Going to the Big City

Well I've always wanted to go to California and now I've gone. Was it everything I expected? Hmm, that's hard to say, I don't really know what I expected. I did have fun and the Ocean is cool, and the weather is soooooo much nicer than Arizona.

We were going to go to San Diego. After seeing the prices for hotels in San Diego, there was a slight change of plans. Friday afternoon, after work, we were off to Los Angeles.

So I booked a hotel through expedia.ca, after much searching for a place that wasn't too sketchy or too expensive. They sent me the address, and there were directions on the website. I wrote down the address. I figured, you know, we are going to get a map of L.A., and if we have the address, we'll be able to find the hotel no problem. . . . yeah, well, there are a lot of Dominguez Streets in Long Beach. And the one with our hotel on it was not in the street index. Needless to say, directions and addresses are not fungible. (Fungible is one of my new favourite words, well, actually I don't really like it, but due to work I get to use it a lot now.) Thanks to the help of some one not securing their wireless network, we were able to find directions using my laptop while driving around sketchy neighbourhoods. We arrived safely at our hotel shortly after midnight.

After a good night's rest, we travelled to Hollywood. We spent much of the day wondering around Hollywood Blvd. Although I don't think we saw any famous people (atleast not any that weren't wax), we saw lots of stars and hand prints.

We drove around Bel Air, looked at all the houses on the hill, well, mostly at the gates in front of the houses. There were spots on the road where we could see out over the city as we were going up the hill. It was an amazing view. It still seems silly to me to build your house on the edge of a mountain in earthquake country. But what do I know, I'm not rich :)

After that we went to see the Ocean. I really like the Ocean. I had been to the Atlantic Ocean before, but this was the first time I had seen the Pacific. They are very similar. They both just look like a lot of water :D. I really enjoy watching waves. I used to want to be a physicist so that I could study them. But that is another story. Any way, I got to take lots of photos of the Ocean and the beach. We were at Santa Monica beach. (That's where they filmed Baywatch apparently.) I hear that other beaches are nicer, but it wasn't bad.

On the second day we went to the Getty Muesem. It was quite the building. It is worth visiting just to see the architecture itself. You have to take a tram in order to actually get to the muesum itself, from the parking garage. So you have to wait in line to get into and out of the place. But overall it was a good place to visit, and I will probably go back if I get the chance.

After that it was just the long drive back to Phoenix. Six hours is a really long time. . .