The City of Angels: Day 3

My alarm goes off at 8:30, but now that we're adjusting to West Coast time we decide to trade the Continental breakfast for a couple more hours of sleep. At 10:30 we wake up and prepare for the day before heading to 'downtown' Manhattan Beach for lunch. We park and head towards a place called Sharkeez where we grab a couple sandwiches. The food is good, but the whole restaurant is open to the outside air so it's a bit cold. After lunch we hop back into the car and head up to Sherman Oaks to meet up with our buddy, Greg. Sherman Oaks is in The Valley so it's a bit of a drive (ie it's on the opposite side of LA). Luckily, we switch into Greg's car so he can give us a driving tour of all of LA. First stop is a really nice view of the Hollywood sign where we take obligatory photos.



Greg takes us on a winding drive through the hills to show off some very impressive houses and we end up at the Griffith Observatory.



It's packed, so we have to park way down a hill and then hike to the top. Luckily the views are astoundingly beautiful as we walk, so it's bearable.



The view from the top is also amazing. The entire city is strewn out below the observatory; it was a great vantage point to see everything.

The observatory is fascinating inside as well. It's full of exhibits on space, weather, moon phases etc. All of their findings from the observatory are also on display and there are plenty of cool interactives.


Here is Greg under a heat sensor.


There's also a hilarious video in the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater narrated by Leonard Nimoy himself. The video discusses the history of the observatory. Mr Nimoy is hilarious in the video as well and completely adorable.



After the movie we head to the cafe for snacks before heading out for more driving tours of the city. We head through Hollywood and pass by the Kodak Theatre, Grauman's Chinese Theater, and the Walk of Fame.





Onward we go to Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive.



Rodeo Drive is beautiful and the amount of over-the-top cars is amazing. Rolls Royces, Bentleys, Lambos, Maseratis. It's almost out of this world.

Beverly Hills is just as crazy. The houses are impressive, as are the giant walls that cover obviously more impressive houses. But eventually we must go back to the real world and Greg's modest apartment to get our car. He has a birthday party to go to so Nyla and I head to In-N-Out Burger for dinner.



Afterwards we head to Trader Joe's in search of some legendary 'Two Buck Chuck.' This wine is an amazing $2 a bottle (actually called Charles Shaw), thus making it a favorite of all those broke young people living in LA. Our plan for the evening (or so we thought) involves this magical beverage. We head back to our hotel to change for the evening. While we're changing we find that our new plans involve meeting up with Greg at a bar in Los Feliz called Harvard & Stone. Traffic on the way is awful, as is the line outside the door and the fact that it's cold. Plus, the doorguy is mildly rude & full of hipster pretentiousness. AND once we get to the front of the line he lets a small gaggle of girls in before us. We finally get in and head immediately to the bar. The place is actually quite cool and huge but it seems that the entire population of LA assholes has gathered here.

Greg manages to find us and we take our beverages to a nice little corner near a fireplace. At one point I get us another round of drinks and come back to find a couple guys standing directly in my way. I politely ask them to move. Their response is to completely disregard me. After requesting that they move a couple more times, I am forced to literally climb over the couch that Nyla and Greg are sitting on. When I finally reach my friends Nyla points out that one of the guys happens to be Chris Masterson. Interesting. That brings an end to our evening and back we go to our little spot on the beach.