3 - 5 July 2015

3 July

As tomorrow is a Saturday and Independence Day, today is a public holiday, so there wasn't too much noise from the streets. We had a slow start and then lunch at a Japanese restaurant, followed by coffee on the street, watching all the walkers going by.

The temperature started out at around 22C but went up close to 30C, however it was very nice as the humidity was very low.

We packed our bags and checked their weights. We managed to talk Lynnely to dropping us off at the Flyaway bus station rather than having her drive us to the airport and back, particularly as she has to work a 12 hour shift tomorrow. With the day being a public holiday, the traffic was very light and the trip that is advertised as taking 90 minutes on the website, took just over 30 minutes.

We had to wait a couple of hours until the Air NZ checkin opened for the flight, but everything was pretty painless from then on.

Independence Day disappeared as we cross the date line.

The ride home was good and bad. The good thing was that the kid a couple of seats away cried only a little and not very often. The bad things were the poor seating, seat spacing and aisle width, but the really bad thing was having the two 20 something girls sitting next to us. One was German and the other Danish and they talked in English, endlessly. They also talked loudly and giggled like seven year olds even when eating.

5 July

We got a few hours sleep, picked up our baggage, declared our food and Lynette's seeds for the garden and were downtown at the ferry building by 8:10AM. It was very good going. The temperature was a great Hikuai 12C and the skies clear and blue. When we arrived home at 10AM, the temperature had risen to 15C, almost the same as we had experienced in the UK in many spots.

It was nice to be home. The grass wasn't too high and everything else seemed OK. Cinders the cat seems to have lost her neurosis and appears back to her old self, so it's great to have a cat again. The price of petrol is twice that of the USA and half that of the UK.

Thanks to all who have been reading this blog. This is the last posting in this series. Not sure if or when we will do another.

Best wishes to you all

Lynette and Jim, the Waiheke Gypsies.

2 July

We let Lynnely sleep in and had a late breakfast. It was a beautiful day. Temperature around 26C, a slight breeze and nice blue skies.

Our objective for the day was the Getty Center, which is more of an art gallery than a museum, but does hold may historical pieces of art. JP Getty made his money from oil and having his art on display and free entry to the museum was his way of giving something back to the people. Mind you, there was a significant charge of $15 for the car park.

In 1983 the J Paul Getty Trust purchased 700 acres in the southern foot hills of the Santa Monica Mountains. In 1984 Richard Meier became the architect for the Getty Center project with plans for a 6 building campus to provide a unique cultural resource and and vital architectural landmark for the city of Los Angeles. The main buildings occupy less than one quarter of the campus's 24 acres. The remaining land has been landscaped to create courtyards, gardens and terraces as well as preserving their natural stage. No fountains were operating because of the drought and they use recycled water for the gardens.

We parked in the massive underground car park (Level 5 of seven) and caught the cable car train up to the museum. It's a train that runs on rails and is hauled up the hill by one inch thick cables. There are about four cars to a train.

When you exited the train, you are at the top of a large hill that overlooks a huge section of Southern California. The whole museum complex is built of white stone and in the bright sunlight was a little hard on the eyes, initially. There are four major buildings, each of two or three floors, housing permanent art displays. These are the North, East, South and West buildings. There's a fifth building that handles special exhibitions but unfortunately that was closed temporarily. The whole complex is in an area of seven hundred acres. Around the museum are beautiful gardens and water features and the views of the cities are spectacular.

The artwork includes a wide range of paintings covering most eras, sculptures, decorative china, exquisite furniture and clocks, manuscripts, drawings and photographs. We were allowed to take photographs in most locations. We hope that we have enough photos to provide a small view as to what was there.

It was around 5PM when we left and dived into the rush hour traffic again. Something noticeable about the cars here was the fact that more than 80% of the cars are foreign designed, mainly Japanese but also European and Korean. There's still more than 50% of the pickups that are US designed but there's probably less than 25% of the SUVs that are US designed. That's quite a change from seven years ago. It may also be a Californian thing.

The cable car train that takes you up to the museum

The freeway as it disappears into the distance.  In the evening it was full in both directions.  

Walking from the cable car to the entry of the museum 

An ornate French cabinet made around 1580 

A pair of jars used for holding drugs, dating from the 1500's. 

An exquisite piece of carved ivory that was over two feet tall 

An Italian chest from 1550-1600.  Most like it held linen. 

An altar panel from Italy dated 1492

The story of Joseph in the Old Testament.  An Italian panel from around 1485  

This Spanish life sized statue of St Gines de La Jara dates from 1692 

This Dutch painting of Two Water Mills and an Open Sluice is from 1653  

This bust is slightly larger than life size and delicately carved out of marble.  It's Dutch from 1671. 

This was the sketching area where artists could try their had at drawing a number of different pieces 

A couple of fantastic French tables.  The inlay and marquetry was unbelievable 

A huge tapestry with a couple of very ornate clocks. 

The top of the cabinet was head heigh, so you can see its size. 

A lockable cabinet that will blow your mind 

An extremely ornate French musical clock from about 1712. 

Just what every chemist needs.  A gold plated microscope in its matching leather case 

Wouldn't you like to see this writing desk in your study? 

This large sofa for three or more was massive. 

A French clock and corner cabinet dated around 1750 

This was a gold panel on a cabinet 

A large, gold inlaid writing bureau 

A couple of fantastic silver items 

A chaise longue 

Medusa created by an Italian artist in 1911  

This is a famous painting.  It looks much better as a photo than it did on the wall. 

