philly

On our last day in LA, we headed to The Getty Center without a car. The directions from the Metro site seemed easy enough: take the 2 bus to Church/405 and hop on the 761 Rapid right to the foot of the Getty. Well, we hopped onto the 2 bus from Sunset/Western and proceeded for a nice hour long tour of Beverly Hills, Bel Air and UCLA. We hopped off at Church/405 and the bus driver wasn't clear as to where the 761 stop was so we walked in the wrong direction. Stopping at a 76 gas station, after some back and forth between attendants, we were given walking directions to the Getty. We had to take a road behind the station a few blocks and there was going to be a sidewalk leading us to the Getty. Well, there was no sidewalk, just 18" of gravel on the side of the road. About a mile later, we reached an intersection and the foot of the Getty which, as you can see above, is beyond gorgeous.

The Getty is an absolutely incredible place. Even more incredible is that it's free! The only fee you'd pay is for parking (if you drove there, which is what 95% of their patrons probably do), which is $8 for the car no matter how many occupants. We went there seeking out the August Sander exhibit which was lovely. From the museum:

Sander believed that society was organized into a hierarchy of occupations. One section of his project is dedicated to the skilled tradesman, including master craftsmen, industrialists, technicians, and inventors. Subjects associated with intellectual or "white-collar" labor were usually photographed indoors in three-quarter-length poses, while master craftsmen were portrayed in their working environment with the tools of their trades. Portrayed as he emerges from the dark basement of a building, the coal carrier in the image above belongs to the lower ranks of labor and is symbolically associated with the bowels of German society.

He used a large format camera and made his images on glass plates making for some striking portraits. His portrait of a coal carrier was my favorite of the exhibit.

After a very quick sushi dinner with our gracious hosts, we took off running for the train to Union Station to catch the 8.30p to San Diego. We got there with seconds to spare only to see that our train was delayed. Oddly, the 5.10p to San Diego was also delayed. After going to the information booth and talking with other people worrying about the delayed trains, I found out that there was a fatality on the track just north of the station at Ventura railroad crossing earlier in the afternoon. A line of several hundred stretched from one end of the art deco station to the other before curling back towards the front again.

We were on our way by about 9.30p as everyone ran for seats on the double decker Pacific Surfliner trains which took off at around 10p. We got some seats in what turned out to be the drunk car. With some people waiting in the station since 4.30p and the Traxx bar just about the only thing open in the station, there were some drunks in the house. After a few more delays on our way, we finally pulled into downtown San Diego around 1a, July 4th.

Some more shots have been added to the CA 2008 flickr set starting here.

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