Los Angeles

Well, everything in Los Angeles was fine. Downtown looks like a large version of Oakland's downtown. Poor and empty, but interesting. Also, here is the second largest city in the United States, one of the biggest urban areas in the world, and the businesses downtown are all in spanish. I found that to be kind of cool. Their Little Tokyo and Chinatown look like San Francisco's little brother.

When we were in Santa Monica, we saw this awful black cloud, and we were worried that our weekend was going to be ruined. It turned out that it was a cloud of smoke from a fire that two teenagers lit in the Hollywood Hills.

Hollywood was a lot of fun. We rode the subway from Hollywood and Highland to Hollywood and Vine. The cars looked just like the New York Subway that I've seen from movies. Our hotel in Hollywood was fine. The shopping area of Beverly Hills (Rodeo Dr., etc.) looked a little more like Disneyland than I thought it would.

Santa Monica was a lot dumpier than I thought it would be. Only the beach seemed nice. I liked Hermosa Beach a lot better. Santa Monica was a huge tourist trap.

West LA (around Westwood) was beautiful. Rich, but beautiful. The Sunset Strip was cool. I could live there. Actually, I could never afford it....

The drive home was horrible, because everyone was so impatient and dangerous and it was busy almost the whole way back to San Francisco.

Pat and Suzanne were a lot of fun. We went to Hermosa Beach for dinner. With Talia, we went to a really good Indian restaurant. Actually amazingly good. I think I'll have Indian for lunch actually. Yum.

All in all, Los Angeles was a lot of fun. It's hard to tell about a city just by visiting, but I think I could see myself living there. But, I'm only thinking in terms of transportation. I'd have to live and work on or near subway lines (which is getting better and better), but that would probably never happen.... San Francisco seems like a little village compared to LA. When we got back it was 10 o'clock and the city seemed empty.

Saturday, I'm going to a passover seder in San Jose. Exciting!