Day 33 of 33 - The Final Post

What a day! Thanks to some great friends and family, I had a fantastic time in Los Angeles. I could not have asked for a better final day.

I have many pictures and videos to add, but that will come later. I'm shooting for 1 hour of sleep tonight.

I woke up very early this morning, which was rather hard to do considering the opening night party and my late night completion of Alex's video. I was nervous about using the San Diego public transportation for the first time. That's right - I was NOT riding my bike somewhere. It turned out my fears were unfounded and I made quite a quick trip to the Amtrak station. In fact, I was over an hour early for the train and the previous train had not yet left. The first strike of luck in my favor was that I was able to exchange for the earlier train and I gained myself an extra hour in Los Angeles!!

The train ride north was great. For at least half the trip the train followed the coast line and I got a great view of the beaches, hardcore surfers, and fun beach towns and camp sites. I arrived in LA in just over 2 hours and it definitely beat the heck out of driving.

I had made tentative plans to meet up with Ben and Emily, but they were both busy until later. I was left to my own devices, which is a dangerous thing. I bought myself a daily metro card (only $5) and stared at a map, deciding where to go. I toyed with rhe idea of going out to UCLA to check out their facilities and see if anyone would talk to me about their MFA program. However, it was rather out of the way, and they are not a well known program anyway, and their graduate coordinator never answered my email, so I decided to pass. I thought I would try something touristy.

I saw a stop on the map called Universal City and I decided that sounded like a place where I might see fun movie things. I rode the metro like a pro and found myself at the entrance to Universal Ciry. A free shuttle bus beckoned to take me atop the hill. As I dew nearer, I slowly realized this was not quite what I thought it was, and really was just the entrance for Universal Studios theme park. I got off anyway because at this point I really needed a bathroom. I took the opportunity to wander around their shopping and restaurant area and gather what photos I could.

I walked back to the metro and decided to head back into town. I wasn't really interested in going back to Hollywood Blvd, where Alex and I visited last time, but I thought I would check some famous streets like Sunset Blvd and Santa Monica Blvd and see of there was anything interesting.

In short, I found there was not. By this point, I had decided to consult my IPhone on "Things to do in LA" and among suggestions for 6-7 star hazing tours, there was one mention of park just north of where I was. That sounded free, so I set my sights North.

I found myself looking at the famous Hollywood sign in the distance and I kept heading toward it, like a wise man following the north star. Eventually I ran into the aforementioned park, Griffith park. I found an awesome little walking path that wove its way up a small stream. Let's call it... fern gully. Eventually, the fern gully ended and I was standing in a more traditional LA setting of scrub brush.

At this point I had to go to the bathroom, again, probability due to Mama Testas famous fish tacos. I spied a public toilet and headed in. Now, it is dubious enough to use a public toilet in a park, in major city. But I have not before been met with the challenge of stalls with no doors!

I took care of business and headed back outside. I was thinking I should head back to the city to go meet Ben when my eyes met with a particularly steep and treacherous looking trail and... well... by now you should know what I did.






I reached the top of the first hill and saw not only a great view of Los Angeles and the Hollywood sign, but I saw a cool building situated on the next hill. I continued on this crazy trail and spilled out upon the front lawn of the Griffiths Observatory. It turned out to be free museum. My kind of place!

I did just miss the planetarium movie, but that cost money (not my kind of movie). However, I was able to catch "local noon" where the sun ACTUALLY crosses the meridian line, despite the time on my watch. See if this video gets you as excited as I was.

Ben called me and was on his way to meet up with me. I thought I would make it easier for him by going back down the mountain into town. I found a small paved path which I thought would be a responsible way down, however it ended at the iron bars of some estate. Well you know I loathe retracing my steps, so instead I slid down the side of the mountain. I ended in someone's back yard, but I fought the urge to go swimming and started walking down a beautiful street lined with rich people houses. I picked a lime off a tree in someone's yard to assuage my growing hunger.

It turned out Ben had already made it to the observatory and now had to work his way down to find me. We eventually met up and Ben took us to a neat restaurant called Home where we got sandwiches and drinks and caught up. After he drove over to Melrose and we spent some time wandering in and out of funny shops.

I then traded hosts as Ben headed off to a prior commitment and Emily swung by to pick me up. Emily took me straight to a funny little shack with fantastic fish tacos. I may not have been that hungry, but it was worth squeezing in as many fish tacos as possible before I headed back to the north east.

