Happy New Year! With 2019 in the books (thank god), it is time for a fresh start with new resolutions, a new school term, and new blog posts. It’s crazy to think that we are already halfway through January. I never planned on taking this much time away from the blog in the first place. I had a whole slew of drafted posts I planned to work on and upload over the holidays. However, between finals and quality time with my family, I decided it was best to return to the blog after the holidays. Unfortunately, I was hit pretty hard with the flu upon my return to LA, and it wasn’t until this week that I really felt well enough to work on the blog again. Now that I am healthy again and back in my school routine, I am more than ready to return to more regular blogging.
I feel like January is never really complete without talking about the new year ahead. I am excited to say that I think this is going to be a really great year for me! 2019 was rough to say the least, but my 2020 is already off to an amazing start. I can only see it getting better from here. We all know how I feel about New Year’s resolutions (read last year’s post here), but I usually try and set a few of them each year to go along with the trend. After all, it doesn’t hurt! This year, my New Year’s resolution is actually just a mantra comprised of three words: focus, happiness, stability. I can go further in depth with this in a later post unto itself, but I have really good feelings about 2020, especially because things are going pretty well already! If I am being completely honest, I am a little afraid to jinx things, but I know that’s just me getting in my own head.
Part of the “happiness” component of my new mantra involves doing things for myself that make me happy regardless if I have to go do them by myself or with a group of friends. Quite frankly, I am not waiting on anyone so that I can have a good time, which is why I decided to go Downtown for a day as a tourist in my own city. I know that I am going back in time a little bit, but I had one of the best days downtown about two months ago that I wanted to share. After Thanksgiving, my parents left for Texas, but I wasn’t quite ready to go back to homework. I had reserved tickets for The Broad about a month prior to their visit, and decided that I was going to go for a visit solo before returning to my readings and essay writing. It was an overcast day, which pretty much calls for a museum day unto itself. The traffic was almost nonexistent as well. Clearly the universe thought I also needed to go to The Broad as well, so I was very pleased with how things went.
Even though I am born and raised in Southern California, I always get lost going Downtown because of how old the freeways are. There can be as many as six freeways all right next to each other. If you are in the wrong lane, then you are going to have to figure out a way to get off and then back on in the opposite direction. Every single time I drive Downtown, I can never seem to get there correctly the first time. My GPS always has to recalculate to get my directionally confused self to my destination. This trip to The Broad was no exception, but I finally arrived after a quick detour.
The Broad is a modern art museum in Downtown LA. The museum is rather small, and the building itself looks a bit like a cheese grater from the outside. When I arrived, the first thing that surprised me was how great the parking was. I know it sounds very LA of me to talk about the parking, but parking in Downtown LA is notoriously awful. The museum has moderately priced parking underneath the museum, which was a very unexpected surprise!
Upon my arrival to the museum, I was pretty much able to just walk into the building. With my reserved tickets, I did not have to wait at all. There are two lines you can wait in. One is for reserved tickets you saved ahead of time, and another is for standby admission. I do not have a gauge for how long the standby line takes, but the reserved tickets were so convenient that I absolutely recommend it. After entering the building, you can schedule a time to see Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room. Unfortunately for me, the exhibit was booked for the whole day. If you manage to snag a spot, I would definitely encourage doing so. The pictures just seem absolutely beautiful, and one of my friends absolutely loved it when she went. In the lobby, you take an escalator to the third floor, which is the main floor for the museum. It is completely free, and there are plenty of impressive art pieces there to take in. Immediately when you get off the escalator, Jeff Koons’ Tulips is just staring right at you. I have always loved Koons’ work, and I often admire his smaller pieces through the window of an art gallery near my yoga studio.
The third floor of the museum isn’t just the main floor of the museum. It is the only floor of the museum, aside from special exhibitions on the lobby floor. However, it is full of interesting pieces for people with all sorts of different tastes. Because the museum has only one floor, it is a rather short museum. I would definitely recommend doing something else in the area before you call it a day. Originally, I had planned on going home to get started on my studying, but I decided to walk across the street to the Walt Disney Concert Hall before going home. Dare I say that I enjoyed the Walt Disney Concert Hall more than The Broad? I think I might! I have mentioned before that I love architecture. When I was in Europe, I often remarked about how I felt the buildings were often times more beautiful than what they held inside them. While The Broad is certainly interesting from an architectural standpoint, the Walt Disney Concert Hall has an interesting architectural past. This is primarily because it was originally going to look very different. Regardless, I find it to be a fascinating building, and there was a great self-guided tour through the various rooms and hallways of the structure. The best part is that the tour is completely free! They just hold on to your ID for a while in exchange for an audio headset you use during the tour. The beauty of this tour is that you can go at your own pace. There were plenty of people that went ahead of me or skipped different areas.
It feels really good to be back and blogging again. I took quite the break, but I sincerely look forward to bringing many new posts to 2020. I have a lot of great things planned for the blog, including graduation, more LA hot spots, and even another trip to Europe! Happy reading.
xx
Emily
