With a Dream and a Cardigan

I am SO behind on blog entries. We're moving much faster than we were on the outward bound trip. As a result we usually arrive at our destination at night and I crawl into bed mumbling "I'll blog in the morning". Then we wake up about a half hour before check out at whatever place we're at and I have to run to get into the shower and packed up in order to check out with three minutes left before the 10 dollar punishment kicks in. Actually this only describes last night/this morning...but it works! I promise to work harder.

Yosemite was awesome, we've already covered this, but as with all aspects of the trip we had to move on. Not before I got a morning swim in, did my laundry and ate one of every item at the free breakfast buffet (and stuffed 3 oranges in my purse). We finally wrenched ourselves away from our beloved Shilo and hit the road for Los Angeles, which I expected to be nothing less than as described in Miley Cyrus' "Party in the U.S.A".

The trip to LA was fairly boring. Nothing too exciting, just lots of suburban sprawl and orange groves. You know you've hit LA when you suddenly stop moving. I have heard scores and scores about LA's traffic....it's all true. It's worse that what you hear, it is a 24/7 parking lot that occasionally turns into a NASCAR race. Even at 2pm on a Sunday. It's my idea of hell.

Actually no, my idea of hell involves roller coasters, crowds, people jumping out at you dressed in scary outfits and ridiculously overpriced tickets to experience this. Which is why I was distressed when we called our friend Ryan from the traffic mess and he told us to meet him at Knotts Berry Farm for their version of Fright Fest. Great. Ryan was also our ticket to our hotel room that night, so without Ryan we couldn't do squat. Fantastic. LA, you're not off to a good start.

We made our way down towards Knotts (apparently America's first theme park?) and were earlier than we had told Ryan. We were also famished, so we pulled off at the first restaurant we saw, Outback Steakhouse. What a terrible restaurant. I've never eaten at an Outback before but their food is so boring. It just sort of sits on your plate. Congratulations Outback, you become the first food establishment to get a negative review on this blog. That's really hard to accomplish.

We finished our dinner and headed over to Knotts Berry Farm with the other 30,000 cars. Apparently this is a big deal in the world of amusement park fright fests. I wouldn't know...I hate scary things and roller coasters, these are not stats that I keep track of. After we managed to navigate the sea of pierced high schoolers and angry cops we made it to a parking lot that demanded 15 dollars to park there. Apparently this was the "premium" lot. If we wanted to turn around the regular lots were only 12 dollars. As this is California and gas costs as much as my house, we decided that we would actually lose money in trying to find the regular lot and shelled out the dough.

We made it to ticket booth where we discovered that tickets cost as much as my house, car and first born child put together. On top of that we had to wait...forever...in a long line. Then once we got our tickets we were going to have to wait even more just to get in. We had almost made it to the front of the line when Ryan called to tell us that he had a coupon for cheaper tickets. So we stepped out of the line, met Ryan, then go back into the end of the line. Great.

I need to cut this short if I want this blog to end up being less than novel length. Long story short, it was not hell. Anytime with Ryan is guaranteed fun. The place was so crowded that you were able to identify where actors were hiding, waiting to jump out at you. My favorite was the guy that jumped out, or should I say strolled out, looked at us and said "How are you? Having fun? Good, please continue". It was right out of David Sedaris's "Santaland Diaries" (read it! read it now!).

Eventually Ryan's jetlag kicked in, our carlag kicked in, and Ryan's friend began wandering off to stare at "food on sticks". We stopped in front of a show, only to discover one of the most racist and homophobic performances I've ever seen. We were all kind of in awe as the performers made numerous remarks about sex acts between popular movie characters and the like. When an angel wearing a thong made a Holocaust joke we decided it was time to go.

We made our way out to Pasadena with Ryan where we dropped our stuff off in his sweet hotel room. Ryan was in California on business and thus had a kickass Embassy Suites room with a flat screen tv, internet and free breakfast. It was glorious.

The next day we took our time getting up. Ryan didn't have to do any work until later that afternoon so we slept in and watched some football. I think this was my favorite thing about the West Coast. When I woke up at 10, all I had to do was turn the tv on and the Patriots were playing. Waking up to Tom Brady is always great.

Eventually we were able to rally and move a couple of yards down the street to the Olive Garden for soup, salad and breadsticks. Has there ever been a better lunch deal? Outback, take note. You may have noticed that our meal options so far have been chains, something we've tried to avoid. You can't avoid it in LA. I don't care what people say about LA's restaurant culture...chain restaurants are unavoidable on the outskirts of the city. I guess you could say the same about New Jersey, but we'll just move on.