We then headed downtown LA, checked out a cool used bookstore called The Last Bookstore, and met up with her boyfriend Brian to grab some beers at their favorite local bar. Brian is a great guy and was a real trooper to hang out, as he had just finished an incredibly long and hard work week and had apparently exchanged words with Jessica Simpson.

Time was sneaking up on me and we began to think about my departure train. First we decided to walk over a couple blocks and check out Little Tokyo, which proved a funny little neighborhood. Emily got a hankering for Gyoza (fried dumplings) so we stopped again at another trendy bar for Gyoza and Japanese Brown Rice Lager. Ok by me!

At last, the sunset of my trip was upon us. Due to some smart planning, we were actually only a block away from a metro line where I could hop a train right to Union Station. Travel home went off without a hitch. I finished packing and while I should be exhausted from this trip, I'm afraid I may be up all night in anticipation of my long-awaited return.

New Jersey, here I come!

Day 32 of 33

Tonight was our opening night!

Everything went swimmingly. The theatre gave me a rose, the playwright gave me some chocolates, and the director gave me dinner. All in all, it was a great day.

I'm done here, but I guess I scheduled my flight back for Saturday morning because it was cheaper. Since I have a day and I'm already on the West Coast, I booked Amtrak tickets to Los Angeles and back. I am going to see my good friend Ben and Alex's sister Emily.

I am missing Alex a lot, though, and wishing I was going home tomorrow. This video shows how useless I am without her:

Day 31 of 33

Oh man, we're getting close.

Rehearsal was cut to basically a half hour notes session this afternoon. I spent most of my morning updating this blog.

I had to go to the bank before rehearsal and I had a choice of two routes. I am on the north side of the park and the bank is on the west side. Either I could skirt the park by heading west and then south, or I could cut through the park by heading south and then west past the theater. INSTEAD, I decided there must be a path heading southwest..

Well, there was a path. I just had to ride my bike through a canyon to get through it. Let's just say it went about as well as every other time I try to ride my bike through a canyon.

After rehearsal, I headed back to the Spanish Art Village. I went here my first day in town, but that was July 4 and there was not much going on. Today all the shops and studios were open. It was a cool place because many of the artists actually do their work there and much of the art gets a very SoCal flair. The artists here also seem to have a thing for blown glass. Almost all the sculptures, jewelry and other small objects were made of blown glass designs. I may or may not have bought someone a gift here.

The show tonight was solid. Henry even admitted to me that he was contemplating leaving early to get back to his family since the show was done. However, watching the show one more time gave him some more ideas and we'll still meet up briefly one more time tomorrow afternoon. Again, I can do nothing but admire Henry's ability to pay such close attention. At this point, I find my mind wanders to almost any other thing while watching the show and I cannot come up the the nuanced notes that he does.

By the way, I thought this was a cool image. All three stages share the same green room, so they have monitors up that show all three shows going on. Technology is cool.

Day 30 of 33

Back to work today. We had a weird schedule because of the gala on Saturday night, which really threw off the rhythm of the performances. There really is nothing wrong with the show, but we did a full tech run this afternoon just to get back in the groove. Henry talks a lot about the actors listening to each other, and you can definitely tell the difference when they are and when they are not.

Even so, we broke early and I had a nice big break before the show that night. I tried to get things done at home. I'm realizing how much I will need to get done so I can get out of here on Saturday. First order of business - fix my suitcase. Remember the terrible time I had getting out here because of the stupid handle? I did not want a repeat of that. Fortunately, I'm pretty handy. Item 1 taken care of.

Next order of business - laundry. I had been thinking I would just wear dirty clothes until I got home, but I realized it's actually a lot cheaper to laundry in San Diego than in New York. So I am coming home with a bag full of clean laundry. Item 2 - Check

Finally, I need to eat the rest of my food. I was close to my luggage weight limit on the way out, so I can't afford to be bringing food home. I got together everything I had and whipped up some meals for the next couple of days. In the front we have stuffed peppers, stuffed with whatever I could not throw in to the stir fry in the back. De-lish. Item 3 check.

Speaking of luggage weight limits - I have been thinking it may not be worth my bringing home my sneakers. They weren't in great shape when I came out, but I certainly put them to the test out here. Apparently the white shoes (used to be white) were not built for bicycle riding and during my extended trips the toes started to fall off. On the grey shoes, I have worn down the rubber sole so much that my socks have started to poke through the bottom. Goodbye, old friends.

