The Adventures of Mrs Mesher: Los Feliz & Griffith Observatory (9 Oct.)

Los Feliz is a quaint and exciting place to hang out, with lots of nice cafes and bars. If you're not intimidated by the coolness of it that is. We had some lunch in a cafe and my veggie wrap was pretty amazing, definitely a place to come back to. We'd also heard that this was a favorite hang out of David Lynch's.. So we might have scared some older gentlemen with some intense staring in our search for him. But the best thing about the day was stumbling upon the Griffith Observatory. We got a shuttlebus up the steep hill to the top, were the view was incredible, including a clear view of the Hollywood sign- beats our bus tour where you practically neeeded a paparazzi zoom lense to see it. The Observatorys exhibitions is a nice small scale size with updated displays on astronomy and its history, but the best and most surprising thing there was the live show Light of the Valkyries at the Samuel Oschin Planetarium(the biggest dome in the picture underneath, inside it functions just like a ginormous cinema screen). Surprising because it wasn't really mentioned much around the Observatory. Seeing a small poster saying 'live show' with some drawings of Vikings on it, I instantly pictured a local amateur drama group, wearing blond platted wigs. What convinced me to go was that it only lasted for 30 min. And how wrong can you go for $7? Wow, was I wrong. The 'live' element was an actress with the most soothing Stephen Fry-like audio book voice, talking us through the history of the Vikings and how they believed that the stars and the Aurora(Northern Lights) were created by Gods racing across the sky in their chariots. It felt like we were being shot into space, looking up into the vast dome as it displayed shooting starts, planets and black holes, to the dramatic music from Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. Worth my $7.