Cali Vacation Part I
Buenas noches mis amigos...its definitely been a long time since we last spoke and of course that definitely hurts but I also know that soon enough we will all be together so at last, no worries. A week and a half seriously is much longer than what I thought it would but then again, time is flying out here on the West coast. As this is my first visit out here, its been one for the memories. There are very few things in life I enjoy more than spending quality time with my family. It would of course be best if all of my family from Virginia could have joined but that's alright, my cousin sisters are with us and at least they give my sister some company since they are all the same age almost. Anyways, without further ado, let me recount my adventures thus far...
August 3rd- Like many vacations in the past, got up at a ridiculous hour, 4am, I didn't even wake up that early for work. Forgive me for including pointless and dull details, but I just feel like typing whatever I think of. Anywho, got to Newark Liberty Airport around 5:30am and waited till our 7am departure at the United terminal. What is this no serving food on the airplane business?!?!?! That greatly upset me, I didn't eat a big breakfast because I figured the airplane would serve it since it was 7am, but apparently they are being cheap bastards and cutting back on costs. From an economic standpoint, its a great idea, but I was damn hungry. Anyways, I love flying, I don't have any fears about it, but the one thing I cannot stand is a baby on board because they do not let you snooze whatsoever. And of course, with my shiity luck, there was one aboard. I tried to fall asleep on the plane and I was successful for about 2.5 hrs and then I woke up because the sun was glaring right on my face. I looked out the window and to my surprise instead of clouds, we were over land. All of a sudden the pilot says we were over Colorado and it had to be because all I saw for miles and miles were mountains. Actually about a half-hour before that god knows what state this was, but I saw crop circles. Unfortunately, I don't have a visual at the moment but once I post my pictures, you will have a better idea of what I'm talking about. I want to believe in aliens and UFOs and all that stuff and the crop circles I saw only validated that. I doubt it though, you'll just have to see for yourself. Anyways, we got into L.A, with the time difference around 9:15 am, our flight made great time. We met up with my cousins, we rented our Dodge Caravan and we got going. L.A. was so far everything I expected, beautiful weather, palm trees, and definitely a lot of tourists. Of course, driving in an unknown state has been quite an adventure. My parents are always at each other's throats about which way to go, we eventually get there, which is important, and all is well. The one thing that I despise with a passion about Cali is their freakin weirdo traffic regulations. First of all, Cali drivers are dangerous daredevils, they drive like absolute maniacs, they don't signal when changing lanes, they run reds, they cut you off. And everyone drives a luxury car. I think it's their ego that they believe they can do whatever they want because they live in Cali and they're big shit. Suck it, that's all I have to say to them. I could never drive in this state and to you Eliza, that's a good warning for you. Although I have seen a lot of people you would probably like because they recycle, they use electronic and hybrid cars, I do NOT recommend you living here at all. The other reason being you'd be far as hell from me, because I figure to stay on the East Coast. Alright, back to the story, that day we were jet-lagged, and tired so we crashed once we got to the hotel. We got up from naptime around late afternoon here and we went to downtown L.A, where the Kodak Theather is (Oscars/Espys) and famous El Capital Theater (Jimmy Kimmel and movie premiers). That was a really cool area to see with your own eyes. We also walked down the Walk of Fame where the stars have their stars and handprints. That was awesome also. I can't believe some of the "celebs" that have stars. Unfortunately like many tourist attractions there are your good and bad areas and excluding these two destinations the rest of downtown L.A. absolutely sucks. People will do anything for money and on the streets there were people dressed up like celebrities taking pictures with any volunteers. There was a Michael Jackson impersonator and he was a freaky look-a-like. He did a damn good moon-walk though, Andrea you got some competition. Speaking of dancing, outside the Kodak Theater, there was this guy who called himself "Dancing Chad". Wow, dude, come to Bhangra Nite. He was AN AMAZING robotic, breakdancer. The brief part of his routine I saw was sick. I wish I could move my body in those sort of directions. He was a white male, pretty built, ladies you might enjoy, just throwing it out there. There are really REALLY strange pepople, bimbos, hobos and other freakshows here that you don't want any part of and they just ruin your stay. We went to Ripley's Believe it or Not, that was okay considering the grotesque things they have in their place. We capped off the day by going to a very scrumpcious Indian restuarant that curbed my appetite. Sooooo that was day 1, I have some great pictures courtesy of my sister, I will post ASAP.