Day 29 of 33 (2 of 2)

I had to break this post in half because, believe it or not, it can take me quite a while to write these things. I know you get antsy when I don't post, so you get halves.

Well I had a thrilling ride all the way back down the mountain. At one point a traffic meter recorded me at 30mph, and that was not full speed. I finally got to the bottom, checked my bearings, and realized I still had another 2 miles to go. You guessed it - up hill.

I finally rolled in to the UCSD campus. Fortunately, the theater department happened to be at the southern tip of the campus. La Jolla Playhouse was also literally on the campus, which is pretty cool. I pulled in to the Theater Department building and realized that I was absolutely disgusting. I was in no shape to meet with the graduate director. I went to the bathroom and washed up a little, but it was not enough.

I needed to dry off, so I decided to walk the campus and try to dry off in the SoCal sun. The campus actually reminded me of Livingston or Busch campus at Rutgers, only with Eucalyptus trees. It was nice and simple. I also noticed that UCSD seemed to work off the old European system of multiple colleges under one umbrella, as I saw signs for at least 3-4 separate colleges as I walked around.



I decided I was dry enough, so I headed back to the theatre department. I had a good talk with Marybeth, who is their Graduate Coordinator. She was able to answer a lot of questions for me in regards to the program, courses of study, financial aid and other things. None of the faculty was around during the summer, so I was not able to speak to anyone more specifically about the study or what they are looking for in applicants. However, I did learn they generally get about 60 applicants and pick only 1 or 2, depending on the year. And I did pick up that they seem to be very classically focused in their admission for directors.

One email Marybeth showed me was to prospective students, where they were asked to prepare to discuss Hamlet, Tartuffe, The Cherry Orchard and several other classical texts and authors, and how they would carry out their vision and design. Sure I've read all those plays, but why can't I discuss Showboat, Cabaret, Ragtime, Into the Woods and classic American musicals? Why have a program that only turns out one type of director? I had thought they would promote directors who worked on more contemporary plays and musicals since they work with La Jolla Playhouse, where many Broadway shows are launched. Oh well.

Continuing on the journey. Marybeth pointed me to the beach so I could cool off. Fortunately, it was downhill. I passed the Birch aquarium, but this is one thing in San Diego that's NOT free, so I only saw it from the outside. I made it down to the beach, which I believe is called La Jolla Shores. It was a really nice beach that did not seem too busy. These beaches had to delineate where you were allowed to swim and where you were allowed to surf.

Going swimming in the ocean during Shark week on the discovery channel proved to be a rather unnerving experience. I just stuck to the old adage "You don't have to swim faster than the shark, just faster than the guy next to you." I spent most of my time swimming around some chubby asthmatic looking kids. However, be assured that any seaweed that dared touch my leg was severely dealt with.

I hopped back on the bicycle, this time I finally set my sights south for the way home. Guess what that means? Yup, I had to go uphill. I don't understand why I had to go up so many hills while following the coastline, but somehow San Diego makes it happen. I rolled into the "village" of La Jolla Cove. I was starting to develop some hunger pangs, but this "village" seemed way too high class for my stench.

I kept going further down the coast, somehow still going uphill, until I suddenly felt I was at the Jersey Shore. Now I knew I could stop and eat. I had made my way to Mission Beach, which is a long stretch of beach on the ocean side of Mission Bay Park, where I had come through before. It had a long concrete boardwalk (concretewalk?) with bars, restaurants, and lots of little bungalows. I found some bar that claimed to have THE BEST Margaritas, so I stopped since I have never heard such a claim before.

After dinner, I decided to take one last dip in the ocean. You know, just to check that the Mahi sandwich was sitting properly. I had so say my final goodbye to the Pacific ocean, probably for some time, as I watched the sunset.










I live in Hillcrest, which unfortunately means the end of bike ride trips is pretty terrible. I found myself having to walk my bike up the hill in Old Town that I pictured from the beginning of the day, because there was just no way that was going to happen. Anyway, I took the well-worn path back home and crashed.

Until tomorrow.

Day 29 of 33 (1 of 2)

San Diego Bike Tour, Part Deux

I had been hoping to make a trip up to UCSD and La Jolla during my stay in San Diego. My incredible caloric intake on Sunday from the Italian Family-Style Dinner meant that now I was going to do it on bicycle.

