02/25/2007   English German
  Edition # 66  
San Francisco, 02-25-2007

Lala Land
Figure [1]: The intrepid newsletter reporters in Lala Land.

Michael Even after ten years in the country, our map of America still has sporadic white spots: Los Angeles was one such location. L.A. is the quintessential American monster city: 3.8 million people live there, and 13 million people in the surrounding suburbs. Traffic is complete chaos, public transportation is practically non-existent, and without a car, you're stranded.

TODO

And in typical American fashion, we went there for a long holiday weekend: flew in on Friday evening, rented a car, drove to our accommodation, a fancy Bed & Breakfast. On Saturday morning, we grabbed bikes that were available there and rode along the beach to Venice Beach and further up, almost to Malibu.

Figure [2]: On the boardwalk of Venice Beach

It was noticeable that an unusually large number of cyclists were out and about on this beautiful weekend; who would have thought that of the American monster city! The beach was dominated by well-trained volleyball players, but completely ordinary people also enjoyed the day there, and on the basketball courts, a few daring-looking gangster rappers were hanging around!

Figure [3]: Volleyball player at Venice Beach

The next day, in the morning, we went to the Getty Center, a museum complex of gigantic proportions built by the foundation of the industrialist J. Paul Getty. The site is located on a hill, and you take a dedicated train to get up there. Everything is architecturally styled down to the smallest detail. And the best part: there is no admission fee. However, if you park your car there (it's hard to get there without one), you pay 8 dollars.

Figure [4]: The track of the Getty Museum

We had gotten up early (on weekends before 11 a.m., the world belongs to you in America), but shortly after the highway exit, right in front of the museum, we got caught in a traffic jam reminiscent of Ikea. It took about 15 minutes, during which we moved forward about 500 meters, when suddenly, just before the museum, a brazen driver tried to cut in line in front of our Chevy Malibu! In such cases, I am steadfast and keep no more than a 3cm distance from the car in front. I also honked the horn for several seconds and signaled to the clown with "Shoo! Shoo!" gestures to get lost, which he did. It's unbelievable what some people dare to do, but not with me! The museum was quite nice, with a pretty good photo exhibition on the theme "Where we live" and the painting "Cross in the Mountains" by Caspar David Friedrich with the most ridiculous frame I have ever seen.

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