August 4th- Went to Universal Studios in Hollywood. A whole lot of fun. As you know, unlike Eliza and Becky, I am not the roller-coaster, thrill-seeking adventurous person. That is why I enjoy going to Universal. It's a theme park but it has those different kind of rides that you don't need to fear your life for. There was one roller coaster here, it was for the Mummy Returns, the line was huge, but I manned it out and I went. It was an indoor ride and in the beginning they are just taking you along the ride, telling you about the story of the Mummy and then all of a sudden they shoot you into this pitch black bottomless pit at god knows what speed. Then they hit the brakes and you do it backwards. Jeez, I can still feel the effects of that ride, but it was worth it. I made my parents come on a few rides, especially my favorite, Back to the Future. It was a lot of fun, we saw a few shows also, we went on a studio tour that took us around the NBC Universal Studios there. As you can expect it's where all the NBC shows are shot and Universal movies are also filmed. That was cool to see, since they took you to all the sets which are really small and then blown up to fool the audience in movies and shows. In other words, in the Ten Commandments, the Red Sea that Charleton Heston parts is actually this little stream of water that parted when our tram wanted to cross through. Hollywood is unbelievably fake!!! That was the lesson for today. O yea...we also saw part of the set for War of Worlds. If any of you saw the money, we saw the 747 that Speilberg tore apart when the plane crashed into Boston. Wow, wow, and some more wow!! There a few other sets we saw but I can't remember at the current moment. So Eliza, I might have lost to James in horse but I think this redeems myself. You know how all those basketball games at theme parks are fixed against you so you never win. Well, I beat the odds and I nailed the shot on my first try. Unfortunately, the prize wasn't anything too spectacular, it was the Nutty Professor Dvd. I gave it to my sister. After Universal Studios, we went to the CityWalk, right outside the theme park, which was just a bunch of shops/restaurants you'd find in the mall. I had some good Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream!!
August 5th- Woke up early yet again and made the journey south, inching ever closer to the Mexcian Border en route to San Diego to their world famous Zoo. Yes, now, you're probably going think I'm such a dork for going to a zoo with my family, but it was well worth it. If we could, we should definitely go out sometime together. This goes for all you bio-lovers, plant lovers, animal lovers because this zoo had it all. I've been to the Central Park Zoo a few times but that just pales in comparison to San Diego. It was really freakin hot which kinda stunk because it just made the doodoo of the animals much more noxious but I could deal with it. They had all different kind of animals from polar bears and hippos to elephants and camels and even some hybrids that there scientists have created like a horse zebra. I forget its actual name but it walks on four legs, its entire body is brown like a horse and then its back two legs are striped like a zebra. The most bizarre animal I had ever seen but it was cool. We went to a sea lion show and those animals are so smart and friendly. The trainer told it to do all these tricks and the sea lion did them with perfection. This little boy came to the stage as a volunteer to help out and it was the funniest thing ever because the sea lion gave him a hi-five, started mimicking the boy's movements and capped it off with a sea lion kiss. We walked all over, this is a huge park and to say we saw 90% of the animals they had to offer says a lot. We capped off the nite by going to this acrobatic show that promoted preservation of the environment. Right up your alley Liz, it was cool, the effects, the stunts, it was all good except the stupid spanish family that sat behind us. My dad almost lost his cool because they talked throughout the entire show which was completely rude. We did our best to block them out. Great day!
August 6th- aaaahhhh the smell of beautiful Beverly Hills. Being girls, my sister along with my cousins were dying to go shopping so we succumbed to their request and we went to Rodeo Drive, which is their version of NYC's 5th Avenue. The grossly expensive, nice to look at, but you can never afford shops and stores. You got your Guccis and Armanis, Tiffany's and Coaches and Burberry's and Pradas and Abercrombies and Salvatore Ferragamos and so on. My dad's former boss, the first African-American billionaire used to live here and my dad showed us his crib and it was a sweet dig. You know he definitely had plenty of loot. Anyways, the people that live here for the most part have money. But then there a lot of wannabes and pretenders that just to like live that lifestyle. It was quite evident in the fact that everyone, seriously, everyone drove a luxury car. While waiting at a traffic light to cross the street, no joke, this was the order of the cars waiting: Bentley, Benz, Beamer, Porsche, Lexus. And this was all over town, not just at this specific intersection. While you are driving through town, we saw all types of houses: the community itself was nice, there were regular set of houses, not too big or fancy at all but the location makes them $$$, then there were bigger more affluent set of homes, and then there was you're celebrity-like mansions like Bel-Air. (Fresh Prince) These houses were up in the mountains, seriously up there. While you are driving on the 101 or 405, the highways here, you look up, and you don't see clouds, but developments of TITANIC SIZED HOUSES. Anyways, while we were walking around, there was this guy dressed up like one of guards at Buckingham Palace, he was a public conceirge helping everyone around town. We were a little scared to walk up to him and he says something in Hindi, he repeats it and then my mom starts laughing. He said something in Hindi and apparently he speaks over 100 languages and can speak bits and phrases. Pretty impressive. Throughout our stay in L.A. my sister and cousins would peer into every car hoping to see someone famous. So far there hasn't been any luck and with most of prime celeb locations done, I don't expect to see anyone noteworthy either. Anyways, I met up with my big redhead amigo from home Jason. He was on teen Jeopardy two years ago, obviously he's pretty smart, so he is out here on an internship for them. It was good to see since I only keep in touch with about 3 other people from home. Good guy, sometimes difficult to get along with, but he was excited to see me. And now that I know his situation it was good to see him also. His internship isn't paid, he is living in an apartment with three roomates (2 bitchy girls), he has a piece of crap car, and he has been here for 2 months, he has family in the O.C., but its definitely a tough time when he describes his job as being a "gopher". He showed me around town that nite, all the hotspots, all the nice areas, unfortunately he doesn't know where Lindsay Lohan lives, not yet at least, he says he'll keep looking. Good job Jay...
