Lady in LA
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
I have always disliked LA. I can’t help it. Growing up in Northern California, I was taught to think less of my state’s lower half. Teachers made fun of LA in school. Parents warned us against the dual evils of smog and plastic surgery. Aside from Disneyland, there was no good reason to visit the greater Los Angeles area.
So I didn’t. Because of this cultural distaste for the City of Angels, I went the first twenty something years of my life without ever really visiting LA. Save for the obligatory trips to Anaheim for Disneyland and the one day I spent at an honors admit day at UCLA when I was 18, I never set foot in Los Angeles until two weekends ago.
I would love to say that my trip to LA was precipitated by a change of NorCal cultural attitudes or at least a change of heart. Alas, that wasn’t the case. The trip was planned because of a new addition to my family, which is to say that my cousin had a baby and I wanted to go meet her.
I flew down to LA on Friday night. My boyfriend, who had flown in from London in honor of the four day Bank Holiday weekend, met me at the airport. Too jet lagged to go out that night, we drove to our hotel in Santa Monica and saved our energy for the following morning, which ended up being a beautifully sunny one.
After a huge brunch of chorizo and eggs, we headed to the Getty to get our cultural fix. The building, which was designed by Richard Meier in the late 1990's, was gorgeous. In spite of the sleek yet oh-so-inconvenient monorail that took us from the parking lot to the museum, we enjoyed our time there immensely. The only strange part was viewing the collections of pre-20th century European art, which would have seemed fitting in London but felt completely out of place in Southern California.
After exploring the Getty for awhile, we got back in the car and drove through Westwood to Hollywood, where we had to make the obligatory trip to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. As soon as we got there, I recalled my favorite line from Arrested Development, which is to say: I immediately regret this decision.
Lined with touts and wanna be actors dressed in every Disney character costume imaginable, the Walk reminded me of San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. Tacky, crowded, and full of tourists like us, the area wasn’t exactly our favorite place. After locating and taking a picture with the star of the actress for whom I’m named (yes, I’m named after an actress, but I know three other people with my name that are also named after her, so I can’t be that abnormal), we left as fast as we could weave our way through the Jack Sparrows, Aladdins, Bus Tour touts, and gawking tourists.
The next stop was the mall. As much as I hate shopping and as much as I hate spending my vacations doing it, I needed some new clothes for work. That said, the more I saw of LA, the more convinced I became that the entire city and all of its suburbs are really just one giant strip mall. So maybe it was completely fitting that I decided to do some shopping while I was in town.
After the mall came family time. Needless to say, my time with my cousin, her husband, their new baby was the highlight of the trip. My brother and his wife came up from San Diego as well, so we had ourselves a little family reunion of sorts. My cousin’s husband grilled us some great steaks and we sat outside for dinner, which I haven’t done in almost a year. The baby was adorable and so content, and it was great to get to meet her on what was only her 10th day of life. Pretty amazing.
The following day my boyfriend and I woke up and took a walk on Venice Beach, where we admired the sea birds and the inventive LA architecture along the waterfront. Afterwards we headed back to Santa Monica for a stroll along the 3rd Street Promenade before meeting up with my boyfriend’s former coworker and his wife for fish tacos.
From there we headed up to Malibu and stopped to admire the views from Pepperdine, about which I’ve heard a million times from friends that have gone there or visited. The hills were so beautiful and so little developed that for a minute I forgot that I was in LA altogether.
Our last stop was Manhattan Beach, where we walked out to the pier and had our first official celebrity sighting: Kevin Nealon from SNL. Being completely out of touch with pop culture, I had no idea who he was, but my boyfriend assured me that he counted as a celebrity. I was happy. LA just isn’t LA without a celebrity sighting.
I was less happy an hour later when I had to part ways with my boyfriend and fly back to San Francisco, where it was a balmy 48 degrees outside and I had to battle a fierce wind all the way home. But it was good to be home, and while I enjoyed my time in LA, all the Malibu sunshine in the world couldn’t convince me that the City of Angels has anything on the City by the Bay. Well, except for an adorable new baby and her fabulous parents.
