LA is Another World

We got home from LA last night, Holllywood actually. I let my son pick our activities while we were there. We spent Friday at Universal Studios, and then he wanted to drive by celebrities' homes yesterday. Of course, you can just drive around and buy a "star map" from one of the many people selling them around Beverly Hills. But, I did my homework early, courtesy of the internet.

I made a list of all the ones my son wanted to see. Got the addresses. Located them on a map, highlighting the street and location. Then numbered them on the list in order from our hotel. This made it very easy for my daughter to be my navigator as I drove. While I've been in southern CA many times, I'd never driven around Beverly Hills/Bel-Air, so it was actually fun just to see these beautiful areas of huge mansions. Anyway, we had our list, but you never really know how correct these addresses are. You kind of assume many are probably where the stars used to live.

We were actually thrilled when we were able to determine that one of the homes was actually the current home of the celebrity. Here's few pix:

If you read celebrity magazines or gossip blogs (which I freely admit is a bad habit of mine) you will recognize this celebrity's home by 2 of her vehicles, which were parked in her driveway. In case you can't tell from the photos, that would be the Mercedes SLR and the Bentley.

If you haven't figured out whose house this is, I'll give you help in a minute.

So, after driving around for a few hours, we dropped off my son with my sister, who lives in that area, so he can stay with her and hang out with his cousin for a few days. My daughter then persuaded me to take her to Kitson, which is the trendy store that young celebrities like to shop at. This was only 5 miles from where we dropped off my son, but it took us nearly an hour to get there! Ugh! LA traffic!

When we finally found it, there was a large crowd in front of the store, including paparazzi. Hmm....who was shopping? The store was keeping people out until whatever was going on inside was finished. We asked and found out it was the Playmates from The Girls Next Door tv show. Not I would have known them anywhere, as I've never watched the show, but yes, we did see the 3 of them as they came out and they posed for a second before being whisked away.

Inside, the store is nothing special. Plain concrete floor, not fancy. And not very big. But all the trendy t-shirts (ie. "Team Brangelina" and "Team Vaughniston") , sweatshirts, jeans and accessories that the celebs make popular. I ended up buying my daughter a few little goodies before we left and made our way back home.

Ok, so if you haven't figured out who lives above, here is another photo I found online of the same car, apparently parked in the same place, with its owner.
Yeah, I know she is famous for being famous and not much else. But as a celebrity gossip junkie, I do admit it was fun to see her home. (Frankly though, I was surprised she wasn't living in a nicer area with a large garage! You would think she wouldn't want to leave these outside all the time. Oh wait, that's right, Paris WANTS the attention. LOL. I'm sure the SLR in the driveway helps the paparazzi find her a bit easier!)