L.A. – Day 2 – June 6th, 2008
Today we went out on “Roozbeh’s tour” of USC. Campus was pretty quiet, as we’re already into the summer session, but we did run into a number of people he knew. He was a very good tour guide and asked all of them “If you could do it again, would you go to USC for film school?” One girl gave me a very long speech about the benefits of going or trying to make it on your own in certain situations. It can certainly be done either way, but well, I’ve already made up my mind to go. The general consensus was “yes” anyway, so if I had been really conflicted I’d have my answer.
I didn’t take many pictures around campus, just the one above because it looked cool, the one at the fountain of Roozbeh looking pensive, and the one below because I haven’t quite shaken off my librarian spirit (I had one without Roozbeh too, but I like this one). It was certainly a beautiful library — lots of marble. It reminded me of some of the grand old buildings at Temple. And in the basement was their film library. We watched a number of pretty good thesis films (though Roozbeh has been telling me for years how much thesis films suck, so maybe I was just expecting the worst!) and on the way out got free cookies. Why? I have no idea, but there were a bunch of people having some sort of reception in the hall, so we grabbed and went.
We went to Shamshiri Grill on Westwood so Roozbeh could introduce me to Persian food. Delicious! I’ve always avoided kebobs, I guess because I figured it couldn’t be too much different from the kebobs we always made on the grill at home during the summer, but wow, yes, saffron and other Persian spices make all the difference. My stomach is rumbling thinking about the chicken barg and koobideh I brought home.
After dinner we drove through UCLA’s campus (sorry, USC, they’ve definitely got you beat on landscaping). We considered getting out and walking around, but neither of us had any idea where the film buildings were, and the sun was setting, so we decided to drive along the Pacific Coast Highway instead. I don’t know if it’s the water quality that makes it look different (though I can’t imagine L.A. has cleaner water than the Jersey shore) or if I just haven’t gotten up early enough to see sunrises over the ocean, but the water looked electric, so many cool shades of blue and pink.
We also took a side trip onto one of the roads that go up into the hills and looked at some very pretty Hollyweird residences. More interesting than those were the burnt down house we checked out, and a very out of place teepee at the bottom of a ravine which freaked Roozbeh out (I had to assure him that we had more to worry about from security guards than from Malibu Indians living in teepees ;)).
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