Fast Fiction

National Geographic Traveler Magazine published a list of 30 things you should do when in LA (I doubt they meant all in the same trip). In August it’ll be 13 years I’ve lived in Los Angeles. Let’s see how I did on the list. Starred items are ones that I’ve actually visited.

1. Hollywood Entertainment Museum
2. Venice’s Abbot Kinney Blvd. shops
3. Topanga Canyon’s Inn of the Seventh Ray
4. Catalina Island *
5. Downtown’s Flower Market *
6. One spa at Santa Monica’s Shutters on the Beach
7. Pink’s hot dogs
8. Fred Segal’s
9. Free TV tapings *
10. La Brea Tar Pits (from the outside, not the museum) *
11. Chinatown’s Chung King Road galleries
12. Hollywood Forever cemetery (and Cinespia screenings)
13. Museum of Jurassic Technology (in Culver City)
14. Larchmont Blvd. (especially Cafe Chapeau) *
15. Shopping at Robertson and 3rd *
16. Grand Central Market *
17. American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre
18. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
19. Live music at Santa Monica’s McCabe’s
20. Los Angeles River (Los Feliz to downtown) *
21. Beverly Hills Hotel *
22. Venice’s canals
23. Mount Hollywood in Griffith Park *
24. Little Ethiopia restaurants
25. The Grove *
26. Koreatown’s Brass Monkey (for karaoke)
27. Farmer’s Markets in Hollywood and Santa Monica * (not Santa Monica)
28. Melrose’s Urth Caffe *
29. Adamson House
30. Philippe’s french dip sandwiches *

Well, I got 14 out of 30. There are some I’m not terribly interested in like Pink’s hot dogs, as I don’t eat hot dogs (tofu, beef, pork, turkey or otherwise). I have no clue what the Hollywood Entertainment Museum even is, but working on the Paramount lot is like coming to a museum every day, since there are little historical displays all over the place and I’ve had the pleasure of scanning historic photos of not only movies but the lot itself.