LA sights

---

Thursday was a more leisurely day, but we tried to fit in a few "landmark" locations. We started with a trip to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), which had a great exhibition of Vanity Fair photographs and old magazines. At LACMA under 18s are free, but they are NOT "children", they are "NEXT GENERATION"!! We split up, and the girls did their own thing, whilst Liz and I looked at some of the traditional and modern art. Half way round we were hailed by a small Russian lady who asked us to attend her talk on some early 20th Century Russian art - which we did, and found it delightful! I think the girls enjoyed the Vanity Fair photos, but after about an hour and a half there it was time to head back for lunch.

On the way we unwisely tried to take in "Hollywood Forever", the cemetry of the stars. We took ages trying to find somewhere to park, then found ourselves in a rather down at heel part of the district. After a relatively lengthy walk, we found that we could have actually parked in the cemetry itself. I managed to get a leaflet from a small office at the entrance which showed where the graves of the stars were located. Unfortunately the girls didn't recognise any of the stars (almost by definition the graves belong to movie stars of another era). So, we cut our losses and returned to the car - stopping on the way at a hispanic bakery, where we got loads of little cakes for about $5.

After a late lunch we chilled out for a few hours, then headed off to "Mels" which is apparently the oldest diner in LA (all of 60 years old!). It's on Sunset Strip, so we had a fairly lengthy drive, but interesting nonetheless. We had a mixture of Burgers and Fries and milkshakes, before heading back again to drop the girls at the house. Morteza had gone "downtown" with an Iranian friend, and we arranged to meet them at a rooftop bar at the Standard Hotel. Juliette drove us, and took us down a number of roads which provided great vistas as you enter the downtown area. LA is a very low-rise city, apart from a couple of pockets of high-rise, one of which is the business district in downtown LA, where the two or three storey buildings common throughout the city suddenly become 50 floor skyscrapers.

The Americans have invented the concept of "Halloween Eve", which means that not only does everyone dress up and party on 31st October, they can also do so on 30th October too. So when we arrived at the hotel we were greeted by a queue of people all dressed up, waiting to get into the bar. We did our duty and stood "in line" too, feeling (a) old, and (b) out of place. After the normal ID checks which seem obligatory when you go anywhere that alcohol is served, we got in, and took the lift to the rooftop. The hotel itself is not particularly "high rise" (about 15 floors), but the rooftop bar is still sensational as you are surrounded by the immense skyscrapers, lit up, and at the same time have a feeling of other-worldliness (being 15 floors up). This sense was enhanced by the fact that most of the other people there were dressed up as devils, or ghouls, or something sinister.

So, we've seen a lot of LA in a very short time - tomorrow (Friday) is San Diego.

---

Photos

007
A rather bizarre collection of lamp posts outside LACMA

011
Hollywood Forever cemetry

014
At Mels diner

017
Outside Mels

019
Liz and Juliette at the rooftop bar