Big Ben
Chunnel  
Colosseum
CN Tower
Eiffel Tower
Empire State
Golden Gate
Grand Canyon
Great Wall
Hoover Dam
Lng Twr Pisa
Mt. St. Michel
Mt Fuji
Niagara Falls
Pyramids
Parthenon
Petra
Statue Liberty
Stonehenge

Los Angeles
CITY OF ANGELS, STARS, SUN
Of the 50+ cities I've visited on the tour, Los Angeles is the baby, so it's Wonderlight.  Ironically, thanks to Hollywood, LA has worldwide cultural influence-- exported to every country visited-- called movies. 
The Hollywood sign used to be advertising for Hollywoodland, until the LAND caught on fire.  It's the most-known LA landmark with the least tourist hype:  no gift shop, observation deck, or postcards nearby cause it's in a mansion-neighborhood.

After starting this EuroMediterranean leg of my WOW tour in Cairo, then trekking through Athens, Rome, the rest of Europe, London, New York, and L.A., I realize I've traced the arc of Western Civilization (well, except I took 3+ months instead of 3000+ years.)  Still in ancient mode, I see if I can find..

(Not-so) Ancient LA 
I decide to do Los Angeles with the same tourist-attitude I've been used to.  Except I have two distinct advantages:  1)  I know where things are.  2) I'm familiar with traffic patterns, which is key.  While the weather is constant in LA (usually 75 and sunny) it's the weather than changes wildly by time-of-day, day-of-week.  A trip that usually takes 20 minutes with no traffic can take an hour with traffic. 

LA's a fun city to tour through, because almost every neighborhood and landmark has been featured in a movie.   But looking for Wonder-style ruins -- like the spires and statues, columns and castles I've been honing in on for the past three months -- is more difficult.  Or is it?  Well, I do find 'em.  Just in a different form....stay with me on this one as we do an LA-as-ancient city tour...

Gothic Spires: Mann's Chinese Theater, which started the Hollywood movie opening hoopla, definitely qualifies.  Check out those Gothicesque points!  It was just renovated and is even more popular.
And hey look, we've even got Wonder Woman - pretty cool for a Wonders of the World tour.

Columns:  The Disney El Capitan movie theater has an adjacent activities building with columns, one of the few building that does.  Nice Ionic columns too, like on the second floor of the Colosseum!
Disney's El Capitan theater plays only Disney movies on its single large digital screen.  Great resolution you can almost touch.  After the movie, you can go next door to the columned activities building, which had fun movie-related activities like video games and stage shows.

Castle:  The Magic Castle, located just a block up from the Hollywood Strip, is a private dinner and performance club for LA's magicians.
Yes, that's right, while Europe has its elite classes, Manhattan has its Ivy League private clubs, in LA, the magicians have their own private club.  A friend of a friend of mine is actually a professional magician, so he got me in.  It's fun to wander around seeing different magic shows in the three rooms.  And the men's bathroom urinals talk, making fun of you.

Statues. I drive by a statue shop in Beverly Hills, which has hundreds of Greco-Roman copies. Guess you gotta fill the mansion's backyard with something.

Domed Buildings: The new Grove mall definitely counts. I was wondering why LA doesn't have Eurocities' town squares.  The I realize: LA has them: they're called malls. And since this is LA, every mall has a theme (except the Beverly Center - which nobody goes to - see.). The Grove is the only mall in LA that doesn't have a palm tree, cause it's classy Italian-themed.  There are even bathroom attendants.

Cathedral spire.  Fox Westwood wins here: There are some church cathedrals in town, but the Fox Westwood spire is most visible because, heck, it glows with neon at night.  Hollywood premiers happen here; my brother saw George Clooney and the Ocean's 11 gang here.

