Last weekend Alex, my best friend from home, finally came to visit me in LA. Not only was it the first time she had seen me out here, but it was also her farthest trip west. The pics are a mix of mine and Alex's. Mine are the good ones :)
She got in on Thursday and I went to pick her up after napping through the VP debate and finally watching Remember the Titans. I love football. Alex's In-n-Out cherry was popped that night and she loved it. Animal style.
Friday consisted of visits to some of the more accessible huge houses in Beverly Hills, ridiculously ritzy shops on Rodeo Drive, cruising through Hollywood, and visiting Amoeba Music, one of the largest record shops ever. Seriously, like too large to reasonable handle just browsing. Without a definitely plan or title in mind you could go crazy in this place but luckily I came across two movies that I was very happy to spend my Groupon on: Jiro Dreams of Sushi and Miss Congeniality. Documentary-style food porn and the funniest movie of my childhood, respectively.
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| Perfection. |
Going back real quick to Rodeo Drive shopping-- Coach and Prada were the lower end stores there. As in, we could reach and conceive of purchasing something from there. We also went into the Ralph Lauren where our relative 'poor' was instantly noted and I personally felt a little like a second class citizen, and like they were taking note of whatever we touched so they could sanitize it later. We also went into Cartier and were surprisingly regarded as real humans, likely because we could have potentially been young mistresses for some rando loaded guys. Anyway, this place probably had more security on duty than the Mona Lisa. They also had diamonds that sparkled to blindness and were comparable to my eyeball in size. Maybe the TSA should ban diamond rings on flights.
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| Bugatti randomly parked on Rodeo. Totally ridic. |
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On Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.
Alex was sad that we didn't run into Miley. |
We also dropped by the Hollywood & Highland shopping center which is adjacent to the Dolby Theatre. Next door is the Grauman's Chinese Theatre with celeb handprints in the cement and all along Hollywood Blvd are the walk of fame stars. Touristey LA, but a must do. On the way back to my place we stopped at the Yard House for some happy hour. One of my favorites in LA, located downtown at LA Live, the complex that also houses Staples Center, the Grammy Museum and the Nokia Theatre. Happy hours are one of my new favorite hobbies and the good ones deserve recognition. More on that later.
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| Pi day! |
Saturday morning we hiked to the hollywood sign! It was about a 2.6 mile hike and pretty relaxed.
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The back of the sign.
The fence below is as close as you are allowed to get to it. |
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| View from the top of the hike. |
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| Alex overlooks Hollywood. |
Dropped by the Walt Disney Concert Hall and Angel's Knoll, housing the bench featured in 500 Days of Summer. Turns out the park is a homeless hangout and smells like stale piss and is in the middle of industrial downtown LA. Movie magic at its best. That afternoon USC played Washington and obviously it was a requirement to watch. Too bad it was an away game but thankfully our defense showed up and saved the day. I got a huge stress pimple from watching that game. Thanks for that, Kiff.
At night we went up to Santa Monica to eat on the promenade and hang out at the pier at night. It has a ferris wheel and small amusement park and is really pretty when all lit up at night, especially when the reflections bounce around on the surface of the dark water. I love the beach at night. It's so peaceful and so powerful to realize how insignificant you are.
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Alex played Skeeball at the little arcade. Look at the ball going
into the little hole! The middle center one. Yay. |
Sunday we were back at Santa Monica for daytime beach bumming. Charlie and I had our first beach league game and Alex was cool to sit around and talk to Christian, then walk around and explore downtown SM. Hit up the farmer's market and got some Homegirl tacos, then drove up the PCH toward Malibu. That's always such a beautiful drive and the scenery is gorgeous- No wonder so many celebs crash their cars there. Destination point was the Getty Villa, a Greek-style villa that's part open air ampitheatre, part museum, part architectural playground, all in the name of preservation and expansion of Greek and Roman cultural knowledge.
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| Part of the Villa. |
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| It's art. |
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| We may or may not have spent some time in the children's section. |
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We collected a souvenier from their
herb garden. Alex did not approve. |
By this time Alex and I were both pretty exhausted. We met Kara and Bryan for dinner in Culver City and then went back to my place and promptly passed out. At like 9:30. Party hard.
Monday morning was a lazy time. Slowly rolled out of bed at around 10(I took a sick day from work), and went to see USC campus. Showed Alex all of my favorite spots and all of the prettiest ones that they show everyone on campus tours. Then I got a parking ticket. Fuckers. 1:15 in a 1 hour street parking spot. Do they know how many bobas or margaritas I could have gotten with that citation money?? :( Whatever. Headed back west to Marina del Rey and went stand-up paddleboarding! It was really fun and pretty easy to pick up. Neither of us fell in the water but I sit-down paddled for a bit because my feet were getting hot. Really, these boards are huge and really sturdy. I'd love to take one out in the ocean sometime and be on moving water. Hopefully it'll be easier than surfing because that shit is hard.
Monday evening was the best. Alex's flight was a red-eye so we had plenty of time to party before shipping her back to the east coast. We went to happy hour at my favorite beach bar in Manhattan Beach, featuring buy-one-drink-get-the-second-for-$0.25. Yes, a quarter. So when you order one drink they just give you two. Alex had multiples, and that was just the start of the night. Their fish tacos are amazing too-- crispy, big halibut filet, crunchy but not too heavy slaw, grated cheese, and this amazing garlic-habanero sauce that I always have to ask for on the side. Refried black beans were good too. Refried beans are great in general. We finished happy hour dinner, took a walk by the beach and saw sunset, very romantic, and headed back.
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| This is where I live. |
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| This is Alex invading where I live :) |
Untold other events transpired between the time of dinner and boarding time, but the only this you need to know is this:
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This post-it ended up on Alex's head.
It reads, "Choose carrots instead :)" |
And so ended the weekend of epic reunion. Alex is back to not responding to my texts or tweets, being on the opposite coast from me, and so we regress to the mean. Until the next adventure!
P.S. Tickets back to Atlanta booked for December!
Also, FOOTBALL! YEAH! TROJANS! FALCONS! Omg I'm scared.