August 7th- Santa Monica Beach. Yes, well it goes without saying that this experience was quite unlike what we all had three weeks ago in Long Island but it was still a lot of fun. If I was ever sane enough to live out here, Santa Monica would be a slight possibility, more realistically as a summer house. It's sorta like the Hamptons but with its Cali twist. The beach itself was beautiful, unfortunately it was a cloudy day so it wasn't the best weather. The water, however, wow, I thought NJ was bad, NJ looks awesome compared to Cali. Anyways, we spent the day on the beach just chilling. I just sat around and talked for a while with the family. There was a gigantic boardwalk so we went there for a while. The distinct part of the Santa Monica Beach is its atmosphere. There are permananent volleyball nets set up so you can go whenever and play. There are bike and pedestrain paths set. So many people were out biking, walking, roller blading, going about their day with such casual ease. That is what I love. I would so enjoy spending my day working out here. We rented a bike for the day and went from one side of the beach to the other. It was one helluva of a workout, let me say. I was burned, of course, eating out every day doesn't help, but hey, when you're going back to Frank Dining Hall for the next 8 months of your life, enjoy every chance you get to eat out. Another great day....
Alright kiddos this was the L.A. part of the rendezvous, my fingers hurt from typing, you're eyes probably hurt from reading and you might be skc of hearing from me. Go to bed, relax, enjoy, and hope to hear from ya soon, bye
August 3rd- Like many vacations in the past, got up at a ridiculous hour, 4am, I didn't even wake up that early for work. Forgive me for including pointless and dull details, but I just feel like typing whatever I think of. Anywho, got to Newark Liberty Airport around 5:30am and waited till our 7am departure at the United terminal. What is this no serving food on the airplane business?!?!?! That greatly upset me, I didn't eat a big breakfast because I figured the airplane would serve it since it was 7am, but apparently they are being cheap bastards and cutting back on costs. From an economic standpoint, its a great idea, but I was damn hungry. Anyways, I love flying, I don't have any fears about it, but the one thing I cannot stand is a baby on board because they do not let you snooze whatsoever. And of course, with my shiity luck, there was one aboard. I tried to fall asleep on the plane and I was successful for about 2.5 hrs and then I woke up because the sun was glaring right on my face. I looked out the window and to my surprise instead of clouds, we were over land. All of a sudden the pilot says we were over Colorado and it had to be because all I saw for miles and miles were mountains. Actually about a half-hour before that god knows what state this was, but I saw crop circles. Unfortunately, I don't have a visual at the moment but once I post my pictures, you will have a better idea of what I'm talking about. I want to believe in aliens and UFOs and all that stuff and the crop circles I saw only validated that. I doubt it though, you'll just have to see for yourself. Anyways, we got into L.A, with the time difference around 9:15 am, our flight made great time. We met up with my cousins, we rented our Dodge Caravan and we got going. L.A. was so far everything I expected, beautiful weather, palm trees, and definitely a lot of tourists. Of course, driving in an unknown state has been quite an adventure. My parents are always at each other's throats about which way to go, we eventually get there, which is important, and all is well. The one thing that I despise with a passion about Cali is their freakin weirdo traffic regulations. First of all, Cali drivers are dangerous daredevils, they drive like absolute maniacs, they don't signal when changing lanes, they run reds, they cut you off. And everyone drives a luxury car. I think it's their ego that they believe they can do whatever they want because they live in Cali and they're big shit. Suck it, that's all I have to say to them. I could never drive in this state and to you Eliza, that's a good warning for you. Although I have seen a lot of people you would probably like because they recycle, they use electronic and hybrid cars, I do NOT recommend you living here at all. The other reason being you'd be far as hell from me, because I figure to stay on the East Coast. Alright, back to the story, that day we were jet-lagged, and tired so we crashed once we got to the hotel. We got up from naptime around late afternoon here and we went to downtown L.A, where the Kodak Theather is (Oscars/Espys) and famous El Capital Theater (Jimmy Kimmel and movie premiers). That was a really cool area to see with your own eyes. We also walked down the Walk of Fame where the stars have their stars and handprints. That was awesome also. I can't believe some of the "celebs" that have stars. Unfortunately like many tourist attractions