The City of Angels

[1001001]

My beautiful hometown.

The wife, the Digit-lings, and I are here for a few days vacation. USC game tomorrow, followed by two days at Disneyland.

I'm sitting on the 29th floor of our downtown hotel, looking out the window. I can see the Disney Concert Hall ("Like curvilinear forms much?" ). And the beautiful mountaines behind.

You know, Los Angeles takes a pretty good beating. It's smoggy, crowded, phony, etc. And I suppose some of that is fair. But still, in my mind's eye, I don't see crowds or traffic or pollution or crime. I see home. I love it. Is it just familiarity?

The California Science Center. La Brea Tar Pits. Griffith Park Observatory. The Hollywood Bowl. The Getty Center. Old Pasadena. Westwood. The Greek Theater. Staples Center. Dodger Stadium. The Museum of Natural History....

My life has taken me elsewhere. Specifically, a rural area of Northern California where the biggest attraction is the tractor store. My wife and kids love it. I tolerate it, but now, looking out at this wonderful city, I get wistful. Or perhaps, it's just the pitiful nostalgia of an old man.

Tell me your Los Angeles story. Have you been here? What did you do? Did anything surprise you? Do you live here? Do you dream of leaving?

In the meantime, they say you can't go home again. But today, I did (if just for a couple of days) and today...the City of Angels looks absolutely gorgeous to me.

 

[RandyS]

In 1983 I briefly visited LA during a visit with relatives who lived in Santa Anna. I was only 13 and don't remember much about that trip except visiting Universal Studios in Hollywood, and seeing my great-grandmother for the last time before she died later that year. That's about it.

 

[1001001]

Universal Studios, another spot I forgot.

When I was in high school, a lot of good bands used to play the Universal Amphitheater (I think it's called the Gibson Amphitheater now). I saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers open for Oingo Boingo there once!

 

[Holdfast]

I have to be honest, I didn't like LA when I visited. This was some years ago (I guess about 15 I think) so my experience is distant, admittedly, but I wasn't a kid then so my memory is pretty clear, It's not like I have a specific complaint against it, but it just didn't speak to me in any emotional way. Individual attractions were fine (I enjoyed a few of the ones mentioned in this thread), but individual attractions do not make a city, and as a whole entity, it felt soulless. And not the good kind of soulless of somewhere like, say, Las Vegas.

I'd go so far that it's almost the antithesis of where I've chosen to live; I like calm, a fairly compact & easy place to walk around the centre of, a pretty & clean environment, ancient buildings & older architectural forms, etc, etc.

Having said all that, I totally get where you're coming from on the "coming home" thing about a city you love. I get that feeling every time I do get back home from holiday!

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

I'm a born and raised Southern Californian. As a kid, my family and I didn't go to LA all that much. I remember going to Universal Studios when I was a kid, but that was only because some family from Mexico were in town. Now that i'm an adult and drive, I have gone to LA quite often. I saw Phantom of the Opera at the Pantages Theatre a few years ago. It was great. Now, there's a lot to do in LA and i love the city. It's beautiful in its own way. I went to Dockweiler State Beach and watched as the planes from LAX took off. That was great. A lot of people hate on LA and I'll admit, a lot of it is more than deserved, but it's also a great city with lots to do. I used to work in Wilshire, right in the middle of Korea Town. The view from the 14th floor window was amazing. All the city before you. Griffith Observatory on one side, and the Hollywood sign on the other. Epic. And hey, any city that has Pink's Hot Dogs is OK by me.

 

[Finn]

The closest I've been to Los Angeles was driving on I-15 in Riverside. Probably for a long time.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

I spent some time in LA in the fall of 1989. I was there on business, so I didn't get to do much in the way of tourist stuff. I'm not an amusement park kind of person...but some of the other stuff would have interested me.

As California cities go, I definitely prefer San Francisco and the Bay Area....and probably San Diego as well (have spent a fair amount of time in both of those areas) but LA is okay. I have also been to Sacramento though...and definitely prefer LA to that.

I'd really like to spend some more time there someday. Give it more of a fair shot.

I hope you have a really nice time in 'your town' though, Digits. I DO understand that sentiment...having recently moved back to Anchorage, AK...after 15 years of living in Russia & Atlanta. Nice to be back 'home'.

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

Living down in Orange as we do, we see entirely too much of I5 and not enough of the rest of LA. Our younger daughter lives a few blocks from Occidental University and we visit there occasionally. Usually, though, she comes down here for the chance to do her laundry and a free meal or two.

 

[auntiehill]

I spent most of my childhood in Northern California, but went to Whittier College in Southern California and was in the LA area for four years. I loved hitting Disneyland after finals, Knott's Berry Farm for Halloween and venturing to different neighborhoods around LA for various events. I saw Kenneth Branagh and his Shakespeare company perform King Lear, saw Patrick Stewart at the symphony, met Mako at the East/West Players and got to touch Magnum PI's Ferrari at Universal Studios.

Hubby and I, before we got engaged, took a trip to LA and I showed him around. He wanted to hit all the movie studios, so we went to Universal, Paramount and Warner Brothers. We also hit the Hollywood Museum and Mann's Chinese Theater, before spending two days at Disneyland. We had a great time. He still has our photo from Disney's California Adventure on his bedside table--more than 7 years later.

 

[tomalak301]

Hello from your friends up North Digits.

