Day 15

Chrissie here-

Today we slept in, because we had a late night the previous night.

Our plan was to go to the beach, but we decided instead to find the elusive Hollywood sign. I googled the best place to view the sign. In the good ol' days, people could hike up to the sign; but apparently that isn't possible anymore. The only way to view the sign is to see it from a distance. We drove to Hollywood, then entered a neighborhood situated near the Hollywood Reservoir. According to our google info, this area is the closest place by car to see the Hollywood sign. I've been to L.A. twice before, and not until today did I see the sign so well. We took a lot of pictures; although the overlook was in a residential area, apparently a lot of other tourists had googled this spot as well. We were definitely not the only ones there.

After this, we were hungry so we found a Del Taco. Mike had been wanting to try this restaurant chain, which is kind of like Taco Bell. Now, as many of you may or may not know, Mike and I LOVE Taco Bell. So, Del Taco had some stiff competition. And, unfortunately, Taco Bell still wins. Del Taco wasn't bad, it was just kind of boring in my opinion.

After lunch, we made our way to the La Brea Tar Pits.  This is an area in Hollywood where many fossils have been found. The tar pits are right next to the museum, which houses all of the fossils that have been recovered. A little info on the tar pits: Throughout the area there are naturally forming tar pits that have existed for thousands of years. Throughout these years, many animals have fallen into the tar pits and have been unable to get out. The tar acts as a kind of quicksand, trapping the animals and pulling them under. The tar preserves the animal bones, making it an ideal location for excavating bones. Although they don't contain dinosaur bones (the tar pits formed many years after the dinosaurs became extinct), there are many other animal bones that have been recovered, like saber tooth tigers, dire wolves, and mastodons. They have even recovered one human, obviously not a human as we know them today, but an ancestor. It was neat to see the actual tar pits in the middle of this huge city, which are still active today!

We came home and I took a nap for a few hours while Mike surfed the internet. At around 7:30, we decided to go to dinner at a sushi place called Hama that my friend Justin recommended. It was by far one of the best sushi places I've ever been to. We had three different rolls: the Hama Special Roll, the Dragon Roll, and the Strawberry Roll.

I know you may be thinking, Strawberry Roll?? But it was very good; there were strawberry pieces on top of the roll and shrimp tempura inside. Very delicious. Then we walked down Abbot Kinney and stopped at a bar called The Brig for a drink. We called it an early night and walked home after that.

One more note: The weather at night has been fantastic! Tonight it was in the 60s, it was good walking weather. Our apartment doesn't have air conditioning, which I thought would be a problem when we first got here, but at night with the windows open our place really cools down. It's nice.

Be back tomorrow!