44. 48 Hours in Los Angeles: Griffith Park, Griffith Observatory, Angels Flight, Grand Central Market

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It's four forty four am. I'm
at John Wayne Airport. Let me tell

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you what happened here. Dropped my
car last night here at the airport.

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I had eight forty five pm flight. Before I gave up the car,

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I checked it's the plane that's supposed
to take me home on the ground,

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so that I know this a flight
and the crew. It's been really terrible

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traveling this summer, and I've run
into situations where the equipment doesn't happen,

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or the cruise over their hours.
But okay, everything's good. The plane's

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here. So I gave back the
car. Handed back. Not too long

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before we're supposed to board. They
announced style fifteen minute delay, equipment check,

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there's a problem with the heating system
on the plane stand by, and

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then they announced that plane was no
good, but don't worry, there'll be

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another plane in an hour and a
half. Now here's what I've learned,

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and I did not know this.
John Wayne Airport s n A if you're

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flying into through Los Angeles area,
has a curfew and he can't take off

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after ten pm. We had a
scheduled departure at nine fifty five. The

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plane comes, we all board and
I'm sitting there watching people completely unable to

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put their luggage up quickly. You
know, these idiots that can't open an

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overhead and just pop a bag in. They were all on my plane,

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and I watched the clock tick tick. Then the pilot made an announcement we

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were a thousand pounds overweight, that
we're going to try and unload some stuff

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or gives some fuel. But at
the end we missed the ten o'clock curfew.

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So I have spent the night sleeping
on a bench. Luckily I had

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my ear plugs and I kind of
slept in twenty five minute fits. And

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now here's some advice for SNA.
We don't need the announcement every half hour

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at a volume of two million decibels
telling us that this is a no smoking

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facility. The year is twenty twenty
two. We know we can't smoke,

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and it completely at the airport.
We don't need this information at one thirty

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in the morning, two in the
morning, two thirty in the morning,

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three in the morning. I slept
in fits. You know, some noise

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along the way, but I'm no
issue with Hey, your job is to

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scrub the floors on the overnight and
you got a big scrubbing machine, and

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this the city's sleeping on a bench. No problem, men clean the floor.

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Good for you you. But where
I want to lose my mind is

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I just got woken up. Airport's
completely empty. A couple walks in.

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They're the first people to arrive at
the airport in the morning, and this

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airport is empty. I mean,
I had the whole facility to myself.

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I have no idea where everybody else
from my plane went. This couple shows

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up and they sit on the bench
next to me and have a conversation.

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They can completely go host themselves.
So here at ten to five people starting

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to ride for their flights. Security
is not open yet. I use my

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TSA pre and slide through. I
was so happy when I got here last

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night. I was raving about this
airport. The TSA pre line was just

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me. I just sailed through.
This was the rental car facilities are right

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across the street from the terminal.
Nice and easy. Everything about it was

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great, except for the no plane
part. Anyway, So the stupid couple

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woke me up, and now I'm
just up. My flight's not for another

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five hours, so I'm gonna wind
up getting home seventeen hours after I had

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planned. So everything here is just
terrible. All right, this episode,

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this is from I want to say
earlier today, but I guess this is

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yesterday. Now. These are my
adventures with my daughter in Los Angeles.

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So I got to kick the opening
theme. I was staying in downtown,

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stayed at the Omni, and we
went looking for Starbucks and we started walking

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around. We found some cool stuff, so let's start there. So I

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was walking around and I discovered Angel's
Flight railway, and I think I had

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read about this in the research.
Now, unfortunately for me, Angel's Flight

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will be closed approximately four to six
weeks starting May thirty first, which is

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now. During this time, we'll
be doing a major restoration on the roofing

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system of both cars, Olivet and
Sinai A dollar each way, dollar up,

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dollar down, to go up as
a dollar, to go down as

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a dollar. I love the sign
that they have. So it's a nice

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little orange and blue house here at
the top of the hill, and it

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looks like it goes down about a
block. And this looks like it would

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be a ton of fun and worth
the dollar, but not happened for me

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this time. And I'm back behind
here is some sort of atrium where it

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looks like they have concerts of such
and a bunch of restaurants, and I

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imagine on a nice day, one's
an everyday nice day, the workers come

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out and eat out here. We're
kind of a cool spot that we stumbled

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across and downtown LA. If you're
in town this week, Saturday, June

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twenty fifth, Bolaros did Nach attribute
to Augustine Alara, celebrating Mexican's golden era

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of Bolaros. That sounds fun.
Free outdoor concerts six to ten pm on

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Saturdays. Love it. There's some
stairs. Where did those stairs go?

