Leaving La La Land

The end of my stay in LA is coming soon and this will probably be my last posting.  I have had an absolute ball here and am very sad to be leaving, although very happy to be going home for Christmas.  I shall be packing and partying for the next two days, oh and finishing the last few words of the 'great work' first draft. This blog has had over 1000 page hits (I wonder what that means exactly?) so thanks for reading my twaddle whoever you are!!

Some hidden gems of Getty art

Yesterday I discovered a part of the Getty galleries I hadn't visited before. I particularly liked three of the paintings which I've reproduced below.  They cover three of the main artistic genres -  a still life, a portrait and a landscape. I think I like all three because they are almost hyper-real representations.  Nothing too challenging or complex.  Nothing which requires great effort on my part to 'understand' them. Even the titles are straightforward. Just nice art...

Still life, tea set by Jean-Etienne Liotard, c 1781-3

Suzanne Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau by Jacques Louis David, 1804

View of Bridge and the Town of Cava, Kingdom of Naples, by Jean Joseph-Xavier Bidault, 

1785-1790

San Diego Phenomenal

On Friday we Getty Scholars went on a trip to San Diego to see the 'Phenomenal: California light, space, surface' exhibitions at three locations at MCASD. This exhibition is part of the Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA 1945-1980 series of exhibitions which are on at the moment in and around LA.  Many of the works in 'Phenomenal' use light and its interactions with materials and the viewer. My two favourite works are the ones below. Larry Bell's installation consists of a series of cleverly treated glass panels - some of which reflect and some of which transmit light. As you walk around it you move from mirror to window and so on.

Larry Bell's installation

Thanks to:  http://franklloydgallery.wordpress.com/tag/larry-bell/ for the above image.  

Bruce Nauman's Green light corridor (copyright 2010 Bruce Nauman/ Artists Rights Society ARS New York, Photo: Pablo Mason.  For more details see:http://www.mcasd.org/artists/bruce-nauman

My other favourite work was this amazing narrow green lit corridor, which you squeeze through.  At the end you come out into a space with huge picture windows overlooking the Pacific.  The interaction of your eyes with the intense green light somehow gives an explosion of pinkness as you first glimpse the ocean.

The view at the end of the Green Light Corridor - the Pacific Ocean framed by a cut-away window.

What, to my mind, is more 'Phenomenal' than all the exhibits put together is the view over the Pacific Ocean across the sandstone shore platforms of La Jolla made famous by Emery and Kuhn in their 1980 paper in Marine Geology on 'Erosion of rock shores at La Jolla, California.' It's always nice to see somewhere that features in scientific papers!

Green ruins talk delivered

This afternoon I gave my talk to the Getty on the work I have been doing here.  Called 'Green ruins?' it reviewed the ways in which we might be able to link biodiversity and heritage conservation better - focusing on ruined sites. Everyone was very polite, asked lots of questions and gave me some useful feedback.  Whilst I find it nerve-wracking giving a talk, it always helps to focus my mind on what exactly I am trying to say.  Being the Getty there were great cakes to eat before, during and after the talk - but sadly, I didn't get any as I was too busy talking!  Here are some of the images I showed:

Engraving from 1804 compared with 21st century view - from Romantic ruins to 'sterile but stable' ruin

Photo from 1909 compared with 21st century view - from 'jungle engulfing a ruin' to 'ruin covered in algal slime'

Some alternative ways in which plants, animals, microbes and soil interact with ruins and their conservation.  I must have at least one triangular diagram in every talk I give!

Alternative points on a spectrum - there's always got to be a spectrum somewhere in my talks

Chaco Canyon ruins visit

I am just back from a four day flying visit to Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.  We left LA in warm sunshine and arrived at Albuquerque in the freezing cold and snow.  Luckily, Noreen, one of my graduate students who wants to work at Chaco Canyon on the ruins there, is a demon driver in cold and rough conditions and coped brilliantly.  The sandstone 'Great Houses' and ceremonial spaces at Chaco were occupied between about 850 and 1250 AD and are the visible remains of a complex and advanced society.  Think about what was going on in England at the same time - ruined medieval abbeys and cathedrals are now also some of the few visible reminders of the medieval period in our landscape.  At Chaco, the extreme climate (hot and dry in the summer, often very cold and occasionally snowy in the winter) is causing rapid deterioration to the ruins and reburying them in soil is perhaps the only way to preserve them - which is what Noreen is hoping to study.