Ryan had to go do some work after lunch, so I went to meet up with my friend/former roommate Shannon who now lives in LA. Shannon arrived in her shiny new car with a list of places we needed to go. I like that, I like people who plan my trips for me. And so we were off. First stop was the Hollywood sign. Shannon is relatively new to the city and thus still unfamiliar with the mess that is the freeway system. After a couple of tries we made it to the right street and were rewarded with a great view of the sign. While really nothing special, it does make you feel giddy when you see it. I imagine it's similar to west coasters seeing the Statue of Liberty or Empire State Building. It's something that you've associated with television or pictures for so long that to actually see it is cool.

We continued on along on our tour of LA. Shannon drove me by her apartment and supermarket before we reached the La Brea tarpits. While not originally on our destination list, I made her stop. I've wanted to see these ever since My Girl 2, when Dude from the Babysitters Club Movie pretends to throw Girl from Golddiggers:The Secret of Bear Moutain's ring (The one Macauley Culkin gave her in the first movie before dying of bee stings) into them. I'm not joking, that scene has stuck with me over the years, and I was anxious to see the site of it.

They were cool. I mean, how could a giant pit of tar with a fiberglass model of a mammoth getting sucked into it while her child mammoth screams out in sorrow not be cool. I was a little disappointed that the fence around them was so high. I know there are obvious reasons for why it's there, but you really couldn't get a view of the pit. I also thought that there were actual animal remains still in the pits, but unfortunately only fiber glass models.

We returned to the car with the intention of going to Santa Monica for dinner. While close in distance, remember, this is LA. On the way we drove through Beverly Hills, where I got to see Rodeo Drive. I took the time that we were at a traffic light to recount the scene in D2: The Mighty Ducks where a group of Ducks convinces a store owner that one of them was Aaron Spellings nephew and are able to get into one of the fancy stores for a private show. Shannon did not seem interested and counteracted with the time she thought she saw Chuck Norris. I think I won that battle. D2 always wins. Quack. I digress. After going through Beverly Hills we passed through a Turkish protest before eventually making our way into Santa Monica.

We reached the beach just in time for sunset. It was really great to watch the sun set over the Pacific. California does have that all over the East Coast. The Pacific sunset is spectacular. We explored the pier and surrounding area for awhile before getting dinner at a (to my knowledge) non-chain Greek restaurant. Very good. Even better was after dinner when Shannon introduced me to Coffee Bean. Wow. That's some good stuff. It is a very good thing we don't have those on the East Coast or my money would be gone.

It was getting late and I didn't want to keep Ryan and Chiz waiting at the hotel so Shannon took me back. Unfortunately this wasn't as easy as it should have been. At this point I feel obligated to preface this story (specifically to my parents) with the fact that I am fine and have been fine for over a week now. Just before we were going to exit the freeway for another freeway towards Pasadena, we noticed the car in front of us clip a piece of debris that had been on the road. The debris flew through the air and before we had time to react slammed into us and lodged itself under Shannon's car. The sound of metal scraping pavement filled the car and when I looked out my window I saw sparks flying up. Adreneline kicked in and we were able to guide the car to the side of the road and call AAA without panicking. The AAA woman sounded mildly panicked, however, when I told her what had happened and she set to work trying to calm me down. Apparently she seemed to think I should be freaking out. I was fine, I just wanted to get off the freeway. Apparently "large piece of debris stuck under car" "out of towner on freeway" and "sparks" are all key words you should use when dealing with AAA because they had a tow truck to us within 10 minutes.

Or so we thought. The tow truck driver picked us up, loaded the car onto the truck and had us off of the freeway in no time. He took us to a shop near Shannon's and offered to drive us down the street to her apartment so we wouldn't have to walk alone at night. Great! This is fantastic! I've never had anything dealt with so fast. While we're in the truck, however, my phone rings. It's AAA. They're on the freeway and can't find us. Wait, what!?!?!? Who the hell's truck am I in. My heart starts racing. All I can think is that some crazy guy bought himself a truck and searches the highway every night for stranded girls. oh my god. Panic. I can hear my voice trembling as I try to figure this out. "Who is this guy" I ask the AAA man on the phone. He sounds concerned, as all Los Angeles AAA people are it seems, "I don't know" he responds. "How did he get our information?!?!?" "Your guess is as good as mine". NOT HELPING AAA MAN! After a tense 5 minutes of me freaking out demanding to know who the hell the driver was and what the hell was going on, we reach Shannon's apartment. While it becomes clear that he doesn't intend to kill us and dump our bodies in a dark alley, I'm still panicking and dialing Ryan every minute to make sure he's on his way to pick me up. Apparently it is popular amongst freelance tow truck drivers to intercept AAA calls. I'm filing this under "Things I Did Not Know About Before This Trip That Terrify Me Now". I think the fact that a freelance tow truck driver might intercept my call now freaks me out more than the idea of getting into car trouble. Now that my mother has had a heart attack, let me reiterate: I am fine and I now know what to watch out for when calling AAA.

