mybigadventures.com

We got up much later than we had planned today, so put on some clothes and headed straight down for breakfast at Starbucks again. I had a chocolatine and Dani had a bacon, egg and cheese breakfast sandwich. We both had tea, although they got it wrong and gave us Earl Grey. Nevermind! Made full use of the table in Starbucks to catch up on the journal and write a number of postcards while we had breakfast. After breakfast, we had showers, dressed and had a chat to Dani’s parents on Skype, although the connection wasn’t great and we kept missing words and the video kept breaking up. We didn’t end up leaving the hotel until gone one o’clock!

We headed out to the valet service at the front of the hotel to get the car. Yesterday, when parking, we were stopped by an attendant who told us the car park was full, so they were valet-parking the cars, because that way, they could block cars in. So if we wanted to park, they would have to park for us and take the keys. We were a little tentative handing them over and by morning, I was feeling quite concerned about the whole thing. Nevertheless, one of the valet attendants brought the car up to the front of the hotel without any problems.

So, eventually we were off. We decided to head over to the Griffith Park Observatory and, later, to drive through Chinatown. The journey there was as eventful as ever, with the Sat Nav defeating us with its confusing list of commands to turn left or right, but either too early or too late. We ended up getting stuck in a one-way system, which took us a long way out of our way and completely confused the SatNav, which couldn’t decide which road we were on. Eventually, we got there, despite said SatNav and the poor/non-existent signage for the most part. The main car park was full for the observatory, so we ended up parking along the road at the bottom of the hill. We had a bit of a panic about whether we were allowed to park where we had, as there was a traffic cone near by, and we eventually decided to move and park in another space across the road. By the time we were done faffing about, another car came along and parked in the space we had just moved from. Oh well, these things happen! Our new space was more convenient - facing the right way and in the shade.

Set off for the observatory - we assumed it was upwards, but, as usual, there were no signs! Went up quite a steep path (!) - it was like being at Yosemite again! But, it was quite short and when we got to the top, the views were amazing. Walked on a bit further, to the top of the trail and a viewpoint, where there were well-positioned benches to see LA, the mountains and the Hollywood sign. We sat on one bench for a while and then moved on to the next, looking at the different views. It was very peaceful. I spotted a lizard and then Ben took lots of photos of it - it stayed in one small area, catching flies. We did try to get Bruggers in a picture with the lizard, but it clearly found Bruggers very intimidating, as it kept running off! Bruggers just wanted to be friends :-(

Having spent a good while at the viewpoint, we moved on towards the observatory. The views were stunning - we spent the the afternoon and early evening just looking and wandering around. There was an obelisk, to Galileo, I think, which we sat on for a while, before Ben spotted about three hummingbirds darting around. He took lots of photos - they came very close, sucking the nectar from the flowers next it us. There were so pretty - a shimmering green with bright pink under their beaks. Had a little panic with the camera, as all the photos seem to disappear - but it turned out that they’d simply gone into a new folder. Panic over!

We decided to get something to eat and drink from the cafe, which had a private seating area overlooking the view. We had some crisps, coke, and a Cobb salad to share. The salad included chicken, bacon bits, tomatoes, beans, blue cheese and, of course, salad leaves and a vinaigrette dressing. We ate, drank, and enjoyed the view. Afterwards, we had a look in the shop. It was a little disappointing; there wasn’t very much that was specific to the park. We did, however, buy a few postcards and a badge (sew-on). We then continued to have a look around the observatory. There was some interesting information inside and again nice views from the top. It got late surprisingly quickly and when we next looked, it had gone 6:30 PM. We had noticed that the telescope would open at 7 PM, so we decided to hang around and have a look. After a short queue, we looked through the telescope at Venus, which appeared as a bright white circle. We also looked through a telescope on the front lawn, at the sun, through a special filter. Dani couldn’t see anything, but I saw the bright orange bottom edge. The sun was setting by this time, so we stuck around to take a few photos of the sunset and then some night photos of LA. It was still hazy and, although it looks beautiful with a pinky-purple sky, it looked quite gloomy in the photos. But, well worth seeing all the same!