Chaco Canyon in the snow

Santa Anna windiness

Yesterday and today have been Santa Anna wind days, when high speed winds blast through Southern California.  Coming from inland, they are generally warm and dry and VERY strong.  Yesterday they created wild and gusty conditions, resulting in lots of damage to power lines, trees etc.  The biggest damage we experienced at our apartment complex was a number of palm fronds in the pool.  Winds reached 130 km an hour apparently, and 400,000 homes lost power.  Flights were diverted from LAX. on Saturday I am heading off to New Mexico to the Chaco Canyon ruins site with Noreen and Jen (two of my graduate students). Although the site is in a desert, it is going to be COLD and probably with showers of snow as well.  Sadly, all my cold weather gear is in the UK, so I am going to spend 3 days whingeing and shivering I suspect.

Wise words from LA

In my attempt at multi-disciplinary studies here I am learning a lot from all sorts of sources.  Today, I learnt two fascinating things from two very different people.  Firstly, the authors of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment wrote that 2/3 of the world's languages are spoken by forest-dwelling people.  What I didn't check was whether this includes people (like us in the UK) living in areas that were formerly forested, or only applies to areas such as tropical rain forests.  This map shows a visual picture of the distribution of languages in the world - each black dot refers to one language.  Looking at the map the highest concentrations of languages are definitely in tropical, forested areas.

Terralingua map of linguistic diversity

Secondly, Adrienne one of the stars of 'Real housewives: Beverley Hills' (that noted scholarly TV programme to which I have become sadly addicted) when introducing her fashion show starring her own shoes, came out with this extremely perspicacious philosophical exhortation to her audience ... 'May you find inspiration in the bigger picture, and love in the detail'.  Maybe I will have that translated into all the languages marked by the black dots in the above map as my contribution to international peace and harmony...

Why stone decay matters

Lest any of you think that what I work on is a minority sport, I should like to point you to yesterday's Observer which had the following story about Oscar Wilde's grave...

Apparently generations of fans kissing his grave and drawing on it with lipstick have caused enough damage for the monument to need intensive cleaning.  If you look carefully you'll also see the beautiful green algal colonisation towards the upper edge of the gravestone...but the Observer story doesn't seem to make any mention of that!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/nov/27/oscar-wilde-grave-paris-cemetery

Over 20,000 words...

At last I can say with more confidence that I will complete the task I set out to achieve at the Getty.  I have managed to churn out more than 20,000 words now - with at least something written for all five chapters of the short book (booklet?!)/ long article that I am trying to produce.  The last few days have seen me being quite productive, despite wonderful weather (80 deg F today and yesterday) and lots of counter-attractions.  I've been thinking about ruins so much that I fear I have turned into one...  I even read some human geography things today which is VERY worrying.  I didn't understand much of them, however, so that was reassuring. My aim is to have 30,000 words done by the time I leave.  So, I shall have to work hard over the next 3 weeks.

Thanksgiving, Viles-style...

Thanksgiving is a major holiday in the USA, to be shared with family and friends and involving a turkey.  As I am without any of those at the moment, I had to improvise.  I managed to phone my Mum and Dad on their home phone in England via Skype and had a lovely chat for 10 minutes for 18p.  How does Skype do it?!  Or are my parents really just round the corner having a sneaky holiday in Hollywood without telling me.  It wouldn't surprise me...

I've just enjoyed a home-cooked 'turkey and all the trimmings' meal, but without the turkey and jolly nice it was too.  Roasted vegetables, including a selection of 'heritage potatoes' and a few things that had been lurking in the fridge for a long time.  Lovely.  Fresh Californian strawberries to finish.  And then the moonlight swim in the pool and hot tub.  Not bad for the end of November!

View from the hot tub

Tahiti calls (but not loudly enough)

Some days are just plain weird.  I checked my emails this morning to find a last minute invitation to present a paper at a meeting in Tahiti (all expenses paid).  Sadly, the dates they wanted me (or, really to be honest, I was about their 31st choice, so the dates they wanted anyone who knows the vaguest thing about islands!!) were impossible - 2 days before I am due to leave here to return to the UK.  I must confess I did look at flights from LAX to Papeete just to see if it was vaguely possible.  At lunch I visited the 'Images of the artist' exhibition at the Getty Museum (bear with me, this honestly is relevant...) and found the most beautiful drawing below by Paul Gauguin called 'Head of a Tahitian woman'. How likely is one to be drawn to thinking about Tahiti twice in one day?  If anyone wants to go to Tahiti and deliver a paper on the geomorphology of atolls let me know and I'll put them in touch with the organisers!

