#PARENTS ON TOUR - MUSEUM EDITION

Recently my parents came out to California for their second visit. We were planning to mix sightseeing with lots of relaxing as they (like us) had been rather busy in the lead up to their trip. Whilst Andrew was working we did two day trips to see some of our favourite museums; the Huntington Library and Gardens and the Getty Center. 

The Huntington Library and Gardens gave Dad an opportunity to really try out his new camera, particularly in the Chinese garden. It was a lovely warm day and we enjoyed meandering round. Sadly as it was winter there were fewer plants and flowers out, but you can imagine how beautiful it will be come the summer. Here's a few photos from the Chinese garden, which is my favourite part. 

The only photo I took from the exhibits indoors was this one and I'm afraid its because something about it made me laugh. This was in the European art area. They had allowed a modern artist to come and place art instillations around the existing exhibits. Most of them rather annoyed my mum and some of them I really didn't get, but this one made me chuckle. Its almost like an ancient superhero in my mind. I love it!

As for the Getty Center, we arrived on another really warm day and made the most of the views of Los Angeles, sprawling out below us. Dad took an architectural tour which he really enjoyed. I wish I could tell you some important facts about the buildings and the concepts but all I remember from Dad's recap was that the architect fell out with someone over the garden area and refused to come back onto site. So there we go, fun fact! 

My favourite painting from the Getty on this trip is the picture below. Something about the little girl just captures me. She's so sweet looking and I love the way it looks so tonal with the painted wall in the background. As I was snapping the picture on my phone the security guard said, "That's a good choice, its one of my favourites too." That made me chuckle. 

I love swanning around museums and those two are definitely my favourites in the Los Angeles area. Up next, our epic road trip pit stop; the Hoover Dam.

H

MUSEUM EXPLORATION

The last tourist item on our long weekend away was to visit Exposition Park which houses a few of LA's museums, including the California Science Center. We particularly wanted to go there so that we could see the Endeavour space ship. So we spent the day over there starting off in the Science Center. 

We headed straight into the Endeavour exhibit which took you through the story of the shuttle before you went to see it. There was a cool mission control spot which had monitors replaying take off sequences. I was really fascinated and it helped to have my resident aircraft/spacecraft interpreter to explain things as we went round. 

Then we got our first glimpse of the shuttle. It was huge. No photograph really does it justice. It literally took my breath away and I am definitely not a space cadet! 

Andrew absolutely loves the whole exhibit and clearly got too excited at points. In fact there was discussion of trying to replicate the tiles from the photo above in our bathroom. Apparently they are very cool and he loved the fact they were numbered/sequenced. He even thought as an organising geek I would agree that it was cool. I didn't. There's too much aircraft stuff invading the house as it is without space shuttle bathroom tiles!

We then did a brief wander around the rest of the science center, focusing mainly on the air travel sections. It was here that I found my coolest thing. I particularly liked the spray pattern on this re-entry capsule. I wouldn't have it in my house mind you, but it looked pretty! 

After a 3D IMAX experience about humpback whales we then had a wander around the rest of the park. We saw the rose garden, the Natural History museum and even the coliseum which was used for the Olympic games in 1932. 

We really wanted to look closer at the coliseum but as the Special Olympic world games were starting up in just over a weeks time the area was closed off due to preparations. So we decided to wander around the University of Southern California campus as it was also a site for the games. It was a beautiful campus with some impressive buildings but we realised we took no photos of it. Sorry. 

So there we go, a quick round up of some of our LA tourist spots. Up next, Imagine Dragons!
H

THE QUEEN MARY

Another tourist attraction on our to do list for LA was staying at the Queen Mary. For this of you who don't know is a retired British ocean liner. It used to sail from Southampton to New York as an express service. So we decided to stay on it during our mini weekend break and it was impressive. We were able to wander around it and see all the different parts of the ship which has been preserved to give us an idea of what life was like on the ship.

It was fun to stay on the ship. The rooms had a lot of the original features left in it and the more modern things in the room were put in as much as possible in keeping with the time period. I have to say I loved having portholes to open in the morning! 

There was a lot of love for Britain on board the ship. The gift shop was filled with British items and lots of Americans getting very excited over them! There was also an exhibit on board dedicated to Princess Diana. It housed some of her clothes and also now some clothes belonging to the Duchess of Cambridge. It was funny to see their take on the British Royal family. A lot of the information we already knew but it was refreshing to see someone loving our monarchy like we do (especially Prince Harry!)

Overall it was a worthwhile experience and another item to tick off our ever shrinking American to do list!

H

LA FARMER'S MARKET

A couple of weekends ago Andrew and I took a trip down to LA. We had a concert planned so we figured we'd stay in LA and do some of the other tourist bits that we never get to do. The first port of call was the farmer's market. It has great reviews and supposedly has great food so we were eager to try it out. 

It was amazing. The market itself is quite small and tucked away but its attached to a shopping area which is nicely laid out. So we went straight to the farmer's market to check it out and in between eating food we would saunter into the other shops to have a look around. We had pizza in the farmer's market and because it was national ice cream day we obviously partook of ice cream, despite the rainy weather.

We didn't manage to get too many photos, probably because we were too busy taking in all the sights and amazing smells but here's what we got. 
H

#TIMONTOUR - SANTA MONICA EDITION

Santa Monica is such a lovely place to visit for the day. We took Tim down there mid-week so it was slightly less crowded. It was a coldish start to the day but warmed up by the end of the day. It was hilarious taking Tim round it though because Santa Monica is very typical California, with its white sand beaches, tall palm trees and very beachy look to it. To be fair though Andrew was quite giddy too! See below!

We did a little bit of shopping but spent most of the day along the beach front. For the first time we hired bikes so that we could cycle along the famous broad walk. We'd never done this before as we always seemed to have Macintosh with us, but we'd left him at a friends for the day so that we could do that. It was pretty fun. We managed to see a lot of the other famous beaches by cycling along the path.

Here are some photos of the day...

That last photo cracks me up so much! Now are we making you want to come visit yet?!

H

#TIMONTOUR - LA EDITION

We pretty much hit the ground running with Tim's tour as we took him straight into LA to explore Hollywood and the Beverly Hills area. There was lots of walking around and staring at big houses, or stars on the floor. Think it was probably a bit surreal for him as you never really expect to end up in Hollywood strolling around with the two of us! The place gets pretty crowded so it can be hard to take good photos, especially of the stars on the floor. We didn't get any good ones of that but we do have some here. 

We also went to visit the Griffith Observatory. It gives you insanely good views across the whole of LA and we were able to have a wander around and tire out Mr Macintosh a little bit.  Obviously we aren't going to show you all the coffee shop stops we had but there were a few! Haha!

The Hollywood sign is behind Andrew and Tim, its just pretty hard to see in the light. Unfortunately Tim is not pointing directly at it, so don't follow his finger to work out where it is! Its slightly more to the left of him. 

 Macintosh was fascinated by these water fountains and kept trying to drink from them, however they were on a random setting so they would suddenly spurt up in his face and cause him to panic! Was quite funny to watch.

Now this photo cracks me up because we have no idea what Macintosh was busy doing, but it was the best of the photos we took and it shows you how lovely and warm it is out here! 

It was a good first day for Tim even though he was slightly jet lagged and had no idea whereabouts in LA he was really. He got to see the famous bit that all the tourists want to see. As for what else we did, keep checking back this week and next to see some pictures! 
H