Fun With Friends

We recently hosted some East Coast visitors and made a point of packing in as much fun as possible. Here's a roundup of all the activities we jammed into a few mere days!

Our friend Randal arrived on Thursday night. On Friday, the boys (Chris, Sam, and Randal) went hiking in Franklin Canyon. We spent Friday evening in Santa Monica, where we caught this amazing little kid playing rock n' roll drums:

As the sun went down, we also got to see a pretty orange sky by the beach.

We finished off the night with a viewing of X-Men: First Class and headed off to LAX to pick up our friend Eran and Randal's fiancee, Ginny, who were both arriving around the same time on different airlines.

On day 2, we drove to Orange County for a brunch with a group of friends in the area. Then we headed to Hollywood, where we took in the Walk of Fame and Grauman's Chinese Theater. A few tacos and frozen yogurts later, we were winding our way up into the Hollywood Hills for a visit to the Griffith Park Observatory. (The Hollywood sign appears faintly at the right side of this shot.)

This may have been my favorite LA experience so far. Once a month during the summer, the Observatory is host to a public Star Party, where amateur and professional astronomers break out their incredibly fancy (and pricey!) telescopes, and let anyone use them. As you stargaze, these fine folks excitedly explain what you're looking at. I saw the moon and Saturn (along with one of its moons)--at such high qualities that I could see details of the moon's craters and the shadow of Saturn's rings against the planet.

Post-Star Party, we headed out for a late dinner at A Frame. Formerly an iHOP, this nifty building now houses a hip eatery featuring imaginative takes on classics, like banana bacon cream pie and Hawaiian-style kettle corn. (According to 2 of the boys, this joint also features the best burgers they have ever had.) The menu is designed for sharing, and food is served on hipster-rific vintage-y plates. Instead of a traditional place setting, silverware sits on each table in metal picnic-style caddies. When the check comes, it's tucked inside a vintage greeting card with a random message, sometimes even with a personal note from the card's original sender. (This time, we got "It's your bar mitzvah!" No note.)

Full and happy, we made our way back home to crash for the night. Randal and Ginny had to head back to NYC the next morning, but Eran stayed a little longer. We decided to venture out to the Getty Villa, which we'd heard good things about.

Built by oil magnate J. Paul Getty to house his burgeoning collection of classical Greek and Roman art (I mean, I know my house is simply overflowing with my collection of ancient art), the Getta Villa is quite the sight to behold. The building itself is modeled on a villa in Herculaneum, which was buried in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. The original villa has been partially excavated, and details that could not be copied from that site were modeled on similar period structures from the area.

The idea is that visitors will view the classic works of art as they stroll through a building of the same period. The museum is free (though parking is not). I imagined myself lacing up my leather sandals and perusing the gardens in some kind of light, summery tunic.

In the large gardens, I sat by the calming blue pool and appreciated the cheerful statues of reveling satyrs.

Finally, I imagined myself popping out to the herb garden to pick some fruit or seasoning for a meal. I wish these gardens were really mine, so I could pick some of this fresh-smelling lavender for the table:

The herb garden made us hungry. Thanks to the magic of the iPhone and Yelp (which snapped me out of my ancient Roman fantasy and back into reality), we stumbled upon a low-key seafood joint right on the water in nearby Malibu. Right next to our table, we watched the waves crash against the rocks and saw pelicans dive-bombing for fish.

We bid farewell to Eran on Tuesday. Then, instead of collapsing, we kept our energy up just long enough to make it to a movie-theater screening of Stephen Sondheim's Company, starring my favorite singer/dancer/actor triple-threat, Neil Patrick Harris.

All in all, it was so nice to have our friends here. Seeing them is one thing we really miss about NY. Plus, showing people around really made me feel like I live here, and I got to discover some new things, too. Come back soon to read more about our California adventures. (There's more to post, and we'll post posthaste!)

Summer Cocktail of the Week

A couple nights ago, we enjoyed a derivation/bastardization/admixture of the NYTimes Live Basil Gimlet recipe and Ecco's Cilantro Gimlet recipe. After some early June Gloom, we're starting to get true summer days in L.A., and a cilantro-based cocktail seemed like the perfect way to celebrate.

Here's how 'twas done:

Cilantro Gimlet

6-7 cilantro sprigs

2 oz. gin

1/2 oz. lime juice

1/2 oz. simple syrup

2 slices lime

Ice

Muddle the lime slices, lime juice and cilantro sprigs in a shaker. Add the remaining ingredients. Shake up and strain the liquid into a glass (pre-filled with more ice if you'd like), removing the cilantro/lime pieces. Garnish with another slice of lime.

Point Fermin & the Sunken City

Well, long time no post, so hopefully I'll make up for it with a few updates over the coming days -- starting with our trip to Point Fermin Park in San Pedro. We'd originally gone to do a hike around the Sunken City, which is essentially the remnants of a wealthy cliffside neighborhood that began slipping into the sea in the 1940s. Our day hike guidebook describes as "a jumble of rolling land with palm trees, isolated slabs of the old road, tilting sidewalks, streetcar tracks, remnants of house foundations, and sentry-like chimneys along the surf-swept rocky seashore. Exploring this surreal landscape is like entering the 'twilight zone.'"

Sounds like a fascinating historical snapshot and maybe even the window to a cool Indiana Jones-style adventure, right? Except: the book gets a little vague about how to get into the City to do the hike, which turns out to involve the highly-illegal maneuver of either jumping or finding a hole in a chainlink fence, then ignoring the 'Trespassing' signs you encounter thereafter. Seems like some Yelpers have figured out how to do it, but since we weren't in the mood to risk getting arrested, we had to content ourselves with glimpsing what little we could through the fence.

(Better photos from more adventurous souls here and here).

Still, the day wasn't all lost, because what we've started to learn about this town is that even if you're initially stymied, there's usually something interesting and/or beautiful to check out nearby. We started with exploring the Korean pagoda we saw perched on the hill overlooking the park, which afforded a mini-history lesson all its own.

It turned out there's a massive bell inside the pavilion, given as a gift to the U.S. by the Korean people in the 1970s as a memorial for U.S. Korean War veterans, and as an act of solidarity between the two countries. (Seemed like kind of a random spot for such an auspicious memorial, until I read that the pavilion was built on "the knoll overlooking the sea gate from which U.S. troops sailed into the Pacific." Cool.).

Then, about a half-mile north of the park, down some steps and past a crazed fleet of territorial, cliff-dwelling California Ground Squirrels (!!), we found a great little pebble beach and some excellent tidepools teeming with crabs and weird plant life.

And we have plans to head back to Point Fermin this weekend for Shakespeare by the Sea!

Water...water...

One strange thing I'm getting used to is the amount of water that I constantly need to drink here. I usually drain this bottle multiple times per day, and we can never seem to keep our Brita filter full. Sadly, I don't think my skin is outwardly displaying any benefits of this amplified water-drinking habit; I think this is what it takes for me to stay just hydrated enough out here.

Anyway, here's a little apartment shot for you. We couldn't find any floor lamps that we really liked, so we thought about maybe putting a regular lamp on a very narrow plant stand. Then, as luck would have it, we discovered this lamp with an empty base over the weekend and all I wanted to do was fill it with (fake) lemons. The bright yellow makes me really happy. If we get sick of lemons, though, we can always change it to just about anything.