Head of a Tahitian woman, Paul Gauguin, 1892, charcoal.

'Great work' starts to take more shape...

... at last the words are starting to flow onto the pages with a bit more speed, and some of them are even relevant and helpful words!  I can now start to imagine that I may well complete the 30,000 words I set myself to write by the time I leave in mid December. As it is Thanksgiving this Thursday the Getty Center grinds to a halt, which means that I will have plenty of time to sit at home in my nice apartment and write, write, write...  It's funny how frustrating a process writing can be.  You waste hours trying to compose one simple sentence, badly, and then suddenly get on a roll and beat out hundreds of really well focused words and pithy phrases with no problem at all.  My main problem is my huge ability to procrastinate and decide that I really MUST read a bit more/ tidy my pile of papers/ get another cup of coffee/ check my emails... rather than getting ON with things.  If only my students could see my now they would laugh hugely and, I hope, feel encouraged.

Getty sunsets

Now the clocks have gone back here the sun goes down just as I leave the Getty in the early evening.  On a clear day (of which there are MANY!) the sunsets can look really beautiful.  Quite uplifting.

Afghans in Pasadena

Today, I went to Caltech in Pasadena  to give a talk.  Caltech, for those who don't know, is the California Institute of Technology and is filled with incredibly intelligent students and staff.  Quite intimidating!  Being a well-resourced University, they have a car service, so I was picked up from the Getty in the morning and taken across LA.  After the talk, my lovely colleague Bethany took me for an Afghani dinner at Azeen's Afghan Restaurant.  Now that's a first for me, and very enjoyable. What we ate was remarkably like this:

VERY tasty, a sort of between Lebanese and Indian food

Getty Villa - antique meets modern

Today we had a Getty Scholars tour to the Getty Villa which is located on the hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean on the outskirts of Malibu.  It was the original site of the Getty Museum before the new one was built and was one of John Paul Getty's homes. The tour was excellent - we saw conservation in action on ancient vases and Roman silverware, and looked round the 'Modern Antiquity' exhibition which includes works by Picasso and ancient sculptures like the one below:

Head of Apollo, Roman, AD 175-200

We also had a talk by Shane Butler, a Classics scholar, on voice and meaning in Latin poetry.  My old latin teacher, Miss Trippier, would have been proud of me! I learnt a useful Latin word, 'nescioquid' which means something like 'something or other'.  Must remember to slot that into a conversation once I am back at High Table in Worcester College next term.

Lonesome Viles keeps busy

...the last Goudie has left LA and now it is just me here, all alone.  It seems VERY quiet without Andrew (and Alice) and getting into a new routine is a challenge.  I've been working hard and being quite productive, and even remembering to eat and all those things that Andrew thinks I will be unable to do without him!  This week is going to be very busy - I have trips planned to the Getty Villa, Caltech and Palos Verde.  Oh, and I'll be cramming in a bit of writing and thinking as well.

Desert days

Just back from a day and a half in the Mojave desert.  It's only about 3 hours drive away from Los Angeles but could be light years away in terms of landscape and society.  From the ritzy, hyper-manicured gardens in the district of Brentwood we drove east through LA and along the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains (with pockets of snow on the highest peaks already).  Then north through one of the mountain passes, crossing the San Andreas fault as we started to head into drier territory. Here the landscape is dominated by scrubby vegetation and lots of abandoned homesteads. We visited the Mojave National Preserve, which contains a wonderful array of landscapes (old lava flows, big sand dunes, weathered granites, salt pans).  It also hosts the California State University's desert research center at the wonderfully-named Zzyzx (pronounced zye -six).  This used to be a religious spa resort (only in California!), but now supports field courses on all aspects of desert life and landscape.

The view from Zzyzx across Soda Lake - all salt and no lake

SoCal food

Now that I am a seasoned SoCal girl (!), I am starting to try a bit more of the local cuisine. Thanks, largely, to Andrew 'I'll try anything once' Goudie.  Yesterday, we had chayote for the first time, which is a Mexican vegetable from the gourd family and looks like this:

We also tried Prickly pear for pudding, which looks like this and has amazingly blood red succulent flesh (and a whole host of black pips which are as hard as hell):

We washed these down with a glass of Californian very dry sherry.  Not sure what to try next, any suggestions?