Arches Paris has the Arc de Triumph, Rome has Titus' Arch and Athens has Hadrian's Arch.   Thanks to Paramount, LA has a double arch. Skip the Paramount studio tour, it's not as exciting as in Crocodile Dundee in LA Amphitheater: Hollywood Bowl.  After a weekend day at the beach, Los Angelenos head to the Bowl for evening outdoor concerts, often featuring orchestras playing movie music.    The Greeks win on architecture skills tho.  While you can supposedly hear a pin drop in Atlanta's first Olympic stadium thanks to great built-in acoustics, they had to install those spacey globes in the bowl to bounce out sound.  Tryouts:  Living in LA, you hear random radio casting calls for reality TV shows. I've tried out for Survivor 3.  Didn't make it, so I decided to satirize (now there's a word I haven't used in a while) LA living in this Survivor LA Flash video I made. Beaches Critics complain LA lacks parks, but who needs 'em when you have miles of free clean wide sandy beaches?  Here are 16 beach sports: The Santa Monica Pier has been in dozens of movies.  If there's a pier or amusement park scene, chances are it was shot here.  You can fish here.
Rollerdancing to boombox blasting on Sundays at Venice Beach. Baywatch was filmed here.  My Santa Monica Friday Night Skate group is just 30 people, not the thousands I saw in Paris.   At Muscle Beach gym, buff bodybuilders work out outdoors to get a tan and show everyone how well they've been workin' out of course Volleyball competition at Hermosa	Wide bike paths for biking Pick-up rollerhockey games every weekday after work.  Grab your stick and join in Tony Hawk, watch this.  Skateboard loop at a competition at Hermosa Beach Walking at sunset (Laguna Beach).  I took this photo as is, no filter, no Photoshop, just a lot of patience waiting for the sun to set.
After the work out, the beach goers chill out at the bars on Hermosa Beach.

Julia Roberts shopped on Rodeo in Pretty Woman Beverly Hills 90210 The home of million-dollar celebrity homes. Tobey McGuire just bought a $4m+ house here with his Spiderman money, and Jennifer and Brad bought an $8 m mansion so their baby could have more play room.  Most famous: Aaron Spelling's 30+ room mansion and Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion.
Beverly Hills is featured in Beverly Hillbillies, Beverly Hills Cop, Down and out in Beverly Hills, and Beverly Hills 90210.	This home probably doesn't belong to a celebrity, cause most celebrity houses are hidden behind big gates and hedges.  So good luck trying to see them on the celebrity house tour.

Los Angeles Personalized License Plates Just like you can learn about ancient cultures from their cave paintings and hieroglyphics, you can learn about Los Angeles culture from vanity personalized license plates.  Within the week that I'm back, I notice several reflecting its "only in LA" lifestyle.  Note that the heart and star are OK in California.  C F U CN TRNSL8:
FUN IN THE SUN 2 LAFF MAK U LF 2XRCIZ KIKBXR1 HANDSME MR GQ LA BEACHN7 SUPAST LIFE ACHIVER ALOT2DO LEGLUVR DA FLAV 2 US BABY PS U 2 B IN IT  WEST SYD SHUZAM WHMSCL S PWR WEST HOLLYWOOD BOY TOY AM I STR8	CAR LOVERS 1 FLY BNZ 1 GR8 BNZ Z8 LADY 1 TUF ROC XTERRAS 1 BOXSTR LA JOBS LIPO MD STOMC DR LV 2 WRYT DNC TV BOY CELEBRITY LOVERS B BOOPER 2 U2 FANS ISAAK FN WE ARE FAMILY CUTE MOM LOUD SIS SUPR MMY  HOLY RELIGION! TRST HIM U2RHOLY

Theme Parks
LA's a great base to visit SoCal's seven or so theme parks, all located less than an hour away. The majors:

• Disneyland and California Adventure.  My mom and I visited California Adventure a month after it opened.
• Six Flags. My friends Dan, Jen, Mike and Viki visited the roller coaster intense Six Flags Magic Mountain a few years ago, a half-hour north
• Universal Studios is right in LA, and the newly expanded Universal City Walk features movies, IMAX, restaurants, dance clubs and even a pool hall and bowling alley
• Knotts Berry Farm its much more than just jam, expanding its rides and attractions with Ghost Rider and the Snoopy gang.

