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Hello from L.A.!
Since the last blog entry a lot has happend...
We had a really nice farewell party for Linda. From the Embassy joined Terhi and Katja and then Lindas flatmates Carina (Brazil) and Maria (Spain). We had loads of good food and we finnish girls ended up to drink a lot of wine and Cava too. We talked until 2:30 and then it was time to head for the night life. We ended up in a pirate night club and it was so much fun to get to dance again!
Next morning was a bit slow ;) but in the evening after some junk food we felt good again and enjoyed a realy nice concert in the royal park. It was fusion between flamenco and arabic music and sooooo nice. The setting was also pretty with the royal palace lighten in the background.
Next morning we did some hard core shopping in Rastro. On sundays the small allies in old latino town gets filled with small stands that sell all from fleemarket stuff to clothes, bags, jewelry and what ever you can come up with. It is realy crowded and realy cheap and me, Linda and Terhi enjoyed and all found something to buy. After some shopping we were worthy a good lunch and some heavenly cheescake. On our last evening, after packing and fixing we tok a last walk in the Retiro park. It is a carnival like feeling there. BAnds that play drums, people dance, clowns, Disney figures, fortune tellers, Asian massage, performances etc. Spanish people take everything out of Sunday too. In Finland it's a day that we allready worry that Monday is tomorrow and just stay home making domestik work...we should learn from Spanich and make Sunday a fun day!
On Monday morning when Linda left to work I took the Metro to the Airport and in front I had about 16h hours of travel. The first 8,5h flight to Toronto went well. I had a small screen and movies on demand system and had a chance to se Kung fu Panda (Loved it!) and Prince of Caspian (Narnia) and some other movies. Got so film addickted so I didn't have time to sleep:) Then I tought I had a lot of time to change in Toroto (almost 3 hours...) But what a cue! The immigration and customs to USA was allready done in Toronto so I had to take my bags and go trough customs with them...the cue was looooooooong and took for ever. A lady in front was letting the realy busy ones go first... She keept on shouting 5:30 departures can go now....5:38 departures can go now... An I was still in the cue wen she shouted 18:00 departures can go now and then I got pass the line and trough the customs and then I run down to the gate and made it. There was some others in the cue with me stressing to get to the same flight and when I passed this family in the air plane we hyrrayed for getting there:D
I didn't get any sleep on the second flight either, so Andy found a very tired but happy Linda on the L.A. airport. It was so nice to get picked up and we drowe to the Super 8 Motel where we stay.
On Thuesday we went to the huge SIGGRAPH fair/festival, of course after having a pancake heaven for breakfast :). An I was in 3D heaven. So much stuff, from companies and exhibitors, this thing is huge! An the art exhibition part where Andy is Exhibiting is very intresting too. One of my favorites was a interactive pillow where you can se dreams displayed and navigate in them trough moition sensors. There were also everything from robotics to motion capturing and 3D printers to new hologram technology. And a lot of program. Like the FJORG! competition that seamed so much fun. Teams that had 32 hours time to complete a 45 sec animation and they where working with almost no sleep, still it seamed they had a lot of fun. And they had top animators from Dreamworks and Disney visiting them and giving them tutoring...and some shaoli munc and samba performances...we saw the animations on Wednesday and some of them where realy good...but the best thing was that it look like they all had a lot of fun whit their viking helmets on!
On Thuesday we also visited the Getty Center. You propably know Getty Images. The same man hwo has this company made a lot of money when he sold oil to Germany in the second world war...with this "blood money"(he was a jew) he built a cultural center in the Santa Monica Hills. It is a very impressive place. You get upp there with a own tram and there are several exhibitions. We lookt at two photo exhibitons. But the buildings and the arcitechture and the gardens are beatuiful too, and of cource a nice view over L.A. And of course in the evening we celebrated Andys birth day relaxing in the jacuzzi and in the swimming pool of our motel. And then we had romantic take away chineese food.
Wensday was Animation festival day. We had passes for one day to the SIGGRAPH Animation festival. I sat the whole day with round eyes in the Nokia teather waching short movies, school retrospectives, game trailers, eye candy, demo scenes so much amazing stuff. It was the best day for me. And of course everything was showed in the full equiped Nokia theater:) It was a very inspiering day! Andy was also busy meeting people from the Austrian embassy and beeing official, but he had time to join me for some Animation too. In the evening we were super tired and just falled a sleep waching TV.
Today we had an other look at the exhibition at SIGGRAPH and then we had a nice lunch in Santa Monica. We also enjoyed the beach for a couple of hours and played in the big waves of Pasific ocean. When a small rain clowd came up on us we travelled trough 2 hours of traffic back to our motel and continued our play in our sdswimming pool. Now it's dinner time and I have to finish up coz Andy is getting hungry:) and me too!
Tomorrow is our last day at L.A. and SIGGRAPH and then we start our road tripp and head first towards Grand Canyon!
Ciao!
-Linda-
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