Sun makes you smile

...while it is still cold today the sunshine was absolutely beautiful.  Stunning, in fact!  I went to 2 lectures today - one on the science behind fading of photographs in exhibitions and the other on the art of John Sloan, an early 20th century US painter and illustrator.  Two topics I knew nothing about when I went into the lectures; two topics I learnt a lot about. Viva Getty!

Rainy LA fall

Well, I think I want my money back!  I thought LA was sunny and warm year round... However, it poured with rain this morning, after having also rained on Friday. The clocks went back this weekend so it is officially fall, which may have something to do with it.  Despite this climatological set back, Saturday was a beautiful warm and sunny day and we went to Santa Monica to enjoy the pier and the shops.  Here's the weather forecast for the next few days from http://www.wunderground.com/US/CA/Los_Angeles.html - so it should get better in a few days time.

Forecast

View Calendar7-Day Forecast for 90001

Sunday, 6

63 | 47 °F

Chance of Rain

Chance of
Precipitation

80%

Monday, 7

67 | 47 °F

Clear

Chance of
Precipitation

0%

Tuesday, 8

72 | 50 °F

Clear

Chance of
Precipitation

0%

Wednesday, 9

76 | 52 °F

Clear

Chance of
Precipitation

0%

Thursday, 10

72 | 56 °F

Partly Cloudy

Chance of
Precipitation

0%

Getty Center from space

Here's what the Getty Center looks like on Google Earth.  It's the huge white castle-like building complex in the centre of the image. Because the site is on top of a large hill it casts a shadow over Freeway 405 to the right. I work in one of the buildings on the top right hand part of the site.  Just thought you should know that!


View Larger Map

Half way through...

...I can't believe it but I am nearly half way through my stay here.  I am enjoying it all so much here that I hope the second half goes more slowly so I can savour it (unlikely, but here's hoping!).  The weather is heading towards autumnal (or falling towards fall as Californians might say) and so today there were a few clouds in the sky.  I may even have to wear a coat one day soon.  In comparison with the general November weather in the UK, however, this is paradise.  Indeed, in comparison with many things in the UK it is paradise here.  Am ready to super glue myself to my desk at the Getty so that I cannot leave in mid December...

99% protests in LA

Like London, but with better sunshine and less hassle from the Church authorities, there are several anti-banking protests in California.  In downtown LA, opposite the LA Police Department, is a large but tidy encampment of tents with lots of banners and notices in support of the oppressed 99%.  One tent even had a Halloween pumpkin outside.

Downtown architectural tour

The Getty organised a whole day tour of downtown today, complete with expert architectural guide.  The diversity of buildings is amazing from a late 19th century church to a hole in the ground which is just beginning to be developed into a new art gallery. Highlights of the tour for me were the Union Station, Biltmore Hotel, new Catholic Cathedral and the Walt Disney Concert Hall.  This last building was designed by Frank Gehry and is extremely beautiful, in a 'metal wrapped around weird shapes' way.

The Walt Disney Concert Hall, downtown LA.

Downtown is a wonderful mixture of uses, peoples and vistas.  Well worth visiting, especially for Grand Central Market with its mix of cheap and tasty food stalls.

Downtown LA towers

Five thousand words and counting...

A full day of thinking and scribbling has resulted in almost 5000 words of Viles musings on linking conserving ruins with conserving biodiversity.  I say 'almost' 5000 words in perhaps a rather too optimistic fashion (I'm including a few notes, quotations and waffle), but it is starting to come together.  So what if there's about a further 30000 words to do...

Actually, I am writing the most difficult part (chapter 2) at the moment that deals with the underlying principles of different types of conservation.  First, the principles are quite complex and, second, people really make heavy weather of writing about them - making me uncertain what anything actually MEANS.    It's all quite slippery and conceptual... and I am much happier with things that are solid and empirical.

Expedition to the Queen Mary

99.999% of people in LA travel by car everywhere.  Being British and fairly terrified of driving in big cities we have managed to explore large parts of the city by public transport and/ or feet. On Friday we (that's Andrew, Amy and I) set off at 8am and, by getting a bus to Hollywood, then two metro lines to Long Beach and then a transit, managed to get to the Queen Mary just after 11 am.  The ship itself was wonderful - lots of 1930s wood veneer - and very beautiful.  But it's an odd place now - trying to serve as a hotel, events location and the venue for self-guided tours.  Somehow this mixture of uses doesn't quite work.  On the way back, we did a different route, via Santa Monica - same number of buses/ metros and another 3 hours of travel.  Total cost per person $7 for 'transportation' as the Americans call it.  A Billy bargain as we might call it....

