Marking Time

Breathe, Leah, breathe. This time next week you will be in the airport waiting to board your plane to begin your (ugh) 15ish hour journey to Hawaii.  Even though it ain't the prettiest set up of traveling, you'll still be on your way! And one can never complain when I am traversing across an ocean to a tiny island by way of FLIGHT.

In the meantime, I am trying my darnedest to enjoy the here and now.  Which means that I am trying to do "L.A. things" that I've been meaning to do.  On Monday, Marshall and I hopped on the train and rode it North several stops to the city of Watts.  The historic Watts riots happened here, after the Rodney King shooting, so there is a history of racial tension, as well as poverty.  It's improved since then, but still remains as a predominately non-white, lower income neighborhood.

On our way to our destination, Marshall and I saw this rad staircase and as we stopped to take pictures, we definitely got heckled at by some middle school kids.  I laughed cuz I was skeered.  Kids are so mean!

We moseyed on over to the Watts Towers, which was our final destination, and my final "L.A. thing" to see.  The Watts Towers boils down to being beautiful folk art.  The story goes that a man named Simon Rosia, in 1921, began to build these cement sculptures/towers (ordained with reclaimed materials like glass, tile, bottles, rocks, etc.) in his backyard and continued to work on it for 34 years.

He did it all by hand and after he sold the property to a neighbor and it got lost in the shuffle of property exchange, it finally got into the hands of a preservation council and is now considered a historic site!  Pretty badass, huh?

If you ever come to L.A., GO HERE.  Make sure you take a friend, cuz it's kind of sketch, but GO!

Artsy Fartsy

This weekend I went into L.A. to meet up with my current roommate, Angel.  After making one Spanish speaking friend on the train, being utterly confused and nervously overwhelmed on the bus, and making a big dent in the book I was reading ("Pigs in Heaven" by Barbara Kingsolver), I made it to the L.A. County Museum of Art.  It had some pretty cool exhibits set up and I was able to sneak into a couple of them.

 This is Angel.  She's a walking piece of beautiful art herself.

Those beautiful lights right outside the museum are one of my favorite spots in L.A. 

Iconic and beautiful in both the light and dark.