This past weekend, Tim and my brother-in-law, Tristan, ran the LA Marathon! This was Tim’s first time running the LA Marathon and his 10th (?) marathon in total. We started off the day going to church before we headed to the marathon expo at the LA Convention Center in the afternoon.
Overall, the LA Marathon Expo was actually not one of the best expos that we’ve been to–something I’ve noticed is that a lot of the smaller marathons actually have better “swag” than the big ones–maybe to draw bigger crowds! Either way, there wasn’t really much good swag, unless you count a bunch of mini-Clif bars.
After we finished picking up the bibs and checking out the expo, we hit the street! Our end goal was the Broad Museum, where Casey had gotten us tickets (they are free, you just need to sign up for a time) earlier. We exited on the Figueroa side of the convention center, and then headed north to check out the sights of DTLA while passing the Staples Center and LA Live.
Our first stop was an early dinner at the Original Pantry! Open since 1924, this place has NEVER closed! Ever! It is open 24-hours a day every single day. My dad used to come here in his younger bachelor days when he was sharking pool halls and living life! He would come here after a late-night pool session and get some toast and eggs. This is where he learned how to make a staple of our childhood–sourdough fried toast (“recipe”: butter sourdough toast and fry it on a cast iron until golden-y brown.. yum!).
This place is an LA staple, and there are tons of pictures and autographs from famous Hollywood stars, directors, and celebrities all over the walls. It was equally filled with locals and tourists enjoying their 24-hour breakfast for dinner.
After stuffing ourselves thoroughly (and getting Tim and Tristan loaded up on carbs for their run), we continued walking north on Figueroa to make our way to the Broad.
We ended up looping around so we could see the front of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and then just going back south on Grand did we arrive at the Broad.
The Broad certainly has a very unique exterior, but the way the windows were designed is quite clever! Essentially, once you are inside, the windows allow for lots and lots of natural light, but the way that the window is shaped, it ends up bouncing around and becoming very bright indirect and natural light that doesn’t harm the artwork. I guess that’s why they pay them the big bucks!
I’m going to be honest–contemporary art is not really my thing. I think that maybe because a lot of it is something that I feel like I could *do* myself–i.e. two colored canvases next to each other; one is green and the other blue. It was titled, “Green Blue.” But I guess for it to be art, someone had to think of it first, and it just turns out that was the guy who thought of it first and it got put into a museum? I think the art I most appreciate is art that I couldn’t ever dream of imitating, like some incredible marble sculpture or an impressionist painting with a few strokes but you know exactly what it is. But who’s to say what is art? I guess art is art.
I don’t know if I’d actually need to come back to the Broad again. I think once might have been enough..
Either way, we finished up at the Broad and then started the long way back to the convention center to pick up our cars, as Tim and Tristan had a long morning ahead of them at the race!
