Saturday 21st April 2007. LA, California.

Saturday in LA and I try finally to get some sleep this morning. The party room directly above me has seen some action each and every night and it seemed last night like the ceiling would come in on me. Anyway, its now 10am and they have started partying again.

This morning I spend time locating a San Francisco hotel and I have gone for a quality B&B on a US friends recommendation...after this dump I need to improve!

experiences and this city has so much more to offer than trashy tourism. I can do that when I am on holiday.

Well today I am at the iconic symbol of this City of the Angels, the Cathedral Church of Our Lady of the Angels and your first sight is not of a cathedral but of an ultra-modern complex that looks more like a university lecture hall or a modern art museum.

With its multi-storey car park, its shops and cafe and even its Parishioners Federal Credit Union Bank, this is catholicism for the twenty-first century...how refreshing!

The only real sign this is a church is the elegantly set carillion above the entrance gate.

I bought a book and headed off on a self-guided tour.

The plaza with its patio tables is very welcoming and as for the cathedral it is more like a concert hall and that I really like. This is very much a Californian church with its murals telling the early history of the church in the Republic.

The past though is not forgotten and the installation of a historic Spanish reredos (the traditional decorative screen that sits behind the altar of a church) owes much to Getty funding.

The tapestries that illuminate the walls run from St Margaret of Scotland and bring me again into contact with Rose of Lima all the way to Mother Teresa.

Symbolism though is all around and the baptismal font is not only a stunning piece of sculpture but as a plunge pool it evokes the Jordan beautifully.

See God's dwelling is among mortals. God will dwell with them. They will be God's people and God will be with them.

One failing though in this architectural gem are the confessionals that look remarkably like dungeons.

Down in the St V chapel you get the feeling of how traditional and hispanic the old cathedral must have been from the Stations of The Cross. There can though be no doubting that this remains a Hispanic community testified to by the handwritten intercessions I see.

The Mausoleum was creepy and yet beautiful, just as I felt at Recoleta in Buenos Aires...and likewise this is a spot for the wealthy I think.

I found Gregory Peck...does anyone know if this is "the" 'Gregory Peck', the dates seem to fit?

Many people have already bought their plots with names engraved and just the departure dates to be filled in. Modern as this cathedral is they thus have both full burial plots and cremation spaces...but I did not enjoy seeing the new resident moving in to one curtained off section...ugh! time to go and pronto!!

It was also very interesting to see the corporations who gave money to this building...and there was Bob Hope too, but it is Hollywood after all.

In the late afternoon I explored Grand Central Market a genuine locals market and not a tourist spot. Downtown LA has a deserted feel on the weekends with the offices closed and only the locals around.

Many of the people I encounter here live on life's periphery...the poor, the elderly, the drunks, the addicts, the poorly educated...the displaced.

The quality of downtown housing I explore is dreadful and thank God for my smattering of Spanish...it's the locals lingo.

Anyway its not really safe down here and I wouldn't want to be this far off the beaten track at night so its back to the subway and into Hollywood where I will dine with the other tourists.

You may think I am nuts heading so far off the beaten track but then I have to admit the only times I have been robbed or attacked have been in the "safe" tourist areas and my theory is that this is because these are the areas attackers know they will find booty...

I am not advocating it, but I generally feel safer in the downbeat neighbourhoods.

Saturday night is a beautiful moonlit night over LA with a clear sky and a crescent moon this city certainly has its beauty.

Note to students…In response to the questions about why I did not visit Rodeo drive I ask you why would I spend time touring a street full of shops and restaurants filled with the expensive bobbles and trinkets of materialism which few of us will ever afford and shops that are staffed by personnel who seem to think God has ordained them better than you. We have been such places on this trip and found positive and negative