Arts
I missed Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum, so to get my Gehry groove on, I stop by the under-construction Disney Concert Hall.  Like Barcelona's Sagrada Familia, construction has stalled cause they ran out of money.  But hopefully unlike the SagFam, they'll finish it in less than 50 years.

Museum of Contemporary Art
My friend Louise works at the MOCA, so still in museum mode I head downtown to check out the visiting Andy Warhol exhibit.   Andy's famous Campbell soup cans and Marilyn Monroes are there, but none of the huge commercial art collages I saw back in one of Madrid's museums' visiting exhibits.  It's especially cool to see his Mona Lisas and Statue of Liberty pieces having just seen the real things.

Museum of Natural History
I check out the visiting exhibit Voyages (appropriately enough), which describes several English seafaring explorers.   Hans Sloane's specimen collections became the basis for London's famous British Museum I had just seen in London.  I'm a bit jealous of the 15th century British explorers who lived when "Explorer" was a job occupation.   I wonder how'd that'd look on my resume....A second visiting exhibit describes explorer Shackleton's race to the South Pole.  Too bad Norweigan Amundsen beat him, thanks to his sturdy ship Fram-- which I boarded at the Fram Museum in Oslo. 

Summer Fun
The weekend of July 14 is a doubleheader for summer events.  The Lotus Festival at Echo Park features Asian food, performances, martial arts, and merchants.  The sparser Bastille Day at the Pacific Design Center lets local Francophiles eat crepes.

I had never seen lotus plants until seeing these in Echo Park, just minutes from downtown LA of all places.

NIGHTLIFE
WOW Dinner-LA
I meet up with LA friends to catch up on the past 3+ months.  Appropriately, we eat dinner at World Cafe in Venice.  Since I've basically been documenting my trip all along, we skip the "How was the trip?" and go straight to the uh, more sensitive stuff I didn't post.

I met these two at an Oscars after-party

The new Hollywood and Highland complex finally gives tourists somewhere to hang out when they come to Hollywood.

What do Sharon Stone, Mickey Mouse and Tommy Lee Jones have in common?  Their Walk of Fame stars are right next to each other in front of Mann's Chinese Theater.

The Library Tower building is the tallest  in LA - You know it as the building the aliens blew up in Independence Day.  This is 1 of 2 photos on this page taken in Downtown LA - quite different from other cities with many downtown photos

This dome top now reminds me of the churches in Santorini.  The building is trendy Eurochow, where celebrities used to have their after-premiere parties.

This Spanish domed building looks like some city hall or palace. No, it's just the Beverly Hills Police Department, featured in Beverly Hills Cop

Beverly Hills window display, tho I'm not sure what they're selling...

At the Getty Museum, the architecture and city views are better than the collection.  The white rock is travertine imported from Italy.

At an alumni picnic, I meet up with Breen and Djorf, who just moved to LA from Morocco a week ago.  I practice counting from 1-10 in Arabic with Djorf, but only remember 6 out of the 10 numbers.  

Playing some B-ball at the Venice Beach courts filmed in White Men Can't Jump

Hitting the surf at Venice, tho Manhattan Beach has better waves.

Rollerskating at Manhattan Beach.  Is it more superficial to show off your exercise physique or not to exercise, and wear baggy sweaters to hide it?

In LA, ya do what ya wanna do, like karate at Venice Beach.  You'd be the talk of the town if you tried this in London or Paris parks.

Hangliding at El Segundo Beach

Three sports here at Redondo Beach: sea kayaking, sailing, and model boat racing (small sail just above the end of the dock), just like at the Jardin de Luxemburg in Paris

Runners run on the foot path, bikers and bladers in the bike lane.

