We were in Hollywood today, colleagues were attending the Microsoft and Nintendo press conferences. The events were at the Kodak Theatre and Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. This very famous street really surprised me. I expected a lot more from the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The street is, for want of a better word, rather tatty. It’s mostly restaurants and shabby souvenir shops selling identical cheesy mementos.

Somehow the footage I’ve seen of red carpet movie premiers haven’t captured the ramshackle nature of the area. Hollywood is a pretty tatty area. I’m sure those houses we could see in the hills are great and that Beverly Hills is a much nicer place, but Hollywood? Bit of a dump really.

There is a great Virgin Megastore on Hollywood Boulevard though and I managed to get a Veggie Tales DVD for my beloved L that I wouldn’t have been able to get in the UK. And I couldn’t resist buying her a cute gift from one of the cheesy souvenir shops.

So what other impressions do I have from my first visit to the USA? Well the restaurant service is excellent, certainly compared to the grumpy unhelpful buggers that work in eateries in the UK. The TV is odd, the way adverts instantly interrupt shows every ten minutes is very intrusive and it seems rather bonkers that a show would go to a commercial break and then return just for the end titles.

The freeways seem rather odd. They are not the quick means of transportation motorways are in the UK. There are no long entrance and exit ramps like British motorways, instead you can turn onto a freeway from a regular junction and join a slow moving line of traffic on one of six or so lanes. You can overtake either side too and I’m really glad I’ve not been landed with the driving duty this week.

I’ve been having a quiet evening in tonight as I needed some time on my own for a while. It’s given me a chance to do some work and write a couple of emails to L, who I’m really missing. This is a fun trip, but doesn’t really compete with five minutes with L. I’m already looking forward to getting home next week rather than the games on show at E3 starting tomorrow.

Anyway, that’s enough disjointed waffle from me for now.