So I didn’t. Because of this cultural distaste for the City of Angels, I went the first twenty something years of my life without ever really visiting LA. Save for the obligatory trips to Anaheim for Disneyland and the one day I spent at an honors admit day at UCLA when I was 18, I never set foot in Los Angeles until two weekends ago.
I would love to say that my trip to LA was precipitated by a change of NorCal cultural attitudes or at least a change of heart. Alas, that wasn’t the case. The trip was planned because of a new addition to my family, which is to say that my cousin had a baby and I wanted to go meet her.
I flew down to LA on Friday night. My boyfriend, who had flown in from London in honor of the four day Bank Holiday weekend, met me at the airport. Too jet lagged to go out that night, we drove to our hotel in Santa Monica and saved our energy for the following morning, which ended up being a beautifully sunny one.
After a huge brunch of chorizo and eggs, we headed to the Getty to get our cultural fix. The building, which was designed by Richard Meier in the late 1990's, was gorgeous. In spite of the sleek yet oh-so-inconvenient monorail that took us from the parking lot to the museum, we enjoyed our time there immensely. The only strange part was viewing the collections of pre-20th century European art, which would have seemed fitting in London but felt completely out of place in Southern California.
After exploring the Getty for awhile, we got back in the car and drove through Westwood to Hollywood, where we had to make the obligatory trip to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. As soon as we got there, I recalled my favorite line from Arrested Development, which is to say: I immediately regret this decision.
Lined with touts and wanna be actors dressed in every Disney character costume imaginable, the Walk reminded me of San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. Tacky, crowded, and full of tourists like us, the area wasn’t exactly our favorite place. After locating and taking a picture with the star of the actress for whom I’m named (yes, I’m named after an actress, but I know three other people with my name that are also named after her, so I can’t be that abnormal), we left as fast as we could weave our way through the Jack Sparrows, Aladdins, Bus Tour touts, and gawking tourists.
The next stop was the mall. As much as I hate shopping and as much as I hate spending my vacations doing it, I needed some new clothes for work. That said, the more I saw of LA, the more convinced I became that the entire city and all of its suburbs are really just one giant strip mall. So maybe it was completely fitting that I decided to do some shopping while I was in town.
After the mall came family time. Needless to say, my time with my cousin, her husband, their new baby was the highlight of the trip. My brother and his wife came up from San Diego as well, so we had ourselves a little family reunion of sorts. My cousin’s husband grilled us some great steaks and we sat outside for dinner, which I haven’t done in almost a year. The baby was adorable and so content, and it was great to get to meet her on what was only her 10th day of life. Pretty amazing.
The following day my boyfriend and I woke up and took a walk on Venice Beach, where we admired the sea birds and the inventive LA architecture along the waterfront. Afterwards we headed back to Santa Monica for a stroll along the 3rd Street Promenade before meeting up with my boyfriend’s former coworker and his wife for fish tacos.
From there we headed up to Malibu and stopped to admire the views from Pepperdine, about which I’ve heard a million times from friends that have gone there or visited. The hills were so beautiful and so little developed that for a minute I forgot that I was in LA altogether.
Our last stop was Manhattan Beach, where we walked out to the pier and had our first official celebrity sighting: Kevin Nealon from SNL. Being completely out of touch with pop culture, I had no idea who he was, but my boyfriend assured me that he counted as a celebrity. I was happy. LA just isn’t LA without a celebrity sighting.
I was less happy an hour later when I had to part ways with my boyfriend and fly back to San Francisco, where it was a balmy 48 degrees outside and I had to battle a fierce wind all the way home. But it was good to be home, and while I enjoyed my time in LA, all the Malibu sunshine in the world couldn’t convince me that the City of Angels has anything on the City by the Bay. Well, except for an adorable new baby and her fabulous parents.
Comment on the original post at A Lady in London
The article above originally appeared on A Lady in London; we selected it for our BlogSherpa program. We sign up the best travel bloggers we can find and publish their articles on lonelyplanet.com. Good for us, good for them – our bloggers gain new readers and make a bit of cash. Want to know more or be a part of BlogSherpa? Visit the BlogSherpa page on lplabs.com
