The City and the Stars: Los Angeles

 “It’s [Los Angeles] mostly full of nonsense and delusion and egomania. They think they’ll be young and beautiful forever, even though most of them aren’t even young and beautiful now.” - Christopher Hitchens

We were in LA for 8 hours, so I opted to take a tour of the homes of the stars.  Pretty hokey, so of course there I was!

Riding around Hollywood and Beverly Hills in a 12-passenger, open-air bus, of course we could not see very many actual homes.  It was more like: that’s Paul McCartney’s chimney; that gate leads to a neighborhood with multiple stars.

What was clear from what we could see, and rather surprising, was how close together these homes are.  Even the sprawling mansions had neighbors only a few feet away.  The attached photo is of Tyler Perry’s home—note how close the next mansion over is.  

 Indeed, many homes on such storied streets and Coldwater Canyon or Sunset Blvd are as close together as the ones in my own neighborhood, which many a house hunter had decided against because of that very factor.

And some of the homes were not as big as one might have expected.  But, thinking about real estate prices here and the high population density, the closeness and relative modesty of some homes makes sense. 

Some juxtapositions of homes are sweet or ironic.  Sweet:  Carrie Fisher lives right next door to her mother, Debbie Reynolds (and their houses are barely a foot apart).  Ironic:  Elvis’ last home in LA is directly across the street from the house where Michael Jackson, briefly the husband of Elvis’ daughter, last lived.

OK, so it was an afternoon-killer at a brief port stop. Today, we are en route to San Francisco, where our “pre-cruise cruise” will come to an end. Tomorrow, we will say goodbye to many of our friends from this cruise, and the approximately 350 people who will be on the “world cruise” will board.  About 35-40 of that group are already on for this Panama cruise.

PS: to my east coast friends and family: please stay warm and safe.  I’m thinking about you (and not even gloating).

Up next: San Francisco