The beautiful Queen Mary, launched 1934 (same year as my Dad was born), maiden voyage across the Atlantic to New York in 1936, retired to Long Beach in 1967.

The Great Work...

..is starting to turn into something!  After a lot of faffing around today I finally drafted  a detailed plan for each of the 5 chapters.  I now feel I have a sensible plan and all I have got to do is stick to it.  Perhaps easier said than done, but I am remaining positive (for now at least).  I've read more than enough and now just have to think hard and crank the words out.

Alligator hunting

So, my weekend in Mobile, Alabama was a busy busy one.  I was attending the 42nd Binghamton Geomorphology conference and giving a paper on 'Microbial geomorphology'.  At the start of the conference we went on a great one-day field trip to the coastal area around Mobile, including a stop at Weeks Bay where I took the photos above and below.  The water REALLY was that strange colour - the general consensus was that it is caused by humic acids or tannins coming off the surrounding bog.  I suggested it was Coca Cola.

The Coca Cola infested waters of Mobile Bay.

We also went to Dauphin Island which had been badly affected by Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina, but is now being rather more insidiously affected by human developments. Whoever allowed THIS hotel or apartment block to be built?

Beautiful Dauphin Island

Obama-watching

For the second time in 4 weeks we have spotted President Obama out and about in Brentwood, LA. The first time round we saw roughly 12 large police motorbikes followed by lots of blacked out cars rushing past the end of our street.  Later that evening the local news confirmed it was the President on his way to a fund raising event. This afternoon we noticed lots of police and fire brigade activity around the Post Office area, and eventually four helicopters landed on the nearby park, and a cavalcade of cars sped out.  Once more, apparently, he's here fund-raising.  The police operation was very slick, but all the police officers very polite and friendly as they moved the curious onlookers safely out of the way (whilst letting us still get a good view).

President Obama's car as it sped by us... we clapped and waved like idiots.  Hope he appreciated the gesture!

And the words are finally flowing...

I have finally put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard more accurately) and written 2000 words.  Not necessarily the best words, but words nevertheless!  Today I have been wrestling with issues such as 'what is a ruin?'...on which there seems no agreement and an awful lot of waffle.  I hope I have not added to this waffle too much.

Joshua Tree weekend

If you're going to go to the desert, best go when it is REALLY hot and then you get the complete desert experience.  The first day we were there it peaked at 99 deg fahrenheit; the second day it was a mere 97 deg fahrenheit.  As my brain starts to melt at 90 deg fahrenheit (sorry for the 'old style' units by the way, but that's what they use out here) I was not at my most mentally alert. I did manage to take some photos (see below), however, as well as doing a few gentle walks and scaring myself silly when I saw the sign that said 'Warning! aggressive africanized bees have been found in this area.'

What's great about Joshua Tree National park is - just about everything.  The landscape is amazing, thanks to the monzogranite outcrops sculpted over millions of years to form eccentric hills and boulder piles.  The flora is also wonderful - dominated by the Joshua Tree which is in fact a giant yucca masquerading as a tree.  And as for the animal life - we saw chipmunks, jack rabbits and even a coyote.  It felt as though we had sneaked into a Disney cartoon.

Joshua Tree in front of monzogranite boulder pile.  Nice hey?

The aptly named 'Skull rock'.  

View over the San Andreas fault - which is the straight ridge line in the middle of the plain - looking west towards the Santa Rosa mountains.  The haze is the plume of pollution from Los Angeles.

Warning heatwave

It reached 97 degrees fahrenheit today in Los Angeles.  Luckily, the Getty Center has super-efficient air conditioning, but going outside from building to building felt like walking into a furnace.  The forecast for the next week or so is up and down but more up than down, so my sparse collection of summer clothes (I packed for autumn and winter) will get very good use over the next few days.  Off to Joshua Tree National Park tomorrow (where, being inland, it will be even hotter!) to get another fix of desert landscapes.  I will report back on Sunday...

What must every Los Angelino learn about?...

