California Day 2

All right, so after our crazy first day in Cali we didn't get going too fast the next morning. When we did we headed for the Getty Museum on the north side of LA and just west of Hollywood. It's free to get in, however parking will cost you $15.

I wasn't too familiar with the museum before we went other than having multiple people tell me we had to go there! The Getty Center (there are two different locations), where we went has 5 buildings that present a collection of Western Art from the Middle Ages to the present. It was pretty fascinating!

Or course we had to start at the beginning... with illuminated manuscripts.


These are done by hand! Seriously cool. When I was in college we took a special tour to a local monastary with one of our history profs who had training in handling these manuscripts so they allowed her to take them out of the cases (white gloves on) and we got to see them up close. Then they had some old ones that weren't "worth anything" in the basement that we actually got to touch!


Moving on to the first large artworks. Many of these, if not most, are from churches and they all depicted the saints.

There was also an exhibit in the first building about casting sculptures that was just fascinating. The particular process had something like 16 steps and could only be used once. So if something messed up in the middle (and the artist wouldn't know until the end) he would have to start over entirely!

We didn't make it to all 5 buildings, we got a little sick of looking at paintings! But we did go to the photography exhibit (the modern part!) where of course, no photographs were allowed. Also the traveling exhibit of French sculptures was pretty interesting.

Then we toured the outside of the museum, which was just as spectacular as the inside. All the buildings are made of white marble which a guide told us came from somewhere in Europe and took about 200 ships to bring to the US. They're absolutely gorgeous though!

The view looking down over LA.

There was an outdoor garden that was very cool. The first thing that caught my eye was these iron haystacks that had flowers planted in the middle so they grew up and over the top. Very cool!

Labyrinth

Another shot of the marble and rebar flower haystacks!

My three amigos, Jamie, Julie, and Kelly.

Looking up from the garden to one of the buildings.

Being a flower connoisseur...

These shots are kind of backwards, but at the top of the hill there is a small fountain. The water runs out along a raised channel and then through a hole in the floor. It cascades down an urn (see below) and then runs down this stream and into the pool that the labyrinth is in. It's all very beautifully designed.

The urn where the water comes from above.

After spending way more time at The Getty than we had planned we ran out of time to visit Universal Studios. Because we had a dinner date in Disneyland... for 9:40pm! Oy!

But one of the things that Kelly and Jamie really wanted to do was have dinner in the Pirates of the Caribbean restaurant and those reservations are hard to come by! So 9:40 it was! We got to the park in time to see a bit of the evening show and ride a couple of rides, including Pirates. I must say it's quite a bit better than I remember it from 5th grade...

The restaurant is in the beginning of the ride. See that blue wall behind my friends? That's the lagoon where you enter the ride and you can see the diners from your boat as you glide by.

The cost of the meal was more than I would normally spend, but oh.my.word. was it ever good! They were out of one dish that both Julie and I wanted, but I got some beef shortribs and I swear I have never had meat that was so good!

Now for the funny story...
Kelly decided that she wanted to have the "Lightning McQueen" drink (it was Raspberry Crystal Lite or something since they don't serve alcohol in the park) saying as she ordered that it was "for her nephew". Since my son absolutely adores Lightning I decided quickly that I would get one too and said that it was "for my son".

Now either our waiter was a really good actor or he was genuinely surprised because he said something to the effect of "no way, I thought you guys were like 16". A little schmoozing I suppose, but that lead us to tell him that no, we were all turning 30 this year and this was our special trip and birthday dinner (thanks Kelly's mom!).

Then, when we were all done he brought us each a dish of chocolate mousse with a candle on top for our birthdays! It was very sweet (and so was the mousse!).

Happy Birthday to us!

The mousse had sprinkles on it in the shape of Mickey ears. Very fun!

And finally our second day in California came to an end as we headed back to our hotel room...

ZZZZZzzzzzz.... in the elevator!