(Maddie) Parents' Week - Part 2

Monday, I had to work, so my parents tooled around Malibu. Lucky stiffs:) Tuesday was a delightful day. I took my parents to the Getty Center, of which I have already written extensively. We spent most of our time in the amazing garden, but gave a fair shake to each of the art galleries. The looked like it would turn into another gorgeous evening, so we thought we would give the Griffith Observatory another shot. SUCCESS! *just like Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory* We found a parking space in the overflow along the road. If required a little bit of a trek, but we got there in time to see the sun set and saw the "Hollywood" sign in the distant mountains. We quickly aquired tickets to the Planetarium show in a few hours and then went about our business. The building itself was built during the Great Depression, utilizing the Art Deco style. We had a great view of Los Angeles that would only get better as the sky dimmed. We thought the line looked really short to the telescope, so we got there just in time to see them switch from Venus to Saturn...and I was the first one to see it! Score! As I was waiting for my parents outside, I realized that we had accidently cut in line, which extended through the terrace. I felt kind of bad...but not really. No one told us that we cut. Also, it looked like everyone was just looking over the scenic view, not waiting in line. Their fault, not mine;). The sunset was beautiful. We tooled through museum and saw the Tesla Coil, the Pendulum, typical elementary science / physics displays...Then, we went to the Planetarium show, which was freaking awesome. It reminded me of how small we actually are in the Universe. After we got out, we looked out to L.A., which glittered like a pile of jewels on a black velvet cloth, stretching for miles. By the way, one of my favorite movies - The Rocketeer - was filmed at the Observatory. It was a wonderful, fun-filled day. If you are ever there, you need to visit Getty and Griffith:) They are both worth your time.

Wednesday - second-to-last day at my internship. My parents visited the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. On Thursday, we ventured out to the La Brea Tar Pits. I was expecting dinosaurs, but no. The tar pits did not form until the ice age...*raspberry* It was still pretty awesome, though. There was one major tar pit, which reminded me of the Bog of Eternal Stench in Labyrinth. Methane gas and tar balls bubbled up everywhere. The museum needed some updating, but they had a lot of full skeletons from the Ice Age. There were some smaller pits which were being excavated. Some of the mini-pits were only 2 feet wide, but still had fences around them;) As a part of their interactive exhibits, they removed some tar from the pits and put it in a plunger thingamajigger. When you pull the plunger, you got to see how powerful the suction is. As we were leaving, we noticed that a movie crew had set up to film a scene from NCIS: Los Angeles next to the big tar pit. Everyone flocked to be a part of the extras. We fled the scene after observing it for a few minutes, not wishing our faces to be part of the background.

I will write up a post about my last day (Friday) at the production office and our trip back to the Mitten in the next few days. Again, I must subject you to suspenseful waiting. Poor you.