Some other SoCal plates
from a radio station contest:
Malibu lifeguard's plate

This guy owns 4 Corvettes

 
More license plates

Six Flags Magic Mountain

Just like New York's skyscrapers seem really TALL after Europe, LA's 10-lane both-direction highways seem really WIDE.  LA tourists without a guide dis LA cause they get stuck in LA traffic, which is very time of day, day of week dependent.  You need a car AND a local!

Beach promotion

More domes and a spire at the Griffith Park observatory

          
No photos in MOCA, so from  the Web

I ride the triceratops at the Museum of Natural History, while dodgin T-Rex.

Since I was just in Paris, I can look at the food booths at Bastille Day to tell how authentic the food is.  I'm happy to see they have real waffles (gaufres) at the Bastille Day festival.  Don't know who the accordian dude or T2 dudes are.

• Jenny went to Brazil earlier this year
• Her friend Flora has visited Paris
• David and Diana went to Fiji several months ago
• Chris and Louise have been flying around the U.S. visiting law schools in Chicago, North Carolina and Phillie
• Ophir's been to Western Europe, Israel, Morocco, Venezuela, the South Pacific and "Car-henge" in Alliance, Nebraska.
• My former roommate Chris spent a month traveling through Europe, and told me I had to go to Spain's Seville and Grenada, which I'm very glad I did.
• Christo has done a fair amount of off-road worldhopping
• My brother Darren and his girlfriend Candy.  Darren and I did a Mediterranean cruise, and I saw Candy in New York on this trip

Dessert
On another night, we join our neighbor Kristy at Urth Cafe for the best chocolate cake in town.

Parties
My travel bud Jeff and his roommates Tim and Hans throw a housewarming party at their kickin' beach house, so I swing by. 

Jeff, Tim and Hans did a cool 6-month world tour, and I referenced their Traveling Idiots travelogue on the road for advice. And before I left on my trip, Jeff gave me some great travel tips, everything from how to negotiate with Cairo camel guides to the Wonder of the quick-dry travel towel (it's amazing how much you appreciate a quick-dry towel when you're in a skanky hotel with a ratty or no towel! And it doubles nicely as a light-shade hung from the top bunk of a bunk bed).  

Past party photos: Dancing at the Key Club on Sunset Strip;  house parties (themed of course!)

Food
I voraciously visit LA's fast food chains I've been missing over the past months.  Note that in LA, fast food is light and healthy.  I chow down at my favorites:

• Coffee and iced blendeds at Coffee Bean, including the tasty new Coco-lime.  Beats Starbucks, and I'm from Seattle!
• Baja Fresh fish tacos (no lard/MSG) with fresh-chopped salsa
• Sushi at California Roll and Sushi - including baked sushi!
• Boba tea at a dozen places in Westwood
• In n Out Burger.  OK, not healthy but the vanilla shakes rule

Back to life, back to reality
I try to incorporate some of what I learned from traveling into my ol' daily routine:
General:

• Do local: Traveling abroad, you realize you should take advantage of what you have at home.  I plan to continue to do LA events, and go to Legoland and Joshua Tree.
• News:  After spending months with US News limited to occasional Yahoo News and $1.50 USA Todays, I realize we get exposed to a flood of news on the radio, at gym TVs, CNN etc.  It's OK, but I scan more of the international sections
• Entertainment.  Movies: In Europe, I watched Episode 2, Lilo and Stitch and Spiderman (a month post U.S. release) and checked for the weekend box office every Monday, but besides that, I have no clue about the movies that are out.  So I gotta catch up, this being LA.   TV: After being derailed off the TV track for several months,  I still haven't watched more than 5 minutes of TV the few weeks I'm back.  I have no idea what American Idol is. I do recall Dog Eat Dog. I applied for it at the open call booth at the LA Bike Tour I did just before my trip, but canceled my interview cause I had my flight to Cairo that day.  Radio: Eminem and other songs are new, but thanks to overplayed rotation, I'm up to speed on tunes in about an hour.