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The big question is how do you
get out of this place? All right,

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let's we found a staircase. Let's
see what happens. So we found

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a staircase that is walking parallel to
the little train, and boy, this

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is a ton of stairs. This
is like a good what like ten flights

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of stairs? Yeah, this train
would be totally fun if we're open.

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I'm not at all upset that they're
refurbishing it, but probably definitely worth a

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dollar just for the fun of it. So it's a pretty steep angle.

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Like I said, about ten stories
over the course of one city avenue.

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So let's got quite the climb to
it. I'm part of this adventure is

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I've been four hundred feet from my
hotel for the last twenty minutes. I

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just can't figure out how to close
fit four hundred feet apparently ten stories above

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the hotel. All right, now
we're at the bottom. Oh, great

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for pictures. Look at this.
This is fun all right. It looks

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like you pay always at the top. And that explains the funny signment said

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pay to get on, pay to
get off for a dollar. If you

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have a dollar well worth it,
Angels flight, I would call the street

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and what caught my eye. Here
is a cool like open market, a

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lot of neon signs. We see
the China cafe, Chop Sewee Chow,

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Maine, Filipino rice bowls. Oh, this is cool. San Miguel draft

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beer only three dollars. Oh,
this is totally in my kind of place.

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This is awesome. Got here sandwiches, this would be wow. People

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won't be around. This would have
been great Mexican cantina. I've been tel

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Yacht Japanese cuisine. This reminds me
of some of the street markets we saw

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in France and beards roast to go, carnitas, chicken tortous. This is

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great. Wow, this is so
cool. Fuck it's old school deli classics,

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milk fish every day, sticky rice, tacos, wood fried pizza.

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Oh, this is the spot.
I love this Broad Street Oyster Company.

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And it's eight forty seven in the
morning. I imagine you come back here

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in three and a half hour and
it's back. All right, what's going

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on here? Everybody wants to get
breakfast at this guy. Let's check this

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out. So one place for the
line is the Clark Street Bakery. You

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saw this? Ah, oh excellent, Okay, the juice people get in

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their breakfast here. Okay, super
awesome. Wow, this is the Grand

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Central Markets be It's how much research
I did, But this is my favorite

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way to travel to discover things.
Why didn't we come here? We went

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to Starbucks? Why didn't we come
here? Who knew? Made my way

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to the corner of First Street and
Grand wlong past the La Philharmonic and checking

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out the music center. I would
have never thought of La as Hilly,

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But boy, I'm wrong. That's
seventy two degrees and we are baking already

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and I like the street that I'm
looking at. In your mind, if

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you imagine what you think, La
looks like. It's this street right in

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front of me, big, wide
open boulevard and palm trees and the hills

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in the background not all that clear
in the distance. This looks like a

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straight out of the music video.
This is where like what's her name Rebecca

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Black recorded try Any. I don't
know what I'm talking about. I have

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no idea what you said around I'm
old Friday was like it was this like

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young teenage girl who like randomly recorded
song and it got so popular for being

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like so terrible, but it was
so iconic that like she's like famous.

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I remember that. I do remember
that. Now walking past the La Superior

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Courthouse and I feel like an episode
of La Law is about to break out.

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We walked up a flight of stairs. We've now found a nice,

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big outdoor plaza by the Music Center, and I'm now made my way over

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to the Mark Taper Forum, which
caught my eye is a production of King

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James, a slam dunkup of play. This is neat. Let's walk around

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this. I want to touch the
water. It's so cool. Look,

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I'm pretty sure the fence is there
to stop you from doing Hello from the

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Griffith Observatory. We just parked in
the free parking. I recommend do the

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free parking, so I'm cheap.
At the bottom of the hill, it

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was point six miles uphill. That
sounds like a lot. It was fine.

