TOURIST DAY IN LOS ANGELES, Part 1

We've been trying to have lunch with Andrew for the last several weekends, and it finally worked out this weekend.  It was a beautiful day to be in Los Angeles:

We had arranged to meet at a new (to us) vegan restaurant in an area of LA known as Little Ethiopia.  I love the juxtaposition of the neighborhood sign for Little Ethiopia and the billboard ad for the new movie about Abraham Lincoln:

Our destination was Rahel Ethiopian Vegan Cuisine at 1047 S. Fairfax Avenue:

A sign in the window quoted a Los Angeles Times article dated October 18, 2007: "Rahel takes the vegetarian-friendly mantra of Little Ethiopia to the extreme with a totally vegan menu.  Feel your intestines glow as you consume healthful injera, spoonfuls of yefasolia wot (mixed vegetable stew) and sip a weirdly delicious besso, a natural barley drink, at this totally vegan restaurant."

There were four or five signs like this one from different years in the window:

The menu looked really good, but it was tough to pass up the all-you-can-eat lunch buffet for just $10.95:

The interior was open, light, and clean, and at 11:30 a.m., we were the first customers of the day:

I loved the silky umbrellas hanging from the ceiling:

The food was wonderful--colorful, flavorful, and so healthy!  That is strawberry mango juice on the right.  I would go back just for another glass of that, although at $5.50, it was a bit pricey.  My first trip through the buffet is pictured below. The grayish roll on the plate is injera, a spongy, crepe-like bread made from teff flour. Just unroll, tear off a piece, and pinch it between your fingers to scoop up your food. Eating with your fingers is pretty fun (although a fork is also provided).

Here is round two:

Yes sirree, my intestines were definitely "glowing." I could eat like this a few times a week.  The nice thing is that almost all of it is also fat-free.  Totally healthy.

I noticed a few more plugs for the vegan lifestyle on our way out:

Our time with Andrew and Lauren was short because Andrew had to go hear his boss give a lecture at MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art), so we were on our own with a long afternoon ahead.

Yeah, I was incredibly stuffed, but right across the street was Hansen's Cakes.  With a little extra time on our hands, how could I pass up this rare opportunity?  After all, who knows when we might pass this way again?

Clockwise from top left: marble cake with chocolate/vanilla buttercream swirl frosting; chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting; chocolate with chocolate buttercream and chocolate chips; lemon with lemon/raspberry swirl frosting.

Oh yeah, that's the ratio of frosting to cake that I like:

Bob had another destination in mind, so we weaved our way through downtown. It was nice to be in Los Angeles when the traffic wasn't so overwhelming and we could enjoy the diversity of this complex city:

This picture and the one below were taken fairly close to Andrew's apartment in Koreatown

Southwestern School of Law

Note the palm trees growing on the roof on the left, and the flag pattern on walls of the LA Medical Center on the right

I took the picture below in Sage Organic Vegan Bistro where Bob stopped to get some take-home food. (Hey, there isn't a lot of any good vegan food in Redlands.)  We've been here a few times with Andrew and have admired their "paintings" made with pieces of shale.  This one is my favorite.  The couple looks like they have jumped out of a plane.  The title is "Commitment," which makes me smile, but the subtitle ("what the hell") makes me laugh.  

We were finally on our way home when we passed the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels (aka the Los Angeles Cathedral, or COLA for short), the church for over four million Catholics in the Los Angeles area.  I said, "Bob, some day I want to go there."  Bob said, "How about now?" and veered into the right lane just in time to exit. Bob is pretty fun that way.

More about COLA in a future post.

POETRY AND ART: LORELEY

Photo of Loreley from Wikipedia

When I looked for some information on the Loreley Rock in the Rhine Gorge for my last post, I was surprised by the amount of art that it has inspired. Here is a sampling:

LORELEI
by Sylvia Plath, American poet,1960
(Note: This poem seems to foreshadow Plath's death by suicide in 1963)

It is no night to drown in:

Lorelei by British painter John William Waterhouse, 1900

A full moon, river lapsing
Black beneath bland mirror-sheen,

The blue water-mists dropping
Scrim after scrim like fishnets
Though fishermen are sleeping,

