Just North of Los Angeles, Pasadena is a cute town with upscale shops in the downtown area, where City Hall is located. City Hall is a beautiful structure with a grand entranceway that opens to a courtyard. The focal point of the courtyard is a great circular fountain. The ceremony was just beautiful, with the fountain as the backdrop. A special time to celebrate, the entire wedding was splendid, with the reception in the courtyard. After the reception, Noga and I went for a drive to Hollywood and Beverly Hills. An especially fun part of the drive was climbing Beverly Hills Glen to Mulholland Drive, then across and down Laural Canyon Boulevard into North Hollywood. After that, we drove to Santa Monica, where we parked the car and spent some time at the beach. Just south of the pier on the beach is a gymnastic playground with rings, parallel bars, ropes, and other toys for tanned gymnasts to monkey on. After a quick climb up one of the ropes, we headed down to Venice, Marina Del Ray, and back to Long Beach. That night, we went to dinner at the Crab Pot, where you can order one of four seafood feasts: we chose the second smallest. So, the server handed us each a wooden mallet, a bib (very important) and a small block of wood, then layed out a sheet of butcher paper on the table. In a few minutes, she came back with a great big pot and proceeded to dump it's contents out on the butcher paper. There were mussels, quahogs, dungeonesse and king crab legs, shrimp, Andouille sausages, potato wedges, and corn on the cob all steamed in one pot with some very tasty spices. It was all very good and quite fun. Stuffed, we headed back towards the hotel, stopping at Ray's to bid goodbye to Eric and some of the other house-sitters.
