LA Tourist for a Day!

This week, I had the great pleasure of a visit from one of my Dutch cousins who currently lives in Switzerland.  This being his first visit to LA, naturally I had to show him the sights!

Right before eating one of LA's best burgers at Plan Check

We did quite a bit...  we hit Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Venice all in one day.  And along the way, I got to revisit some of my favorite places.  

His personal favorite spot from the day was the Getty Villa (good choice!).  Originally, we had intended to go to the Getty Museum, but discovered at the last minute it was closed, and being fortunate enough to get tickets (they are free) over the phone, we instead went to the Getty Villa once again which did not disappoint.

I love getting LA's best spots all to myself!

You may remember the Getty Villa from a previous post.  That visit was in July.  Coming in the winter was nice... less tourists and different flowers.  While most of the herb garden was in regeneration mode, there were quite a few bulb flowers in bloom as well as hollyhocks which normally bloom mid-summer.  I guess winter in LA is like spring everywhere else.  Given the polar vortex situation on the east coast, I am not sad about lacking seasons.

Bulbs

I think this is a multi-petaled narcissus

Daffodil enjoying the sun

Hollyhocks

The feeeeesh

And of course there was some art too.  This is one of my favorite pieces there.

It is a statue that was submerged in the ocean for many years, such that part of it had barnacles and sea creatures growing all over it while the rest of it is smooth and preserved.

After the Getty Villa, we continued up PCH to Point Dume for some pretty vistas. 

I first visited Point Dume several years ago when a few surf buddies very well-versed in the LA area surf options and I went on a hunt for waves.  We stopped at pretty much every surf spot in LA north of Santa Monica (there are a lot).  This is by far the most breathtaking.  And it is one of my favorite spots in the LA area.  We actually took some of our engagement photos here.  Later in the year, all the brush that covers this little nature preserve will burst into bloom with yellow flowers.  People tend to think of LA as gross and covered with traffic (it can be), but if you know where to look, LA is really beautiful!

I could watch surfers all day forever

Well, I don't know if you've seen the new iPad Air commercial, but it quotes Walt Whitman's poetry.  The version I have seen on TV quotes only the last portion.  I find it slightly presumptuous to suggest that the iPad Air will really change your life so dramatically, but such is advertising.  And at the end of the day, I really like the commercial because 1) it's quite beautiful and 2) the poem, with which I had not been previously familiar, is amazing.

O Me! O Life!

BY WALT WHITMAN

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,

Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,

Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,

Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

                                       Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

Here is a link to the full-length commercial.  And while you're pondering that, here is one more thought:  John Wayne got to leave a permanent mark on the world (in wet concrete at Mann's Chinese theatre), and it was a fist bump.

How awesome is that?  What will your verse be, indeed.