’s remains are being held! There were tons and tons of news vans and police cars out front.

So, about 10 minutes after I got into my hotel room, (before I could even unpack) P calls me and says: “I’m on my way over to pick you up. Wisteria Lane may be shut down tomorrow because they start shooting the sixth season next week and are working on some of the houses. So, if you want to see Wisteria Lane, you need to come now!” My eye was still burning like hell but I wasn’t about to miss this chance, so I put my contacts back in (ouch!) and headed down to meet him.

He got me in free (shhh!) and broke the unfortunate news that he couldn’t take me on a walking tour down Wisteria after all. Instead, we had to take the studio tour tram, which goes down the lane so long as they aren’t shooting or doing work. So we got some seats in the very back of the tram – in the 4th car. P let me sit on one side so I can get pictures, although I didn’t have time to grab my camera and had to use my Blackberry. The side I sat on got wet several times. (The tour goes through various parts of the back lot, including some attractions that have special effects like water, fire, earthquakes, etc).

And finally… finally, I got to go down Wisteria Lane. I got some (bad) photos from the tram. (Click below to see full size.) It was exciting to see… my first impression is that the street is a LOT smaller than they make it look on TV. A LOT!! I don’t know how they do it. But you could literally walk the entire lane in 10 minutes or less. On TV it looks like a full street that would take 20 or more minutes to walk all the way around.

Here are the photos I got. Keep in mind they were taken when the tram was moving, so they are blurry. I got pictures of Gabby, Bree, and Lynette’s houses, plus Mike’s old house (from Season 3) and a couple of photos of the entrance to the street. I also got a picture of the cabin house that was used in a couple of episodes of Desperate Housewives and various movies and shows.

Wisteria Lane Photos

So, the entire time I was out, my eye felt worse and worse. I got back to my hotel room only to discover that the AC in the room wasn’t working. Since the room is in a tower and on the 14th floor – facing north/west – it was hot. So I called downstairs. They sent a maintenance guy up to fix it, but he couldn’t. The thing was busted. By this time it was about 8pm and I hadn’t eaten ANYTHING except an apple and blueberries for breakfast, and a handful of mulberries/macadamia nuts earlier. So I was SO hungry.

They switched my room (I’m on the 17th floor now!) and I finally ordered room service. They have fabulous salads, fruit smoothies and fresh squeezed juice here, which is amazing! I ordered a coconut/ mango/ guava/ pineapple smoothie (yum!) and a Mediterranean chopped salad. They have several other salads here that I can’t wait to try as well.

So anyway… I am exhausted. Tomorrow P and I are going to hang out for a few hours in the afternoon. I am going to try and get better photos of Wisteria Lane. Then we are going to hang out in West Hollywood/ Beverly Hills. My right eye is still hurting like the dickens but I’m sure it’ll be fine by tomorrow.