Day 29, Los Angeles: This Week In Unnecessary Blogging.
(Posted by Andrew about the events of Jan 9; Los Angeles, USA)
A big theme of this extended vacation is to experience a bevy of different cultures from around the world, and what captures North American culture better than Los Angeles? It also didn't help that I planned the vacation using a map; had I planned it using a globe I would have realized that LA is not an efficient route home from Taipei to Calgary.
Our schedule for today changed rapidly...
Stepping back a bit, before we left Calgary I tried applying to all the late night shows that film in LA. Had I priority ranked which ones I wanted to actually get the list would have looked like this:
And so of course I got confirmation of Leno tickets almost immediately, confirmation of Ferguson tickets a few days later, nothing from Conan, and then a week ago I got a letter from Kimmel saying I wasn't likely to get tickets. Figures. Both the Leno and Ferguson tickets were for tomorrow (Friday, Jan 10) so we decided to wait and see who the guests were to decide who to see. When the schedules came up, Leno had Kevin Bacon whereas Fergison had Bob Saget, so it the Tonight Show looked like the winner.
We're staying in Santa Monica so we planned to spend most of the day wandering down to Venice Beach and exploring the pier. This was initially foiled by a brutal battle with jet lag: went to bed at 10PM, woke up at 11:30PM and couldn't get back to sleep until 6AM. As a result we didn't crawl out of bed until nearly 11AM. I checked my email and found confirmation that we tickets for Kimmel tonight (guest Kristen Wiig) but we had to be there in only a few hours. The main problem with this was that we stink: after a month on the road our definition of clean clothes means "hand washed in the tub with soap then stuffed into suitcases alongside dirty clothes". We had spotted a laundromat nearby last night, so I rushed there while Jessica started getting ready. This laundromat will forever be remembered as "the stabby laundromat". I've never seen a shadier cast of characters than those hanging around here; I even checked the soap vending machine to see what cleaners were best for getting blood out of clothes since I figured I was likely to need it.
A very rushed load of laundry and shower later, we were off to Hollywood to spend a long time waiting in line to be loaded into the theatre. Kimmel's studio is very small, fitting perhaps 150 people. Frankly, I'm a little disappointed none of you noticed us and sent us a note.
Afterwards, since we were in the neighborhood I wanted to do some Nerd Tourism and go see Griffith Observatory. Unfortunately, when we got up there the parking lot was packed (not sure why - according to their website there was nothing going on) so the best we could manage was a picture from half way back down the hill.
Sadly, LA is winning the contest for the smoggiest city we've visited this trip, and that's saying a lot considering Delhi was in the contest.
A big theme of this extended vacation is to experience a bevy of different cultures from around the world, and what captures North American culture better than Los Angeles? It also didn't help that I planned the vacation using a map; had I planned it using a globe I would have realized that LA is not an efficient route home from Taipei to Calgary.
Our schedule for today changed rapidly...
Stepping back a bit, before we left Calgary I tried applying to all the late night shows that film in LA. Had I priority ranked which ones I wanted to actually get the list would have looked like this:
- Kimmel.
- Conan.
- Ferguson.
- Leno.
And so of course I got confirmation of Leno tickets almost immediately, confirmation of Ferguson tickets a few days later, nothing from Conan, and then a week ago I got a letter from Kimmel saying I wasn't likely to get tickets. Figures. Both the Leno and Ferguson tickets were for tomorrow (Friday, Jan 10) so we decided to wait and see who the guests were to decide who to see. When the schedules came up, Leno had Kevin Bacon whereas Fergison had Bob Saget, so it the Tonight Show looked like the winner.
We're staying in Santa Monica so we planned to spend most of the day wandering down to Venice Beach and exploring the pier. This was initially foiled by a brutal battle with jet lag: went to bed at 10PM, woke up at 11:30PM and couldn't get back to sleep until 6AM. As a result we didn't crawl out of bed until nearly 11AM. I checked my email and found confirmation that we tickets for Kimmel tonight (guest Kristen Wiig) but we had to be there in only a few hours. The main problem with this was that we stink: after a month on the road our definition of clean clothes means "hand washed in the tub with soap then stuffed into suitcases alongside dirty clothes". We had spotted a laundromat nearby last night, so I rushed there while Jessica started getting ready. This laundromat will forever be remembered as "the stabby laundromat". I've never seen a shadier cast of characters than those hanging around here; I even checked the soap vending machine to see what cleaners were best for getting blood out of clothes since I figured I was likely to need it.
A very rushed load of laundry and shower later, we were off to Hollywood to spend a long time waiting in line to be loaded into the theatre. Kimmel's studio is very small, fitting perhaps 150 people. Frankly, I'm a little disappointed none of you noticed us and sent us a note.
Afterwards, since we were in the neighborhood I wanted to do some Nerd Tourism and go see Griffith Observatory. Unfortunately, when we got up there the parking lot was packed (not sure why - according to their website there was nothing going on) so the best we could manage was a picture from half way back down the hill.
Sadly, LA is winning the contest for the smoggiest city we've visited this trip, and that's saying a lot considering Delhi was in the contest.
posted by Paineroo @ 8:11 AM
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