Los Angeles

I had a wonderful time last week in Los Angeles, first on my own and then during a Fulbright seminar. Here are some photos and comments :) (You can click on the photos to get into a better viewing mode.)

First I stayed for 5 days in Venice, a crazy hippie-style area next to the ocean.

I haven’t been to the sea for a long time, so I was really excited to be on the sunny beaches – looking exactly as they do in Bay Watch!

The water was not warm (around 15 degrees Celsius) – but still once in a while I went to swim and have fun in the waves once in a while (and then had to try to unfreeze myself for half an hour or so). And there were plenty of surfers, but they were cheating and wore wetsuits.

And lots of funny tiny birds, running along with the tide and picking on anything the sea threw out.

And palms and summer houses, of course.

Lots of people were also trying to get in shape – bodybuilding, running, and riding modern bikes just like this one.

Venice was originally named after the canals, built in the beginning of the 20th century.

There are dozens of nice or funny murals around.

On the long Venice Boardwalk, there are all kinds of performers and weirdos,

selling various useful items,

or offering “legal” marijuana. They have doctors in shops, who will gladly prescribe and sell you medical marijuana. I guess it really might be more or less legal, because police definitely knows about it and seems not to care.

Nearby is a similar city, Santa Monica. The famous route number 66 ends directly on the pier.

It wouldn’t be California without anti-war stuff. These crosses are for soldiers who died in Afghanistan and Iraq,

showing the increasing numbers.

A noodle. When we got there later with the Fulbrighters, of course the first thing we wanted to do was to climb it – and then discussed what can the word noodle mean in various languages.

Below the pier, there is a small aquarium with some sea monsters.

On Sunday I went downtown, but even there I found some curious places (read the texts – if the divination works as suggested, it must be fun… or just disgusting).

Once in a while, you see a notice that they are going to film a scene there.

One of the nice parts of LA is Little Tokyo, where many Japanese live since the World War 2.

When I first saw the Union train station, I thought it was a cathedral.

Then I went to a real one – the modern Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels

with magnificent and huge interior.

I also briefly visited a gallery in El Pueblo de Los Angeles, the Spanish district.

The Disney concert hall.

And a modern art piece in front of MOCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art. They have wonderful exhibits inside!

I had dinner in a cheap eatery. The food wasn’t the best,

but the place was filled with artificial trees, bears, squirrels, waterfalls – really special :)

There are many artists in Venice – this is sort of a garden exhibit/shop of one of them.

On Tuesday I went to the Griffith Park – a huge mountainy area in the middle of the city, just next to Hollywood. I hiked there most of the day, and it was wonderful!

For some reason they decided to make the ground into some regular funnel – I have no idea why.

An old water pipe populated by bees.

Every time I went a bit higher in the hills, I got a more fascinating view of the city. It was simply “wow!” – the city is really huge and surrounds the mountains from all sides.

And there were of course many birds, mountain lions, and scorpions (unfortunately, I haven’t met any of the latter two, only warning signs).

And of course the Hollywood sign. Did you know that originaly it said Hollywoodland and was lighted by thousands of light bulbs? The last letters eventually crumbled away.

And here I am finally in Hollywood among the stars on the sidewalk.

Have you ever seen an ATM with a number-wheel lock (or whatever it should be called)? I have no idea what is it there for…

Of course there are plenty of shops selling cute girls and other useful things :)

The guy on the left just arrived by a limousine and someone immediately asked him for an autogram… Who knows, maybe he’s famous! Any guesses who it might be?

Robots having a friendly discussion.

On Wednesday the Fulbright seminar began. First we went for a walk around downtown with some friends.

Here I am in front of the City Hall, one of the skyscrapers. We went up to have a look around.

A pole with direction to the sister cities of LA. Unfortunately nothing from Czech Republic – and you can notice that the directions don’t make sense.

The shortest (around 50 meters) railway in the world! Surprisingly it’s not only a tourist attraction, but it’s actually useful (and used) for getting up and down the hill.

The skyscrapers in the city center. Most of them is build on quite a steep hill, maybe to make them seem higher.

On Thursday we had an excursion to a NASA lab

Here they are working on the next rover to go to explore Mars. In two years time, this car should be running around Mars and looking for the little green men!

But we were as much excited by this mantis as by the rover!

In the control room.

On Friday we went to a modern art place on the UCLA campus. Several young crazy artists presented their work

for example an idea of reducing spending and shopping by receiving mild electroshocks when using a credit card.

On Friday evening we went to Santa Monica and had some rides on the carousels on the pier (instead of climbing the noodle). Me and Kart were the only ones to brave this mad spinning thing (which I don’t know how to name) … being upside down and rotating really fast was nothing unusual. It was really fun!

Street performers doing all kinds of jumps I could never do.

The rest of the evening we spent in a club. And then we were able to appreciate the public bus system in LA – who would expect a direct bus from the club to our hotel at 2 am? We sang (or tried to sing) on the hour-long drive. Good old pioneer or communist songs were among the most popular!

I returned back to Indy via Denver. They have a cool airport building.