This father and son were discussing and sketching the portrait on the wall. 

There were a number of extremely nice glass items int he museum. 

A Dutch painting of the Piebald Horse, dating from around 1650  

A French lidded bowl from 1735

This four posted bed was absolutely massive 

A panelled cabinet with clock

A gold and silver bowl

Minerva, almost life sized, in marble.  1775 by an English artist 

A head with horns by Paul Gauguin, about 1895 

Looking down into the museum complex.  It shows three of the pavilion buildings  

The museum is way above the surrounding city.
The trees are suffering from the lack of water.

The downtown city buildings are hiding in the haze.

Houses are perched in the dry hills  

The gardens of the museum are  very pleasant

The water feature is in the form of a maze.

1 July

Lynette slept well but Jim kept waking to London time but did manage to keep up until 10PM. He was flagging a few times during the day though.

Lynnely's condo is in downtown Burbank, a city of 100,000 people, quite near to Beverly Hills. Several of the film studios are located in the city. Many towns make up the Los Angeles county and the county has a population of over 25 million. It's extremely spread out. Most buildings are only one or two stories. There are a few taller ones but they are generally in the centre of the cities, but there weren't many skyscrapers to be seen.

The condo is 1500 square feet, about 150 square metres, on the top (fourth floor). It's two blocks from the centre of Burbank and really handy to shops and restaurants etc. It's very nice and being 10 years old is well insulated from noise and heat. The Police and Fire Stations are only a block away and with the doors closed you struggle to hear the sirens. With a door open, it's another story. (A bail bond shop is opposite the Police Station. Talk about Location, Location, Location.) The main floor has two bedrooms and there's a small mezzanine floor which could be another bedroom. There's three bathrooms in total. Lynnely's room has a large ensuite and a huge walk in wardrobe that she has packed with clothes and shoes. The whole condo is light, bright and airy with a huge microwave/conventional oven that we would like to bring home. In the shared area, there is a large swimming pool, a fitness gym and a spa.

Yesterday the temperature was 30C when we arrived and the humidity probably was around 80%, certainly not as high as in Singapore. Today was a little cooler, probably around 28C and the slight breeze dragged the humidity down.

The first task after breakfast, was to visit Best Buys. Jim brightened the salesman's day by buying a new MacBook Pro from him and a flash drive to haul the data off the old MacBook. Then we went to Walmart where we picked up a few clothes. Unfortunately our bags are fairly full already so we couldn't bring too much more home. We passed by Lynnely's hospital and had lunch at a Japanese restaurant. They make the sushi in front of you, if you sit at the bar. The size was similar to NZ, so we weren't overloaded.

Lynnely is a doctor in a Urgent Care part of the hospital. The nearest we would have to this idea is where doctors operate in a clinic. The Urgent Care facility is for walk-in patients, but not accident or real emergency centre. Most of the patients are from the middle income bracket and they come here because they can't get into a normal GP in a suitable timeframe, or it's Monday and they don't want to go to work. (Lynnely says Mondays are the busiest day of the week and it's quietest when there is a major sports event on in town or the TV.) Lynnely works a 12 hour shift with 12 hours off and work three to five days a week. Sometimes it's more days in a week, if they swap shifts so that they have longer breaks.

After lunch, we drove into central Los Angeles to the Science Museum. On the way you can see all the names that you have heard about and seen on tv - Beverly Hills, Hollywood etc. We even drove down a small portion of Sunset Boulevard.

The museum was interesting. It's set up more for kids with lots of educational displays, and it being the school holidays, there were lots of ankle biters there. The most impressive displays were the space and aeronautical ones. They have a number of planes there including a Blackbird spy plane trainer and a F-111. These are also genuine used space modules. You can even see the scorch marks that they received on reentry. All aspects of life on board a space station were fully explained, including the potty routines.

The really impressive piece is the Endeavour space shuttle. It's got its own display section and was really quite something. It did 25 missions and you can see that it has been well used and that lots of the heat resistant tiles have been replaced. Even the story of how they got it into the museum is quite something.

It had taken us 30 minutes to get into the museum after lunch, but as the museum closed at 5PM, we drove back to Burbank in peak commuter traffic. That took just over an hour. We did get the chance to travel through some of the less wealthy areas, Echo Park, and look at the locals selling on the side of the street. It looks like a long market and we had trouble keeping Lynette in the car.

For dinner, we wandered along Second Street and found a Greek restaurant where Lynnely had never been. It was a good meal, but quite filling.

Lynnely has a great cable/internet service. She gets her TV and internet on it. The internet runs like a dream at 32+ Mbps and it's got unlimited bandwidth.

A replica of the Wright Brothers 1902 glider at the Science Museum

One of the space reentry modules 

A couple of satellites 

Just what we need.  This is a fuel cell generator.  It uses hydrogen and oxygen as fuel and produces 7KW of electricity and water.  Probably costs as much as our house to purchase.  

A mockup of the space program mission control for the Endeavour launches. 

The Endeavour itself 

An engine for the Endeavour 

It's got such a little orifice for the fuel and produces just so much power.

It's easy to see which tiles have been replaced. 

The tiles are so fragile that you can crush them with your bare hands.

Lynnely and Lynette under the Endeavour  

A Roadrunner bird looking for Wyl E Coyote 

The vendors at Echo Park 

Driving through Burbank 

The swimming pool at Lynnely's condo complex is quite large. 

Lynnely's kitchen and lounge