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It's only four years old and as a result, is very clean. Tickets are bought from a vending machine and to my surprise, there are no booths or ticket takers. I could've just walked on without paying. I find out later that they do have someone come around periodically and check for tickets and if you've not paid you can be fined $300. My $3 all-day pass was worth it.

The subway stops across form the driveway of Universal where a shuttle picks you up and takes you to the studio. The studio tour starts on a hill that provides a breathtaking view of the mountains with what appears to be a small city in the valley below. That city however, is all part of Universal.

The ride takes you through movie sets that serve as Ancient Rome, the old west and Mexico as well as Amity Island, the setting for the movie "Jaws." They show you the magic of film with special effects such as a subway cave in (a pleasant thought for the subway ride back) and a flood that comes right up to the shuttle.

After the tour I browse some of the park's other attractions such as The Animal Planet's live show which features several trained animals, including that stalwart of animal humor, the chimpanzee in a diaper.

One regular show is ?Water World? based on Kevin Costner's multi-million dollar flop movie of the same name. The show involves pyrotechnics and stunts by several actors, one of whom might have been Kevin Costner attempting to resurrect his career after "Water World."

Many of the stores are small town America-type buildings, giving the place a movie set feel. While such Universal classics such as "Frankenstein" are given lip service, the focus is on more recent films such as the "Van Helsing: Fortress Dracula" which essentially involves walking through a dark hallway with the occasional person jumping out at you. I've seen children put on scarier haunted houses in their basement.

Wed.--- I head for the train depot at Glendale Station, a nice old building. Unfortunately, there's no ticket window and you must purchase your ticket from a vending machine. I put in a $20 bill and for a $5.75 all-day pass and wind up with $14 change in Sacagawea silver dollars.

I take the train to downtown L.A.'s beautiful Union Station, built at a time when train stations were the O'Hare Airport's of their day. From there I hop on a bus to a bustling section of L.A. where the sidewalks are jammed with shoppers patronizing the small stores whose signs are in Spanish as much, if not more than in English.

I get off to change busses and as I walk through the crowd I hear someone say "Hey, pal." I look to see a scruffy looking guy making his way through the crowd to me.

"I got a couple of things of weed, if you want 'em."

Just what it was about me that made him seek me out of a large crowd of people as a potential pot buyer is beyond me. I decline and hop on a bus that takes a pretty long drive down Wiltshire Blvd through some very depressed areas. The change in social status and property values when you enter Beverly Hills is dramatic.

It's lunch time and the beautiful people sit in outdoor cafes and perhaps broker TV and movies deals when they're not chatting on their cell phones.

My destination is The Museum of Television and Radio. Admission is free (my favorite price) and you can access their archives of TV and radio shows for two hours, although it's not crowded and they're letting people take as long as they want.

My first choice is the top choice of most visitors, The Beatles first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show." The black-and-white commercials are as entertaining as the show, which has the cast of the Broadway musical "Oliver," featuring future Monkee Davey Jones, doing a number. I also select their oldest radio show, a 1920 speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt which although scratchy, is in remarkably good condition.

The walls are adorned by several caricatures from the late, great Al Hirschfeld, America's preeminent caricaturist.

The museum also has two theaters, one of which is currently running a retrospective of the work of comedian Lenny Bruce. There are no narratives, just clips of Bruce's TV appearances from 1949 when he did standard impressions, through the '50's when he became a brilliant social commentator to 1964 when he was a drug-dependant mess.

Thu.--- At Glendale Station, the train is delayed, and though it's a beautiful ride along the coast, by the time I get to San Diego I'm left with little time to do more than browse the waterfront near the depot.

Seaport Village features several small stores by the water, somewhat reminiscent of Rockport. A nice art gallery is there and as I browse some magnificent figure sculptures encased in glass, a woman tries to hard-sell me.

"We ship to Boston" she declares, adding that they have a new payment plan where I wouldn?t have to make my first payment until February. I tell her I have no more room for artwork which is easier than saying that I'm no likely to have $10,000 to spend on art in February than I am now.

Sunset on the water is better than sunrise over the water for the simple reason that you don't have to wake up for it (unless you're Keith Richard), and is the biggest difference between the two coasts. The only downside is that with the darkness, there's little to see on the ride back to L.A.