LA: "Everybody's got the right to some sunshine. If not the sun then maybe one of it's beams"

Hollywood, before everything is open

-Everybody's got the right, Assassins.

Good evening from Los Angeles, a city of over 14 million people and 5 million traffic lights (numbers approx) where I have just spend the first three days of my American/couch surfing adventure!
I got in on Monday morning without a problem at all at LAX which, believe you me was quiet a relief. I already realised I was in a different place because at this airport, the customs officials were chatty bordering on nice unlike ours who just glower at you (granted this chattyness might die down later in the day, the flight got in at around 6am so we were first cab off the rank so to speak).
Met up with my couch surfing host who is justlovely and manages this great restaurant in the middle of Hollywood called "musso and Frank's Grill". It's the oldest restaurant there (91 years) and has been frequented by some really A list celebrities (Steinbeck, Chaplin, T.S. Eliot) and continues to be frequented by them as well (James Cameron had celebratory dinner and drinks here after Avatar opened) and is used in a lot of films/TV shows like madmen.

Sabre tooth cat

Monday was a little disappointing - I went to the La Brea tar pits which were just wonderful - saw all sorts of woolly mammoths, sabre tooth cats (apparently "tigers" is incorrect, but I think tiger makes for a much better name") and approximately 400 dire wolf skulls (I'd make a pun about what their ending must have been like but I don't think any of you would appreciate it) which had been preserved in the tar/asphalt. I was especially impressed that the whole thing was a work in progress so you could look at tar pits that are currently being excavated. I had hoped to also go to the LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) but that was unfortunately nixed because I went on an epic find a sim card quest. I'd looked up the closest mobile phone shop and walked the 1.5 or so kms there only to find a sign saying "closed from 22/3/10 until further notice" boo. Luckily there was a starbucks near by so I found that a store I had passed from before apparently sold them. So I walked back. And they didn't. Luckily, being the pessimist that I am, I had another near by store written down. It was not so nearby. LA is huge! Google maps deceive! This place which was allegedly 2km away ended up being at the beginning of Beverley Hills - this I knew not only because of the sign saying it was, but because one of the first buildings sighted was a rehab clinic, and Axel F popped into my head immediately. Excellent. Anyway long story short, I had to be back in Hollywood by 5 to see a film, "Greenburg" that contained the restaurant, walking around took AGES so I saw the outside of the museum which was incredible. Finished off the day with some excellent Mexican food!

Topanga State Park

Day 2 saw me whisked off with another couch surfer to the state park behind Malibu where went hiked to "Eagle Rock". It was absolutely gorgeous, flowers were out, birds of prey were doing their thing a rattlesnake even popped to say hi and put on a show. This actually scared the crap out of me as I was only about 1.5m away from it (I had also just been saying how we didn't need to worry about snakes because Australia has all of the poisonous ones. Amusingly everyone I've spoken afterwards has said something along the lines of "I've lived here X number of years, go walking all the time and never seen one." ) I also saw a lovely little chipmunk who was a little to far away to take a photo of. We went and saw some of Malibu (sadly the Getty Villa was closed but what I saw from the outside was stunning) and had lunch on the beach. Caught up with another CSer for dinner and wandered around Hollywood after that looking at the Kodak theatre (where the Oscars are held - it's in the middle of a mall which is odd. There are also huge and ridiculous elephants on platforms about 6 stories high. I was confused at the relevance).

Day 3 GETTY CENTRE. Oh my goodness, words can not express how amazing it was, so I won't even try. Wonderful architecture, stunning works (I was very lucky to be there just after this special exhibition about Da Vinci opened!) and the view of the city was quite something, barring all the smog. I especially loved the illustrated manuscripts, the room dedicated to Rembrant and the Cactus garden :). The bus ride to the getty was pretty wonderful as well. Traffic in LA is terrible at any time. It's a city where the done thing is to own a car and by gosh does everyone drive them (going 12 miles took about 1 hour). The bus I was on went all the way down Sunset Bvld and the mansions in the nicer part of Beverly hills and Bel Air are just ridiculous. They have also mastered the art of making very high walls. Also went by UCLA which looks like a beautiful campus.

Getty Centre

Spent the later part of the day down in Santa Monica, mainly because I had to go to a camping store there. I wish our camping stores were like REI, holy crap. I could have stayed in there for hours! Then wandered around downtown Santa Monica which was fun. There were some brilliant street performers there some b-boys who "popped and locked" for all they were worth. Oh to be flexible. Oh to have upper body strength. Oh to break dance.

Ocean Bvld, Santa Monica

Some observations.
1. Everyone in LA has been lovely, whether that's an aspect of the superficial reputation the city has or not I'm not sure. I just like the fact that in 3 days 4 people have told me I'm pretty/have a great smile etc hehe
2. I'm not sure whether underlying the happiness is a quiet desperation. The bus driver who took me into the city from LAX was an amazingly happy sort. He mentioned that his job didn't pay well but working 14 hours a day, 6 days a week meant things "worked out OK." He was only working as a bus driver because after being at tafe for 3 years learning how to be an air conditioning mechanic, he couldn't find any jobs whatsoever, and his previous job- a truck driver -didn't work out for him as it meant being away from his family for a month at a time with a week off in between.
3. You haven't seen advertising until you've seen a movie poster take up the entire side of a building - one side of the CNN building (about 30 storeys) is covered with the poster for "kick ass"
4. Health things are more in your face here, I've seen huge numbers of bill boards about AIDS, h1n1 and a particularly confronting one a bout the number of people who have died so far this year from smoking (99,164 if I remember correctly).
5. The metro stations are themed! Wonderful!
6. There are lots of silly laws which the CA gov is pushing for all its worth because they're broke (jaywalking incurs a $340 fine!). It is also illegal to go "cruising" in bar areas (you get busted if your car is seen >4 times in an hour), and by law one has to wash ones hands after visiting the "restroom". Would you just love to enforce that?
7. Brendan, there are so many "that guys" here (i.e. people who pull out into an intersection and can not actually cross it properly before the light goes red and get stuck. Methinks that LA should stand for Los Amigos (the guys)

Anyway, that's quite enough for me so far!
Miss you all heaps
B