...what to do in an earthquake, of course.  This evening we had our first emergency briefing at the Getty Scholar Housing Complex.  So I now know to 'drop, cover and hold' - nothing smutty about that, but rather:

Drop onto the floor
Get under cover (preferably a table)
Hold on to the table

I haven't yet practised but it seems simple enough.  Let's just hope that we don't ever need to do it for real.

LA lab life

Touring the Getty Conservation Labs this morning made me REALLY envious.  Not only do they have fantastic equipment (for example, wide-ranging inorganic and organic analysis tools such as FTIR, Raman and XRD - many field-portable as well as lab based), but they also have tremendous projects to work on.  Such as:

• applying scientific techniques to identify the plastics in Disney cartoon artwork
• using pigment identification methods to understand the work of 15th century artists and to visualise what the colours would originally have looked like
• putting antique furniture into X ray machines to spot hidden damage
• detecting hidden paintings lurking behind a Rembrandt masterpiece (see: http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=787 and my artwork of the day today)

Do science and you could end up working here helping to understand, illuminate and conserve art and architecture of all kinds all around the world.  Got to be a good option...

The wonderful world of ruins

Today, I thought it would be a REALLY good idea, as part of 'the great work' to produce a world database and map of the main ruin sites.  How hard could that be?!  My laptop almost reached meltdown by the time I had got to ruin number 189...but I still think eventually it will turn out to be a good idea.  There are ruins everywhere - Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Ireland, Thailand, Cambodia... I hope to add my world map to this blog when I have fathomed out how to produce it properly.  I feel an intimate session with ArcGIS coming on...

We survived Death Valley

Just back from a great 2 day trip to Death Valley National Park. First challenge - getting out of LA on a busy Friday afternoon driving an automatic car for the first time in a long while.  After a few near death experiences, we got the hang of it and off we went.  Two arid zone geomorphology enthusiasts HAD to love Death Valley with its tufa pinnacles at Trona, salt weathering at Badwater, reversing dunes at Mesquite Flats and gullies galore at Zabriskie Point.  How could you not love them?...

Tufa pinnacles at Trona.  This tufa formed in an ancient lake, rather like the travertine that makes up the Getty Center buildings. Could this be what the ruins of the Getty will look in 18,000 years?!

Salt pan at Badwater, Death Valley

Gullies at Zabriskie Point, Death Valley.

Thursday must be travertine day

The Getty Center is clad in travertine, an Italian limestone deposited by hot springs in the Tivoli district near Rome.  It's a beautiful stone, with lots of interesting organic remains in it - debris from plants and animals that fell into the hot spring water and became petrified.  Just thought you should know that... see the photo on the left if you don't believe me.

Artwork of the day

So, if you look down on the bottom right hand side of the blog you should find a new art image each day.  As I am based at the Getty Center, I am trying to visit and explore ONE artwork each day and then post it here.  You should be able to click on the image and get into the Getty Collection site for my information.  Today's picture is by Carpaccio (thought he was a cold meat?) and is the only painting I have ever seen displayed so that you can see both sides.  On the back of the panel is a trompe d'oiel (spelling?) of letters hanging on a string.  Why, I ask?

Progress on 'the great work'

Read 3 books today.  Thought a lot.  Ate a bit.  Played with my laptop.  Wrote one sentence - 'Ruins are nothing new' - which is how I think I am going to start my monograph on linking heritage and biodiversity conservation, with a focus on ruins. Hope the rest of it is rather quicker to write...

Wet Wednesday

...and wow was it wet today!  2-3cm of persistent rain spread over much of the day.  The Getty (which is up on a hill) was in the clouds and sopping wet.  Being the Getty, we were met from our shuttle bus by a whole pile of umbrellas.  They really do think of everything.

What am I doing here?

So, the purpose of my visit is to write a monograph called 'Green ruins: linking the conservation of cultural heritage with the conservation of biodiversity'.  The Getty Conservation Institute, where I am based, has lots of great resources for this project - notably, a great library, willing research assistants, infinite supplies of coffee and Friday donuts.  All I have to do now is WRITE...

1 week in...

...and still loving it.  I am here on sabbatical, as a Getty Conservation Scholar at the Getty Center in LA.  California gets a bit of a bad press in the UK, especially LA, but I have been 100% impressed so far.  Apart from the great weather, the people are very friendly, there are even some footpaths (or sidewalks as I need to learn to call them) and you CAN walk without being arrested. On the negative side, traffic is as bad as everyone says - the 405 near us is packed day and night with bumper to bumper SUVs, BMWs and Maseratis.