Chicken and Waffles...

The Hollywood sign!

What I've eaten since arriving:
2 x tacos
1 x rice and veggies
1 x oatmeal
1 x In-n-Out burger, fries, root beer
1 x Bud Lite
1 x Dodger dog

Aside from the hippie shit, it seems all this country offers are burgers and dogs. I'm sure that's not the case, but having only been here 2 days, that's what's sticking out. There are fast food places ... everywhere. And not just Maccas and KFC and Burger King - oh, no. In fact, I've only seen one or two of each. There is all KINDS of shit - drive-thru Chinese, drive-thru donuts, one thousand burger places, drive-thru tacos, drive-thru chicken, it's all here.

Last night, on the way home from the baseball (more on that in a minute), we passed a big place called Popeye's, offering 'Chicken and Biscuits!'. I laughed, of course, because what the fuck? Chicken and biscuits? Who thought that those two things went together well? The girls asked what I was laughing at and I told them and they were all a little confused. "Yeah, dogg, after some chicken you just want a nice biscuit, with a little butter on it". What? Obviously I kept probing ... American biscuits turn out to be, like, bread. Or something. Flaky, buttery bread. Which makes more sense with chicken, I guess. But then Alyssa informed me that, although in that instance the Chicken-and-Biscuits combination did make sense, there was a place that sold 'Chicken and Waffles!' Chicken being chicken, and waffles being waffles. No translation necessary.



So yesterday was checking out LA - didn't get to Hollywood Blvd (that's tomorrow), but did see a whole bunch of other cool shit. We went to the Getty Museum, which is built up in the hills, and you have to park at the bottom and get a tram up. They had an exhibition of Californian video installation artists, which was interesting.

Me and Allison on the tram up to the Getty.

Then we had lunch at In-n-Out, which was kinda hilarious. The only things they have on the menu are: cheeseburger, hamburger, soda, shakes, fries. That's it. It's totally old-skool, and everything's made fresh on site. The potatoes are cut up every morning and not frozen. The fries come in a little tray. And the burgers taste 'fresh'. It actually wasn't too bad, for burgers - I wanted to giggle every time I ate my chips (fries) and dipped them in my little cup of ketchup, and took a sip of my root beer ... you can't help but feel like it's a movie. I know that sounds so dumb, but it's true!

After lunch we hit Griffith Park and the observatory on top of it, and from there you can see over all of LA. The observatory is the place in Rebel Without a Cause where James Dean's character gets stabbed ... there's a big (ugly) statue of his head and a little plaque. Because it's all built on top of a hill, you've got a 360degree view, which is really stunning - you can even see up to the Hollywood sign! The smog was really shitty yesterday, though, so the pictures aren't great. The whole city just kinda has this grey smoke hovering over its head at all times. It tends to lift toward the end of the day, but the heat's been trapped in all day and it's kinda yuck.

Last night was the Dodger's match, out at Dodger Stadium. Just because I'm on the other side of the world doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy sport any more than I do at home. Having said that, it was fascinating. I was in this weird state of excitement at seeing and experiencing something new, but it also felt really familiar. That's partly to do with the 'vibe' you get at a big stadium match, of any sort I guess - there are people and kids and yelling and sometimes its boring so no-one's watching. The game moves really slowly, though, or at least it did last night. Foul balls here and stupid pitches there, and then once something interesting happens, everyone runs off and has a break. I honestly believe the game was designed so that the spectator can consume as much food and beer as possible. Food is a massive component to the whole experience. I guess it's the equivalent to our pie-and-Coke at the footy - but here there's so much more on offer! You get beer in big cups, and then Dodger dogs (hot dogs), and nachos in big plastic containers (with the grossest melted cheese you've ever seen and tasted ever in the history of forever), and big helmets full of popcorn so you can wear the helmet after you've eaten, and cotton candy, and BUCKETS OF ICE CREAM. Seriously, little buckets. Just smaller than Sara-Lee sized. People sit there and eat the whole thing. It's amazing.



The girls are at work this morning, so I'm here at Portfolio again, having my coffee and writing all this up. It's good, quite comfortable, and nice for someone who is alone, because you can feel like you're part of some little community, even though no-one's interacting with each other. The girls' friend, Kate, who I met the other night, is coming by in a little bit and we're going to have lunch together. Then I'm meeting Allison and Alyssa and their friend Bill, and we're driving out to Salvation Mountain. It's a few hours out of town, and in the desert, so I'm not really sure what to expect. Very exciting, though. I've been looking forward to this for ages! I'm starting to form some ideas about this place, from what little I've seen and experienced. There's a lot of poverty, a lot of shitty and gross areas, and I guess that's the same with every city, but I don't think many cities offer the same kind of 'hope' that LA does, few other places have the kind of weight that LA does - when I think of LA I think of Hollywood, and the OC, and summer, and beaches. That's the myth, I guess, the image it tries to project. Then you see the smog and the gangs and the graffiti and the Mexicans and the poverty. Alyssa told me this great story, which I think maybe starts to sum the whole place up, if you can do that. At the beginning of the 20th Century, whoever was in charge of LA at the time wanted people to start moving here, so they planted a whole lot of palm trees to give the illusion of it being a tropical destination, by the beach. The place was, in fact, a fucking desert, with lots of hills and sand. You see the remains of that on the outskirts, like out near the Hollywood sign, in Hollywoodland (the name of the housing development on the hill where the sign is) and even at the Getty, there's a big cactus garden. The palm trees are still here, though.

Ok. Lunch, the mountain, and then tomorrow the Blvd, with all the Hollywood stars and the Kodak theatre and all that shit. I fly out of here Friday morning, land in New York on Friday evening, about 5.30pm my time. New York is only 14 hours behind Melbourne, compared to LA's 17.

So good to read all your comments ... xd

PS. I don't know if the video below will work ... it's me filming the LA streets out of Alyssa's car window. Let me know if it shows up. I'll take more video, proper ones. x