In Which We Get Cultured and Whatever.

Los Angeles is sunny.  Surprise.

We had a great weekend, filled with museums and sun and ocean and eating.  Saturday morning I took a yoga class (hit up Goda Yoga if you're ever in Culver City, kids!), and then Eric and I went to the La Brea Tar Pits.  They are underwhelming and kinda gross, but the park is pretty.

This is the big lake pit, which had this scene of awful in it. It's a scene where the mother elephant is stuck in the pit, and the baby and father are "watching helplessly". What the hell?!?!

The Page Museum is right next to the pits, but we did not attend.  However, this neat installation was outside.  It is huge, and made up of thousands of plastic tubes suspended from a large grid.

Vampire face!

After the tar pits we made our way to Santa Monica to do a little shopping and strolling.  We went to the beach and the pier, and then had dinner at Real Food Daily, a delicious vegan restaurant with a few LA locations.

Sunday started with the Beatles Brunch at the Rolling Stone restaurant.  Our host Dusty had a friend who was performing, so we spent the late morning and early afternoon eating, drinking and listening to live Beatles music.

Following brunch the three of us went off to the Getty Center, a well-known campus of museums and gardens, with a great view of Los Angeles.

Walking up the hill to the center:

Art and stuff! Van Gogh:

Monet:

There was a fantastic Herb Ritts photography exhibit as well, but unfortunately no pictures were allowed.  Go google image search that shit.

The views were amazing!

The gardens were also quite lovely.  I really enjoyed these big flower "trees".

Sunday night dinner was at "The Vegan Joint" in Culver City, followed by sunset wine on Dusty's roof.

Monday was spent outside, in the sun, by the ocean.  Again.  God, this is so terrible.

Eric and I went to Venice Beach for a picnic and a good "laying around being lazy" session.

After the beach we walked along the Venice Canals, a neighborhood of lovely homes situated on four canals.

Yes, this IS a boat with an attached Enterprise:

Kick-ass hobbit door:

Weird-ass bird:

Palm trees!

Our final stop of the day was Marina Del Ray to look at the pretty boats and grab a drink at the Fisherman's Village.

You can't really see it, but the boat with the red sail covers was just named "ShitFaced".

Seals!

There were a lot of pelicans and Eric took a lot of pictures.

Tuesday night was spent watching Dusty play kickball.  Eric took a lot of pictures of that as well, which probably freaked everyone out.  Oh well.

Nice first base coaching there, buddy.

Dusty's friend Matt (the same friend from the Beatles Brunch) in a thrilling slide:

Kick, stretch, and KICK.

 

Stop taking pictures of me!

California, California, Here We COOOOOOOOOOME

California! Huzzah! It is mother effing beautiful here.

After driving for many many MANY hours, we landed in San Clemente, California to visit our high school friend (and my old roommate) Heather and her husband Eben.  Eben is in the Marines, so they live near Camp Pendleton, which is near San Diego.  We arrived to beer and delicious vegan sweet potato chili, which was extremely welcome and appreciated after our long drive.

On Monday, Heather and I took a morning yoga class.  Heather is a pilates instructor, so she probably made silent fun of me the whole time, but it was a great class.  After class we met Eric and Eben for brunch.  Heather worked on Monday so Eben took us to the beach in San Clemente to hang out.

The view from Heather and Eben's window:

On Tuesday Heather, Eric and I drove south to San Diego to go to Balboa Park, a large park that houses multiple gardens and museums.

Lily pond!

There was a young lady taking senior pictures, so Heather and I decided to take our own.

There were a lot of beautiful gardens, including a cactus garden and a rose garden.

Eric being a creeper:

Heather being a creeper:

The rose garden was in full bloom and was amazing, although our nice camera died halfway through.  Whoops.

After Balboa Park we ate at a restaurant called Veg-N-Out, a vegetarian "version" of In-N-Out.  They had all vegan/vegetarian burgers and it was delicious.  I have no pictures of our food because we ate it too damn fast.

On Wednesday we left San Clemente and now we're in Los Angeles, visiting Eric's old friend Dusty Jensen.  Hollywood and shit, right?  Right.

IPhone roundup:

A monstrous latte for brunch in San Clemente.

This was marketed as a "piece" of pie.  Also monstrous.

San Clemente sunset.

Eben and Heather own a lot of Legos, so Eric combined the "hippie" Lego man with the "nerd" Lego man to make an "Eric" Lego man that looked surprisingly accurate.

Cactus garden in Balboa Park:

Rose garden in Balboa Park:

Patio beers in LA with Dusty.

He was the self-appointed "Lord of the Cello".  He had his own wind machine.

On Thursday I went for a walk to the Baldwin Hills lookout point, which had these absolutely wretched stairs:

View from the top:

Thursday night we went out to Villain's Tavern, a great place in downtown that is home to the LA Hootenanny on Thursday nights.  The LA Hootenanny is a group of Texas musicians who get together in LA and play great rock/country/whatnot.  They do some covers and some original stuff and are a lot of fun.  I flipped my shit because Todd Lowe is part of the band, an actor who was in Gilmore Girls and currently plays Terry Bellefleur in True Blood.  I have loved him for a very long time and almost died.

Photographic proof!

Dusty took this very attractive picture of me and Eric:

LA has been great so far, more to come!