Ryan and Ch'nel were quick to arrive at Shannon's apartment albeit confused by my numerous rambling messages about "Debris....just....we hit debris". They got me back to Pasadena where I was able to get to bed, somehow shaking off the most disturbing portion of this trip.

Ryan had to work all day the next day, so Ch'nel and I were on our own. We woke up a little before 8 in order to put in a call for standby tickets to the Ellen show. After that all we could do was wait for Ellen to call us. We decided that our waiting time would be best spent in Hollywood...mainly because it was the only thing that we could think to do in LA. I know it's a big city with lots to do...but we're really not creative. We strolled up and down the Walk of Fame. Ch'nel took pictures of stars of people that she likes, I took pictures of Celine Dion and Ricky Martin. Along the Walk of Fame we stopped at the Kodak Theater (home of the Oscars) and Grauman's Chinese Theater. Grauman's was very cool, especially the handprints of really old Hollywood stars like Cary Grant and Marilyn Monroe.

After exploring Hollywood we decided that since if we did get standby tickets to Ellen we would have to get out to Burbank ASAP, we might as well go and take the studio tour there. We got there only to discover that tickets were 40+ dollars. After the Knotts Berry Farm incident, we just couldn't afford that. By that point if Ellen was going to call then she would have called so dejected we left Burbank and headed for the Getty Center. Even more rejection met us there when we discovered that the Getty Center is closed on Mondays. Man, we are not doing well in LA! We searched our pamphlets and discovered that the Getty Villa is not closed on Mondays, however you need reservations to go.

Ch'nel finagled reservations while I drove up the coast to the villa. The Getty Villa was the original home of John Paul Getty and his art collection. While the Getty Center now hosts most of the art work, the Getty Villa has it's own collections specializing in antiquities. Also, it's a pretty house. Once there we were met by what can only be described as the most enthusiastic volunteers ever. They navigated us up a hill and into a parking garage with such excitement that I wondered if we had actually accidentally entered Disneyland. Once at the villa we were again eagerly directed towards the tour table and told to sign up for the special collections tour that was leaving in 5 minutes. Well, why not!

This was an excellent decision, one I highly recommend, as we got an hour long tour of four pieces led by a museum guide. With only four pieces we learned a lot about sarcophagi, mosaics, frescos and tera cotta sculptures. I felt like I was back in school at times as we were expected to participate and ask questions. Our guide asked what we thought about the bull in the mosaic and I volunteered that I thought it represented the second athlete that was also depicted in the piece. That was not the right answer and I felt the familiar sting of "well that's an interesting idea...what are some other thoughts". Ouch, I forgot how much failure hurts. It was like being back at Bryn Mawr. Luckily I rebounded when I asked about it's creation and whether it was created separately and then installed as a floor tile or created right on the floor. That was a "great question!" apparently. Score one for my pride.

After the tour we explored the grounds a little more, but rush hour was quickly approaching and if normal traffic in LA is terrible, I didn't even want to think about rush hour traffic.

We made it back to Pasadena in relatively good shape. We definitely got caught in rush hour traffic and it definitely wasn't pretty. I was hungry and had a headache and couldn't decide whether I wanted to sleep or eat. We chose eat, and decided that dinner would be our first In-N-Out burger ever. In-N-Out had been hyped up to me as the greatest thing I would ever eat. I had high expectations, thats for sure. The burger was very good. Much better quality than a fast food burger, but the fries were awful. They were soggy to the point that they tasted more like mashed potatoes than french fries. Not the ideal first In-N-Out experience, but it wasn't awful.

We returned to the hotel to continue with our lazy bum lifestyle of television watching and t-shirt decorating. After we determined that there was nothing on tv we were able to get Ryan hooked on www.sporcle.com (go now!), aka the greatest website on the internet (after this blog). We spent the next few hours listing Disney villains and European capitals that begin with the letter F. It was glorious. Eventually even the easy lists were stumping us and we had to go to bed.

My time in LA was rocky. It had great points, but also terrible points. Build yourself a nice public transportation system, LA, and I'll be back.

Pictures are refusing to upload. Will try again tomorrow.