Los Angeles in Five Hours

I am sitting at the same gate that I sat at ten and a half months ago as I waited to board my flight from LAX back to ATL after my last Australia experience.  The plane is here, but boarding won’t begin for two more hours.  While I wait to my phone to charge, I’ll take the opportunity to write about my very busy day in Los Angeles!

We landed about two hours late in Los Angeles after our trials and tribulations in Atlanta.  The flight was good – I slept about two and a half hours.  I woke up ninety minutes before touchdown and didn’t have time to watch a full movie, so I ended up watching a documentary about Mumford and Sons’ performance at Red Rock last year.  It was pretty good and left me with time to watch one episode of Parks and Recreation which finished up when we touched down.

After arriving it was a quick trip to baggage claim and then out into the beautiful SoCal day (it didn’t get above the mid-70s and was breezy and sunny).  A friend from Tulane, Josh, who is from LA came and met me at the airport to give me an exhaustive four hour tour of Los Angeles (as short of a quick run between terminal five and terminal two on my first trip to Australia I had never been outside in California).

First, we drove ten minutes toward the coast to Playa del Ray (where he lives) before turning up along the coast to Playa Vista, home of a new urbanism development among the remnants of Howard Hughes’s personal airport.  We passed the hangar where the Spruce Goose was built (now used for startup companies) as well as other repurposed aviation buildings (housing things such as YouTube) and a park designed by Michael Maltzan.

Tsunami evacuation sign in Playa Vista

We continued up the coast to Venice.  I never knew why Venice was named that, but Josh showed me the beautiful old canals (only five remain of many more original ones), so that became clearer.  From Venice we went to Santa Monica and drove around a bit, passing by Frank Gehry’s house (certainly not my cup of tea) before heading on  through Brentwood and West LA where we stopped for lunch at In-N-Out (mmm, double double animal style). 

 Frank Gehry's house.

 

 Animal style eats at In-N-Out

 

 On the way to West Hollywood, we drove through Westwood and Beverly Hills (past Rodeo Drive, along Sunset Boulevard, and across Hollywood Boulevard).  We drove up (way, way up) into Griffith Park to see the observatory and spent about fifteen minutes looking out over Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and Hollywood (with a great view of the sign, to boot!)



From Griffith Park we drove back down the mountain and into Hollywood, through Los Feliz and into East Hollywood, taking surface streets through Silverlake and Echo Park to downtown Los Angeles.  Time was running short, so we quickly drove by Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall, Moneo’s Cathedral, and a few other architectural sites before shooting out “the 10” to the 101 and back to LAX.  All in all, the tour took just over four hours.  Josh helped me see a ton of stuff, so at least I can say I have been to LA!  I might not have gotten things quite in the right order, but that should give you a general idea of my time.

 

 

Josh dropped me back at LAX around 4:30 to head back home.  I went and checked in, rechecked my bag, and then made my way to the Feature Building (the big flying saucer looking building in the center of LAX) to pay a visit to the bar and grab a bite.  When I got there the Spurs game was starting and I got myself a drink and settled in to watch it.  A guy around the fairly empty bar and I ended up starting to chat.  He had just come in from Auckland where he works as an engineer on an oil platform.  It turns out he is from Lake Charles, LA and went to LSU and his family lives outside of Houston.  We had a really great chat about traveling, jobs, New Orleans, basketball, and Tulane-LSU sports.  He left to catch his flight and I finished up my dinner and headed back over to Terminal 5 to go through security and head to my gate to charge up my phone and computer.  Now I will make some calls as I wait for boarding.

The theme building at LAX

 

 

I apologize for the formatting of this - I don't know what the computer is doing...