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It's the boy Scout trail. Point
one miles. Won't check it out,

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Let's do it. Boy Scout trail. A bit of an incline here

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downhill. What goes down must come
up. But I saw a guy with

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a dog, and I'm like,
all right, I'm gonna check it out.

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All right. The trail was fun. I didn't go too far down.

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Do you want to get exhausted now? Walking back up to the observatory,

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I like on the ground here they
have plaques that show you the relative

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orbits of the planets, so they've
got some kids here in the center of

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the universe. I'm standing on the
orbit of Jupiter. Then when you see

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where Pluto is, it's pretty far
out. Let's walk over to Saturn one,

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two, three or five, six, seven, eight paces make of

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that way you want now. I
made it to uranus Ha and now making

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my way to Pluto and the Neptune
outpass Pluto. In this part of the

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universe, where I am in the
west terrace, where we're getting to get

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some amazing views, including one of
the Hollywood Sign. So here on the

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western deck, just a beautiful view. You can see the city, the

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downtown city of Los Angeles, the
streets that go forever, some smog off

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in the distance. As I looked
to my right at two o'clock, the

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Pacific Ocean, and if I continue
to turn around at five o'clock, over

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my right shoulder, the Hollywood Sign. Kind of cool. They have some

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markings in the ground here showing you
where to look at. Here's the major

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standstill southern moonset. Here's the spot
where the sun will set at the winter

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solstice minor standstill southern moonset, and
the springfall equinox sunset. That's fine summer,

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and here is summer solstice at sunset. And as I'm recording this on

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June twentieth, if I stand here
until the sun sets, i'll be able

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to see it. If I stand
here for nine hours, the sun would

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actually set kind of behind the Hollywood
Sign, not quite a little to the

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left, but check it out.
So but here is a really cool it's

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a statue of two wings. You
stand between the wings and you look like

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an angel. But it's also perfectly
situated, so you get the Hollywood sign

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behind. Very cool. Let's get
an Instagram reading here. Would you think

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of that for Instagram? Honestly,
it's perfect. Just annoyed people were taking

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like ten minutes to take a photo. Yeah, like, guys, you

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gotta be courteous. We were like
the people in front of us was like,

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okay, now you go with this
one, you go with this one,

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you go with this one. But
we're just crumpy people. By the

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way, I lost Angeles good public
bathroom index. They're not the cleanest,

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but they're not the worst. But
I remember when we were in Paris,

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like we couldn't find it anywhere to
go. When we did, we had

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to pay for it, which was
fine except and carrying around euro coins.

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So then I had to like figure
out how to get euro coins just to

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go to the bathroom here. I
don't know a lot of public bathrooms free

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clean and it's another story. Now
found the paid parking lot ten dollars per

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hour, do the free and walk
the point six. Yeah, my daughter

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pointed out the views walking up are
part of the fun of all this,

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so definitely don't pay to park walk
up the hill. We've walked back down

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from the observatory and I saw sign
this said bird sanctuary. I'm like,

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oh, bird sanctuary. Now that
I'm actually walking, kind it's hard.

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It's back up hill, dirt road. I don't have another hill in me.

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Bird sanctuary. It seems quite nice. I'm assuming it's this part here

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behind this chain link fence, but
kind of cook from all the walking the

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strip. But I vote heavy yes
on Griffith Park and the observatory. Definitely

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worth your time. Don't pay for
parking, go for the walk. Takes

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some picks and then it'll be a
wrap on this episode. It's now four

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hours later and I'm still at the
airport. At least I got into the

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airport lounge. To the last four
I has been less horrific. I really

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enjoyed Griffith Park. I highly suggest
you to go there. That market looked

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cool. When I come back in
a few weeks, I think I'll hit

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that market and grab some food there. All right, next week we'll hit

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the campuses of USC and UCLA.
We'll go to Santa Monica. We'll hit

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them here, we'll hit the Third
Street Promenade, and we'll drive a little

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bit up the Pacific Coast Highway.
To follow the show for free on Apple

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