Hello to anyone who is reading. Here’s the tale of the first three/four days of my trip, depending on whether you count the air travel or not. As I write this I’m in Las Vegas but for the sake of logic I’ll write this entry about my three days in Los Angeles from May 28th – May 31st.
I don’t feel the need to talk about the plane ride in detail. To summarise; I flew from Gold Coast to Auckland which took three hours, had a five hour wait at Auckland and then a twelve hour flight to Los Angeles where I was to arrive just after midday. Gold Coast to Auckland was okay. I was annoyed that I missed out on my choice of meal (this is the problem when you select seats at the back of the plane) but it wasn’t the end of the world. The wait at Auckland was boring as hell but I got through it. The Auckland – LA was slow but in the end it went fine. I watched Glee on the GC – AKL (three episodes) and I watched Valentine’s Day and 500 Days of Summer on the second. Dinner I got my choice of the butter chicken, breakfast I chose the scrambled eggs.
The three biggest random/omg moments to note: when I got onto the AKL – LAX flight I hadn’t even sat down and the loud Americans around my set were commenting about how they wanted to take over my seat. Long story short, they were all together in some tour group and they hadn’t all been seated where they wanted to be. They took it upon themselves to move themselves around where they wanted to sit – which you’re not supposed to do until after take off. They asked me if I really wanted my aisle seat which I responded telling them that I’m an insomniac who goes to the bathroom a lot and so yes, I did want an aisle seat. I had been on the aisle seat on the side of the plane and I wound up on the next seat on the aisle in the middle; and I wound up with a spare seat next to me which turned out to be a good thing. The next lady over was a fruitcake – being weird/random thing number two. She was waving her arms about crazily like she was pumping iron; then she was clapping along to a movie. She bitched about everything and was spreading her stuff out EVERYWHERE – even before we’d taken off and actually confirmed that these seat reallocations they’d decided upon were okay. Anyway. Flight was finally over, got through security okay (had a momentary panic that my suitcase was missing but in fact they’d pulled a bunch of them off the belt onto the ground and I’d just been waiting where I couldn’t see that) and the security guy was amused when I informed him I was going to Albuquerque. I couldn’t find Audrey straight away and had a moment of panic – I had her number but I was gonna feel a little awkward being all ‘um, where are you?’ over the phone.
But like a couple of minutes later she came up to me. It was so weird – I felt pretty much constantly at ease. We hugged and it was cool. That’s the best way I can put it. I was exhausted and little nervous so I know I wasn’t being the best conversationalist so I can only hope that Audrey doesn’t judge me for this. We came back to her place which is lovely (I want to live here, in this exact building, seriously) and I met her boyfriend (who won’t be referred to by name per his request for anonymity) and then after a little while we went out so I could get a phone. This turned out to be little drama filled, but we got it. As we drove around Audrey was pointing out various sights to me. We went for lunch at Baja Fresh and then we went to the grocery store so she could do her shopping. Being a grocery store worker I find things fascinating – the prices of things, the variety, particular brands, the fact that in their deli if you asked for something they like, get big thing of it and go and shave it for you then and there. Alcohol REALLY CHEAP for sale in the grocery store. All this stuff is what fascinates me about countries, yeah there’s the tourist traps but it’s the differences in regular life that I get involved in.
That night was pretty chill, I was trying to make my new phone work (it took a while but we finally got there) and sorting through my things. I was really tired but I managed to stay awake until about 9:30, after we’d watched the pilot of Felicity at Audrey’s insistence – it is her favourite show and it is blasphemous that I haven’t seen it, according to her.
On Saturday we didn’t rush to leave in the morning, Audrey made breakfast and I was introduced to turkey bacon: conclusion, I prefer regular bacon but it was edible. We went to Santa Monica in the afternoon, shopped at the 3rd street promenade (I bought a top at H&M... typical that I couldn’t go like, more than a day without shopping) and was amused that there was a Cotton On totally being sold as being ‘Australian.’ (i.e. sign in window about Aussie; flag on the wall....) and then went down to walk along the beach – which was totally manmade and flat. Gold Coast beaches = wayyy better :) We walked over to the pier area which has like stalls, a roller coaster, a ferris wheel; and I had a Churro for the first time. It’s this erm... long pastry bread treat? We went back up to the main street and went to the Broadway Cafe which is a favourite of Audrey’s. MASSIVE PORTION SIZES ALERT. Seriously! Fries for two, free drink refills which they just do – they come with jugs and refill the water and softdrink. We discussed differences in lingo – rubbish/garbage, chips/fries, that sort of thing. Lemonade is different here – when they say lemonade they mean like a lemon flavoured homemade thing. Sprite is just Sprite. I said at home, lemonade would mean Sprite and it would specify if it was a homemade lemonade. I was then taken to Santa Monica High School where 17 Again was filmed and I have photos of like, the stairs with the awkward Mike/Maggie moment. Pretty epic for me.