I headed out the same way as my past couple of trips - down the big hill into Old Town. This meant the long ride downhil. Hello, old friend, "the hill", I'll be seeing you later.

I took my bicycle down the inland side of Mission Bay. It was a series of sandy islands and calm waters that seemed to be good for water sports. I have always wanted to do whatever it is that this guy is doing, but unfortunately I have no skill for flying kites OR surfing, so I'm probably a ways off.

I knew that this was a long bike ride (15 miles by car, so probably much further for me) so I had wanted to keep it simple. Unfortunately, when you plot a route on your iPhone, it doesn't give you topographical information. I should have bee warned by neighborhoods and streets such as La Jolla ALTA, or Foothill Road, or Mount Soledad... but really that's far beyond my normal deduction skills. I did try to avoid the hills, and several times when the road pointed up a hill, I would turn my bike and go downhill another way. In the end, that only hurt me when I could not deny my cycling masochism and decided to take the high road to UCSD.

In this picture, which is only MAYBE half way up, you can already see that the bay, which is in the previous photograph, is becoming a distant memory One of the reasons I ended up going up hill was the deceptive mountain. It looks as if the mountain will reach its peak right around the corner. And then the next corner. And then the next. I turned my fourth corner, several miles up I believe, only to see another stretch of road, and I had to stop and say an expletive or two. One man in a car overheard me and said "Another half a mile!" Yeah, ONLY half a mile.

Well I finally made it to the top and things leveled out. I found Rutgers road! It matched the t-shirt I was wearing.

















I rambled along a little further, turned the corner, and guess what? Yeah, up hill!

I finally made it to the legitimate top, which is apparently called Mount Soledad. I think it is a memorial for locals that died in World War II. It also provided a 360 degree view of the surrounding landscape. See:

Day 28 of 33

Sunday was an interesting day. We did not have a performance Saturday night, which meant we really had limited things to work on Sunday. We quickly dispatched our remaining work notes, and then had the rest of the afternoon to ourselves.

Since I was already in the park, I decided not to go level up my Pokemon, and instead to do some more sight-seeing. My first stop was the Timken Art Museum. This actually was my first museum stop in San Diego, but last time I was rushed through 5 minutes before closing. This time I had time to spend. It is a small museum, but for a free museum I thought some of their paintings were fantastic. They have many interesting paintings from what I believe to be both pre-Renaissance and Renaissance eras. There were a couple which seemed to experiment with perspectives, but which has really funky perspectives.

I then meandered over to the San Diego history museum. I found that I already knew most of the information between my experiences in Old Town and at the Cabrillo monument, which is just another indicator that I had been here too long. The most interesting thing at the museum for me was this picture. It is a rendering of what the park might look like for the 1915 California-Panama Exposition, for which much of the town was built. It has this fantastic gray quality paired with this Italian inspired waterway (where there is now a freeway)

I grabbed myself a lemonade and headed over to the Spreckels Pavilion. I photographed the pavilion earlier, but today there was a free organ concert going on.
After the concert, they invited us inside to see the inner mechanics. I learned that this organ was also built for the 1915 fair and used to be quite a big deal in San Diego. I saw pictures with over 50,000 people in attendance. It saddens me to see it reduced to the current audience you see in the video.




I took a quick walk through the Japanese Friendship Garden. It is only about 1.5 acres right now, but they are undergoing a huge expansion through one of the park's canyons. I would love to come back to see what they have renovated.

I followed some music I heard blasting, which led me to the international cottages. They have a lawn surrounded by cottages representing most of the countries of the UN. Today, Columbia was celebrating their Lawn Day with concerts and a food stand. You could stop in pretty much any cottage to get a pastry or coffee of the local culture. However, I was flush out of cash (due to my earlier lemonade) and felt I could not spare anything for the suggested donation. I snapped a blurry picture of the Irish cottage.

I finally headed back to the theater, where Hershey Felder had again set up a family dinner for everyone. During our rehearsal, we could smell him stirring up the bolognese (while wearing all black, of course) so I felt I needed to go back and check it out. Well, it was quite the spread! I helped myself to two servings plus desert, therefore concluding that Yes I would have to ride my bicycle up to La Jolla on my day off and No, I could not just rent a car.

The preview went well, but generally seemed sloppy. The director decided, and I agreed, that we need a full brush-up rehearsal on Tuesday before performing again.