Anyway, whenever I'm down in LA (Going down to Santa Clarita/Pasadena next week actually), there always seems to be a massive accident that stops traffic for hours. This last june I think it was a bus that flipped stopping traffic on I-5 for about 2 hours. It's not fun, but once you finally get to where you're going, I do like it. We had decided that we wanted to see other parts of LA so we took a trolley tour going through the studios, Hollywood, and Santa Monica Beach. On that Thursday we did the Dodger game (Had been there once before) and despite my hatred for everything Dodgers except Vin Scully) I do actually like the classic feel of Dodger Stadium.

Other than San Francisco, my two other favorite cities are San Diego and Seattle. Would love to go up to Seattle again in the near future.

 

[DrCorby]

My family just returned from a 3-day Disneyland vacation a couple of weeks ago. Had a blast!! We spent most of our time at the park(s), but on one day, my wife went with her sister to shop for wholesale fabric for sewing projects elsewhere in the city. (I stayed at the hotel and played in the pool with the kids. Much more fun!) So didn't really see much of the city.

My other big memory of LA was a fast driving trip (less than 3 days round trip in a Karman Ghia!!) from New Mexico to JPL in Pasadena with a reporter friend who was covering the Voyager 2 fly-by of Neptune in August 1989. He was going to try to get me in as his photographer, but Vice President Dan Quayle had decided at the last minute to put in an appearance, so security and credentials had been tightened. So I watched a live feed from JPL at a Planetary Society gathering at the nearby convention center. After the fly-by, departure of Quayle, and my friend's interview w/ Dr Clyde Tombaugh (!), he picked me up and I was able to get inside JPL and see the probe mockup used as backdrop for the press conferences.

Then we started to leave town for our trip back to NM, heading west on I-10. On a Friday. At 5 PM. After fighting traffic for a while, we pulled off, ate some dinner, and let the traffic die down some. It was a bit better. We made it back to NM mid-morning Saturday. I've driven in other large cities (Dallas, Denver, Phoenix, OKC), but they were nothing like that Friday evening in LA...

Still, it was quite an adventure, one that I look back on fondly.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I wouldn't mind visiting L.A. someday. Of course you can probably all guess why.

 

[T'Girl]

A group of friend and I went to LA right out of high school, did all the tourist stuff Disneyland, Jay Leno, the beach.

What I remember sharpest was we flew in at night and spent seemingly forever flying over the lights of greater LA at jet speeds. Probably would have taken 20 second to over fly Seattle at the same speed.

 

[Captain Ice]

Mrs. Knott's Chicken dinners, Nixon Presidential Museum, Miracle Mile, Santa Monica Pier....

LA is full of awesome places (and like a certain binary person, I also forget about things like smog, traffic, etc...)

I have a ton of LA stories (but then I'm also from there). Most recent trip was about 18 months ago.

 

[doubleohfive]

I love it here. Call it what you want. Its home.

People will bitch about it -- hell, I bitch about it from time to time -- but I can't imagine living anywhere else.

 

[SmoothieX]

The only place in CA I've seen is Death Valley, so I'd like to see more of the state. I'm a country boy at heart, so I don't have a burning urge to see LA, but would stop by for the day if I were passing through.

 

[M'Sharak]

...and my friend's interview w/ Dr Clyde Tombaugh (!),

I know Tombaugh was quite young when he made the discovery, but that he was still around, sixty years later, and available for an interview had to be pretty cool for your friend.

I wouldn't mind visiting L.A. someday. Of course you can probably all guess why.

Canter's Deli on Fairfax, right? Order the Little New Yorker. It's nice.

Ask for the red onions, though.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

It is ironic when I was a little kid living in a Northern California suburb I always wanted to live in L.A. It seemed so big and exciting. I was always confused by all the different little enclaves and neighbor cities so to me LA seemed like it was a thousand miles across. My life took me to San Francisco for 15 years first and I must say it turns out I like the cozy comfort and cosmopolitan nature of SF more.

But life and the Internet also gave me a SoCal girlfriend and for many years we carried on the long distance thing until I finally moved down here to the South Bay 3 years ago and I am happy to live here(the South Bay is the area between LA and Long Beach).

When I first would go back and forth visiting her we tended to do the more touristy things, but now that I am here we go to more out of the way places or things from my GF's younger days. We don't go into the city much, maybe once or twice a month, but it is special when we do. Last time was just last weekend we went to the Comic-Con at the convention center. Now some of our favorite places are: Griffith Park Observatory, they host Star Parties there every month and we went last month; we have been fortunate enough to be able to go to the Magic Castle twice, its a private club for members and their guests only where as you can guess they put on magic shows; The Pantry a classic little diner on 7th and Figueroa that has the best pancakes in the world; a few weeks back I got to go to the Main Library for the first time and it is really amazing both beautifully designed and a great book collection; and its funny that I went to Disneyland once and then not again for 30 years, but I have been 4 times since then.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

...and my friend's interview w/ Dr Clyde Tombaugh (!),

I know Tombaugh was quite young when he made the discovery, but that he was still around, sixty years later, and available for an interview had to be pretty cool for your friend.

I wouldn't mind visiting L.A. someday. Of course you can probably all guess why.

Canter's Deli on Fairfax, right? Order the Little New Yorker. It's nice.

Ask for the red onions, though.

Also the green tomatoes. They are sooooo gooooood!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

What is the best method that a tourist should use to get around L.A.? Rent a car? Is there any decent and reasonably extensive mass transit in the city?