For dinner we went to this Japanese restaurant where you like, cook your own food... they do your noodles and rice; but your veggies and meat comes raw and there’s like, this coal pit in the middle of the table and you cook it yourself. It was the most random and awesome thing ever, and super yummy. Audrey’s boyfriend was driving and after dinner we went on a bit of a night driving tour of the Beverly Hills Rodeo Drive area and then over to the UCLA area.
Sundy was a slow start to the day again; Audrey and I went for a late brunch at Paty’s Diner in Toluca Lake. Seriously, food is so cheap and the portion sizes are huge.
I just realised something, in the middle of writing, that I didn’t do something I should’ve done while I was at Paty’s. I’ve been trained about tipping culture by Audrey and yet when I snatched up the bill to pay for our food, I forgot to add a tip. Crap crap. Would it be weird if I went back and said, oh, I meant to give you this earlier? They’re so going to have judged me. Ugh, now I feel kind of horrible. I’ve successfully tipped since then, somehow I just had a mental relapse, I’d paid by credit and I was looking at Zaccy’s signed stuff on the wall and got distracted and just signed without adding the gratuity. Some of you might feel mortified by this, thinking badly of me, but seriously at a diner like place at home, tipping is NOT customary.
Ummm anyway so tangent, after Paty’s we went for a drive in the Toluca area just looking at some of the sites... for the sake of seeming sane to real life people I won’t elaborate too much. Fandom people can speculate as to the specifics lol. We went via Sunset Boulevard on the way back to her area, past the school where they filmed Clueless and about a million cafe’s and restaurants that were pointed out as having been frequented by HSM stars. We then went to The Grove, it’s like this crazy mall with big high walls on the outside and on the inside it’s like this fairytale land with like an open mall environment. Sometimes musicians do like, mall appearances there – both Ashley and the Jonas Brothers have been there relatively recently.
Audrey and I watched a movie and a half; some.... I can’t think it was called. Lars and something or other, with Ryan Gosling. Lars and the Real Girl? Hrm. And we watched some of 17 Again – our viewing had to be interrupted because once the bf was back we were heading up to the Observatory which provides this absolutely stunnninnngggg view of the Los Angeles area. It was PACKED and I think that some astrological freak thing was happening because this guy with a loud booming voice was talking about Saturn? And people were queueing for the telescope. After much drama we got a gorgeous parking spot and were able to enjoy the view and take a bunch of photos. We had been planning to go to Pink’s which is this hotdog stand where you queue for AGES – I don’t understand it really. It’s really cool supposedly and worth the wait and it’s normal to have to wait for an hour or more. But the queue looked pretty huge and we went on this massive drive while deciding where to eat and wound up at an Astroburger. The US has sooooo many fast food outlets it isn’t funny; it isn’t just matter of there being a McD’s on every corner, it’s different types of outlets (Denny’s, Wendy’s, In and Out, Fatburger, Astroburger, a zillion Mexican joints, plus the usual KFC, McD’s and Burger King.) And then in the Astroburger, amazing prices for a really great quality burger, like with a real bun and lovely chicken.
Anyway that brings me to the end of the story of LA 1.0 – I’m back there next Sunday (the hope had been to get a seatfiller spot at the MTV Movie Awards but it isn’t looking likely :() for a few more days.
CONCLUSION: If I worked in the entertainment industry, I’d love to live in LA. In my ideal world where I found some sort of ‘in’ to being a script writer or a journalist or something, I’d want to live there. I adore the vibe and the culture, there’s something that really calls out to me – I’m kind of a homebody now but in that perfect world where I establish myself and have real life friends and go out for dinner and am skinnier and go shopping... in that universe, I could so live in the area. I’d take a while to get used to the driving, though. I’ve yet to have the opportunity to conclude whether the mentality of driving is just a city mentality or whether perhaps it can be applied to Americans as a whole.
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