The massive castle turrets
Doubling themselves in a glass
All stillness. Yet these shapes float

Up toward me, troubling the face
Of quiet. From the nadir
They rise, their limbs ponderous

With richness, hair heavier
Than sculptured marble. They sing
Of a world more full and clear

Than can be. Sisters, your song
Bears a burden too weighty
For the whorled ear's listening

Here, in a well-steered country,
Under a balanced ruler.
Deranging by harmony

Beyond the mundane order,
Your voices lay siege. You lodge
On the pitched reefs of nightmare,

Promising sure harborage;
By day, descant from borders
Of hebetude, from the ledge

Also of high windows. Worse
Even than your maddening
Song, your silence. At the source

Of your ice-hearted calling --
Drunkenness of the great depths.
O river, I see drifting

Deep in your flux of silver
Those great goddesses of peace.
Stone, stone, ferry me down there.

~1960

THE LORELEI

by Heinrich Heine, German poet, 1823

Eduard Jakob von Steinle, The Lorelei, 1864

I wish I knew the meaning,
A sadness has fallen on me.
The ghost of an ancient legend
That will not let me be.
The air is cool in the twilight
And gently flows the Rhine;
A mountain peak in the setting sun
Catches the faltering shine.

The highest peak still gleaming
Reveals enthroned in the air,
A Siren lost in her dreaming
Combing her golden hair.
With golden combs she caresses
Her hair as she sings her song;
Echoing through the gloaming
Filled with a magic so strong.

The boatman has heard, it has bound him
In throes of desire and love.
He's blind to the reefs that surround him,
He sees but the Maiden above.
And now the wild waters awaken
Then boat and the boatman are gone.
And this is what with her singing,
The Lorelei has done.

Loreley, J. M W. Turner,  English Romantic landscape painter, 1817

Another Loreley, J. M W. Turner, 1817

CASTLES ON THE RHINE

About mid-way through our time with the ten of us together, we spent an afternoon cruising the most scenic area of the Rhine River.  Perched on the hills overlooking the the 40 mile stretch between Rudesheim and Koblenz are about two dozen medieval castles of varying sizes and in varying states of restoration. This entire segment of the river is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The passage took a couple of hours, and during that time we were hardly ever out of sight of at least one castle, if not two or three. Built by minor princes, the castles originally served as places where trading ships had to stop and pay a fee before continuing their journeys.  Build a castle, tax the passersby, make yourself rich--not a bad gig for the Middle Ages.

Many of the castles were destroyed in later wars, but when all things medieval were in vogue in the 1800s, a fair amount of restoration work went on.  Today, most of the castles have a practical function, from serving as museums to bed and breakfasts to schools.

Unfortunately, it was a rainy day, and so while Bob braved the elements on the top deck, I mostly stayed indoors and savored the panoramic view available through large windows on the upper deck. If my pictures look a little fuzzy, it's because I took them through the glass.  However, since I didn't want to get wet, and since drinks and snacks were served in the lounge, I figured I could put up with a few foggy photos.

Reichenstein Castle, 11th century

Sooneck Castle, 11th century

Furstenberg Castle, 1219

Stahleck Castle, 12th century

Pfalzgrafenstein Toll Station (red and white building on left on water's edge) and Gutenfels Castle on top of hill on right

Gutenfels Castle, 13th century

Schoenburg Castle, 12th century, known as "the most beautiful refuge of the Rhine romanticism"

Schoenberg Castle again, on hill at left

About mid-way through this section is the Loreley, a 400-foot-tall rock looming over the narrowest part of the Rhine River Gorge.  The river bends here, and legend has it that a beautiful woman named Loreley waited on this rock for her lover, but when he didn't come, she threw herself into the Rhine and died.  Her spirit returned to wait on the rock, where for centuries she has sat combing her long blonde hair and singing to entice the sailors passing by to come closer. When they do, their ships crash into the rock and they are killed, giving Loreley her sweet revenge.

Castle Katz, 14th century, perched atop some amazing terraced hills

Rheinfels Fortress, 13th century

Maus (Mouse) Castle, 14th century

Marksburg Castle, 14th century (now a museum that we stopped to visit--see future post)

No wonder so many writers and musicians and artists have immortalized the Rhine River. It is magical.