We then decided to head back and immediately set off in the wrong direction! Went all the way down the hill to realise it was the wrong way. It was fairly dark and with minimal street-lighting so it was very easy to go astray. Found our way back thankfully, after a panicky moment. Used the car bleeper to locate the car - very useful - and headed back. It was very easy journey back - the best yet! Parked in the hotel car park again and went up to the room. Dithered about tea and ended up ordering a takeaway pizza from a local place (about $30). Ate about 11:30 PM - late, but it would have been too late to go to a restaurant. Turned in a little earlier than last night.

We've now been in the house just over a year and have been waiting to sort out the lounge for quite a while. We had settled on a herringbone pattern wood floor for the lounge having found something we liked at B&Q. After getting a couple of fitters around, we decided to change the flooring to a smaller oak parquet tile which we managed to source from a local company. We arranged for the fitter to come and sort the floor out this week so set about repainting last week. We decided to go for a nice Farrow and Ball colour named Vardo as a feature wall and white for the main wall to keep it nice and bright.

We had also ordered a new summerhouse for the garden having decided our existing shed was a bt too small. We bought it online and it was delivered last Thursday. We managed to move the old shed in one piece on to the garden to hold the current bits in it until the summerhouse was completed. In the end we managed to put the summerhouse the same day it was delivered, although it was a pretty long (and hot) day finishing up about 8.30pm. The only thing we hadn't done was fit the glass, deciding to wait until we had painted everything. long story short, whilst our floor fitter was fitting the new wood floor, we spent the last week adding extra support under the floor of the summerhouse, painting and sealing it, inside and out and finally adding guttering and glazing. 

There's still a few more projects to work through, but I think it's time for a bit of a rest :-) 

We had tickets booked for 12 for the Capitol Building today, but we were suppposed to arrive an hour before so had to set off a little earlier. Dani had spotted some information online about a "Circulator" bus, so we decided to give it a whirl. Turns out the bus is free and there are four routes that visit all of the main sites around Washington DC including the zoo. Happily the bus runs every 10 minutes, and so cut the walk down significantly. We joined the queue to get into the Capitol; the rules these days are quite strict - no food, no liquid including water, so we couldn't take anything in with us apart from some empty bottles that we figured we might be able to fill at a water fountain. Inside, we joined another queue to get our tickets for the 12 o'clock tour and then had a little wait before it started. The tour took about 40 minutes visiting the Crypt, the Rotunda and the National Statuary Hall. There are lots of statues dotted about as each of the states gets to submit two each to display. The guide, Elizabeth, was very knowledgeable, although we did feel that there was less information than last time we were here, as we remembered something about the whispering gallery. We wondered if it was much less busy last time - there seemed to be about 6 concurrent groups this time.

Because we were unable to take any food or drink in with us, we ended up visiting the Capitol Building cafe for some lunch. We shared a slice of pizza, caesar salad and drink and then had some cake. It was nice and not too expensive. We dropped by the shop and bought a new badge and a Christmas decoration that was made from the old marble steps of the Capitol Building. We then headed on to the Library of Congress, opting for a self guided tour. We looked at the Gutenberg Bible and some old maps that were gifted by Germany. We also saw some objects belonging to the native people that pre-dated the formation of the USA. We also went up to the gallery overlooking the reading room a couple of times - it's a pretty epic room and features in the film National Treasure. Leaving the library, we walked around the front of the Capitol Building and down the National Mall towards the Natural History Museum.

There was a queue to get in the Natural History Museum as again you have to go through security. Once in we had a wander about. It does seem to have changed a lot over the last few years. We had a look at the special narwal exhibit and we also walked through the mammals section and saw the collection of dinosaurs. It was all pretty interesting but time was marching on again and just coming up to 6pm. We decided to get the free bus back, but it did involve walking down the National Mall to get to the stop. We went to Capital Burger for tea which was a few minutes from the hotel. Back at the hotel, we had a chance to look at some of the photos and update the journal before calling it a night. We've decided to go to the zoo tomorrow!