The Angels

So we drove our huge car to Santa Monica, where Lauren lives, and actually easily found a parking space right in front of the front door. Lauren and a friend of hers welcomed us on the small terrace, the sun was shining, we drank a beer and started the weekend. The apartment is really nice and, in our opinion, surprisingly spacious considering that it is located in the middle of this metropolis. Los Angeles is, after all, the second largest city in the USA, after New York City! Her cat Grayson also lives here with Lauren, who was a bit sociophobic and could only be petted with a lot of patience and encouragement. The very futuristic-looking litter box was super fun, as it used a sensor to detect when Grayson had done his business and then cleaned himself - very modern, very practical and very interesting to look at 😄 In the evening we met up with Lauren's friends in their beautiful garden (also in the middle in the city!), ate a delicious vegan lasagne and chatted about God and the world. We took an Uber back home late in the evening. That was a pretty good first impression of LA!

We started the next day very relaxed and spent lunch balancing on a slackline in Ocean Park. Philip turned out to be a real natural talent and after a few tries he was even able to walk backwards. Lauren has been practicing for a while and was pretty good at it. During the breaks she did handstands next to us - we looked like a little circus at the rehearsal 😄. After eating our delicious breakfast burrito, we walked to the famous Venice Beach. Unfortunately it was quite foggy, so you could only see the sea, but we watched the skateboarders in the skate park and the musclemen in the open-air gym “Muscle Beach”, where Arnold Schwarzenegger trained. Afterwards we went into the sea despite the lack of sunshine. In the evening we cooked at home and played a game of Scrabble - not that easy in a foreign language 😅.

Sunday started in much the same way as Saturday, after breakfast we grabbed the slackline again. This time we went to nearby Clover Park, where a few kids were celebrating their birthdays and a baseball team was practicing. It was really idyllic and we almost forgot we were still in the middle of the city, it felt so relaxed and completely different to what we expected from LA. In the afternoon we met up with a friend of Lauren's and hiked along Westridge Canyon with a cool view of the city. It was also really hot and we worked up a sweat. The reward was a beer, actually the “Oktoberfest” variety, and a pizza at a brewery in Santa Monica. In the evening we watched a film and since Lauren had to work the next day, we all went to bed relatively early.

On Monday we drove back to the car rental company to exchange the SUV - called “the ship” - for the Tesla we had actually booked. First of all, we really wanted to drive a car like this and in California there is a charging station for electric cars on every big tree. Secondly, we had learned from Lauren's friends that the Tesla cars have a camping function that maintains the temperature and ventilation at night. Since we want to go to the national park in a few days, this is super practical because then we can sleep at a campsite in the middle of the park! Unfortunately, we had to wait a long time on site until the car was ready and didn't leave until around midday - the first order of business we had to google “how do you start a Tesla” 😂. But once we got that figured out, the car drove really well! Our first item on the program was the Warner Brothers film studios in Hollywood. We went on a tour where you could see the sets of various series and films. Gilmore Girls, Chuck, Big Bang Theory, Friends, Million Dollar Baby, Argo, the DC superhero films and much more were filmed in the studios. A lot was also explained about film technology, editing and the history of Warner Brothers. At the end you were able to take lots of fun photos. We even briefly became actors ourselves by reenacting a scene from Harry Potter - not that easy! Although the Harry Potter films were shot at Warner Brothers Studios in London, there were a few sets to visit here too. Overall we really enjoyed the tour!

Afterwards we went to the next tourist to-do point, namely the “Walk of Fame”. Along a very long street here on the sidewalk there is one star after another with famous names in them and we searched diligently for stars we knew. We found, among others, Britney Spears, Elton John, Quentin Tarantino and of course the best of them all, Harrison Ford. Overall, this part of Hollywood was relatively dirty and less glamorous than you might expect. The numerous Scientology buildings that once invited us to take a “personality test” were also somewhat disturbing - no thanks 🙈. In the evening we cooked together again and Lauren and Jana baked a delicious banana and walnut bread.

The next morning we worked on the last tourist spot, namely the famous sign in the Hollywood Hills. We were able to photograph the city's landmark from a residential area without crowds.

We are now going to Joshua Tree National Park, which is about 3 hours away from LA.