Personal 

• Eating: I try to eat slower.  Not Italy-slow, but at least slower than I used to eat. To taste the food.  So be forewarned: if we're eating dinner and you're ready for dessert by the time I'm just finished with my appetizers, well that's why.
• Driving: A bit weird the first minute back, but it all snaps back.  And it feels really good to drive down to Hermosa Beach with the sunroof open, windows down, blasting the radio to "Su-su-sudio." One change: Inspired by Eurowalking everywhere, I now try to walk two blocks instead of the LA standard: drive 2 blocks
• Exercise: Walking around Europe's cities is a good leg workout.  I find out that even with all the chocolates, waffles and cheese I've been sampling, I've actually lost a pound or two thanks to all the walking.  So I figure I need to hit the gym to regain lost upper body.  And they've expanded and added TVs at my gym, so I can do midnight elliptical trainer to Jay Leno.
• Classes: I'd always thought about taking extension classes at UCLA, but hadn't.  So the week I get back, I enroll in fun movie classes like "Targeting Movie Audiences in the Worldwide Entertainment Marketplace." (which would never have been offered at my college).  That's so I can figure out why Spiderman took a month to be released in Europe, while Lilo and Ep 2 were simultaneous.
• Flossing: more regularly now.  OK, OK, too much info.

What's Next
I spend July Fourth in Vegas.  And I'm putting together various trip info:  trip stats, themes, mailbag, my trip medical record, best and worst, FAQ, glossary, what happened to my stuff, and city ratings in case you're planning a trip too. 

With my Asia and EuroMediterranean legs, I've totaled 19 Wonders of the World, which I'm happy about.  Except wait a sec, 19 is a lousy number to end on.  I mean, nothing in the world is 19.   Much better to up it to 20 or 21.  So to avoid being North hemisiphero-centric, I'm checking flights to South America to hit Machu Picchu or Brazil. In the meanwhile, feel free to let me know if you stop by LA or join in on the trip!  

Dinner with Dennis Tito

This is NOT a satellite transmission photo of space tourist Dennis Tito - it was dark!

A few days after I return to LA, I attend an MIT dinner featuring Dennis Tito.  Last year, millionaire Dennis paid $20m to tag along with the Russians in space, becoming the world's first space tourist.  Dennis says, "Follow your dreams, the money will follow."  When he was a kid, he dreamed of going into space, so he became a rocket scientist (literally!) and worked at JPL for a few years.  He then decided to apply his math  to investments. He founded Wilshire Associates in Santa Monica, which made the Wilshire 5000 index and ridiculous amounts of money.  With cash, Dennis figured he could fulfill his space dream.  So he lived like a Russian for a year of training, hurdled NASA's red tape, and finally went up in space.  He shows us his space travel photos, including amazing Earth shots and video he shot while listening to opera and Beatles CDs for hours.  He says: "You haven't really lived until you've gone into space." He says we should send poets, musicians, and artists into space to capture the magical human experience of being in space, which the scientists skip.  To make it possible for more people to be space tourists, he's now trying to work with companies on commercial low-orbit space flights.  (Note: when there's a space stock boom in 20 years, bet he's making mad moola).  Hmm, now that I've seen Wonders of the World, Dennis goes and gets me thinking of going where no one's gone before...

Vball tournament at Manhattan Beach.

The Baja Fresh taco chain's motto is "No microwaves, No can openers, no freezers, no lard, no MSG."  Their fresh grilled chicken, steak or fish tacos make Taco Bell meat seem like dog food.  Baja Fresh's competitor Poquito Mas specializes in grilled burritos with mango salsa.

Japanese udon and soba noodles at Taiko are so good, Chris has his second birthday dinner in 2 days there.

Just like Baywatch!  Relaxing at the Hermosa Beach pier is popular on a Sunday afternoon

More beach promotion babes hanging out.

Time to get back into routine at the LA Fitness.  When you're exercising on the treadmills, you can see the LA-traffic through the floor-to-ceiling windows.  And of course, this being LA, this means the traffic can see you exercising.