Our first day in Los Angeles was certainly a busy one! Chelsea drove us into downtown Los Angeles, where the three of us walked to Grand Central Market. This is an interesting space with lots of vendors selling food of all types. I got a pupusa to munch on while we waited in line to get breakfast from Eggslut. Eggslut’s signature dish is called the Slut, and it’s a glass jar filled with puréed potatoes, and an egg is cracked into the jar, and the whole jar is plopped into a water circulator to slow-poach the egg. Served with crispy baguette pieces, it makes a great breakfast. Next we walked over to the Broad Museum, the line for which stretched all the way down the block. I snapped a few pictures, then we went next door to the Walt Disney Concert hall. Both of these buildings are so radically different from everything around them, you can’t help but stand back and stare for a few moments. Equally awe-inspiring was our next stop, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angeles. Nestled against the 101, this building looks nothing like a church from the outside, with many driving past it every day with no clue what it actually is.
Following this we went to the Bradbury Building, famously used in the film Blade Runner as the home of JF Sebastian. As it is an occupied space, they only let visitors enter the first floor and go up the first flight of stairs. Nonetheless, it is a beautifully detailed building, and features its original elevator cabs, shockingly still in use. The next stop on Chelsea’s list was The Last Bookstore, an enormous book and art store, where the books sometimes become the art. Many art vendors have set up shop here, and feature work from local artists, and the store itself has a tunnel of books, as well as a wall of books sorted by color to create a wonderful gradient.
We drove through Koreatown and hit up California Donuts for a quick sugar rush, and the bacon donut did not disappoint. Our next stop was the Petersen Museum, which is adjacent to LACMA, and nearby the La Brea Tar Pits. We spent several hours here enjoying the amazing collection of historic cars. This museum features cars that are important to the history of cars, as well as car culture, including movie cars, and some BMW Art Cars as well. As a car nut, I was in heaven. I could have stayed forever in this museum and never become bored.
Chelsea took us to her one of her favorite ice cream spots, Salt and Straw in Larchmont Village. If I end up with diabetes, I will have no question as to how this happened. They have a wide variety of both classic flavors, and original combinations with ingredients I would never have expected to find in ice cream. Definitely worth stopping by and challenging your concept of what ice cream should contain.
We drove a bit from here, and Chelsea dropped us off at the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the TCL Chinese Theater. Sarah and I had fun here seeing whose hands and feet we matched up with. She was surprised to find her match was Bruce Willis, while I was ecstatic to find my hands and feet were a perfect match for a hero of mine, Steve McQueen. Chelsea scooped us up and we drove to In-N-Out Burger to have our first Double-Doubles ever. I was impressed with the food for it being a fast food joint, but in my opinion it doesn’t live up to the hype. As we left, we drove past the iconic Capitol Records building where my stepdad worked long ago (or as he would say, when Jesus was a baby). It appears it hasn’t changed much. We took a quick peek at the stunning Emerson College before driving to the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Hollyhock House. Unfortunately it was too late to get a tour, but we were able to walk the grounds and get a peek at the house, which is on a little hill overlooking the city, with Griffith Observatory looming in the distance.
Chelsea drove us into Los Feliz next, where we stopped at Churro Borough for a quick desert of Churro ice cream sandwiches. These are every bit as delicious as they sound. From Los Feliz it was a short drive to the Old Los Angeles Zoo, in East LA. This zoo has been abandoned since the zoo moved in 1966, but you can still hike around it and they even have picnic tables set up in the now-defunct exhibits. We meandered around the old zoo, hiking higher and higher into the hills, only returning as we lost daylight and became creeped out.
Our last stop of the night was the Griffith Observatory overlooking Los Angeles. We arrived fairly late in the night, missing our opportunity to use the high-powered telescope the building houses, but we were appreciative of the views of downtown LA and of the architecture of the building, which dates back to 1935.
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