there are your good and bad areas and excluding these two destinations the rest of downtown L.A. absolutely sucks. People will do anything for money and on the streets there were people dressed up like celebrities taking pictures with any volunteers. There was a Michael Jackson impersonator and he was a freaky look-a-like. He did a damn good moon-walk though, Andrea you got some competition. Speaking of dancing, outside the Kodak Theater, there was this guy who called himself "Dancing Chad". Wow, dude, come to Bhangra Nite. He was AN AMAZING robotic, breakdancer. The brief part of his routine I saw was sick. I wish I could move my body in those sort of directions. He was a white male, pretty built, ladies you might enjoy, just throwing it out there. There are really REALLY strange pepople, bimbos, hobos and other freakshows here that you don't want any part of and they just ruin your stay. We went to Ripley's Believe it or Not, that was okay considering the grotesque things they have in their place. We capped off the day by going to a very scrumpcious Indian restuarant that curbed my appetite. Sooooo that was day 1, I have some great pictures courtesy of my sister, I will post ASAP.
August 4th- Went to Universal Studios in Hollywood. A whole lot of fun. As you know, unlike Eliza and Becky, I am not the roller-coaster, thrill-seeking adventurous person. That is why I enjoy going to Universal. It's a theme park but it has those different kind of rides that you don't need to fear your life for. There was one roller coaster here, it was for the Mummy Returns, the line was huge, but I manned it out and I went. It was an indoor ride and in the beginning they are just taking you along the ride, telling you about the story of the Mummy and then all of a sudden they shoot you into this pitch black bottomless pit at god knows what speed. Then they hit the brakes and you do it backwards. Jeez, I can still feel the effects of that ride, but it was worth it. I made my parents come on a few rides, especially my favorite, Back to the Future. It was a lot of fun, we saw a few shows also, we went on a studio tour that took us around the NBC Universal Studios there. As you can expect it's where all the NBC shows are shot and Universal movies are also filmed. That was cool to see, since they took you to all the sets which are really small and then blown up to fool the audience in movies and shows. In other words, in the Ten Commandments, the Red Sea that Charleton Heston parts is actually this little stream of water that parted when our tram wanted to cross through. Hollywood is unbelievably fake!!! That was the lesson for today. O yea...we also saw part of the set for War of Worlds. If any of you saw the money, we saw the 747 that Speilberg tore apart when the plane crashed into Boston. Wow, wow, and some more wow!! There a few other sets we saw but I can't remember at the current moment. So Eliza, I might have lost to James in horse but I think this redeems myself. You know how all those basketball games at theme parks are fixed against you so you never win. Well, I beat the odds and I nailed the shot on my first try. Unfortunately, the prize wasn't anything too spectacular, it was the Nutty Professor Dvd. I gave it to my sister. After Universal Studios, we went to the CityWalk, right outside the theme park, which was just a bunch of shops/restaurants you'd find in the mall. I had some good Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream!!
August 5th- Woke up early yet again and made the journey south, inching ever closer to the Mexcian Border en route to San Diego to their world famous Zoo. Yes, now, you're probably going think I'm such a dork for going to a zoo with my family, but it was well worth it. If we could, we should definitely go out sometime together. This goes for all you bio-lovers, plant lovers, animal lovers because this zoo had it all. I've been to the Central Park Zoo a few times but that just pales in comparison to San Diego. It was really freakin hot which kinda stunk because it just made the doodoo of the animals much more noxious but I could deal with it. They had all different kind of animals from polar bears and hippos to elephants and camels and even some hybrids that there scientists have created like a horse zebra. I forget its actual name but it walks on four legs, its entire body is brown like a horse and then its back two legs are striped like a zebra. The most bizarre animal I had ever seen but it was cool. We went to a sea lion show and those animals are so smart and friendly. The trainer told it to do all these tricks and the sea lion did them with perfection. This little boy came to the stage as a volunteer to help out and it was the funniest thing ever because the sea lion gave him a hi-five, started mimicking the boy's movements and capped it off with a sea lion kiss. We walked all over, this is a huge park and to say we saw 90% of the animals they had to offer says a lot. We capped off the nite by going to this acrobatic show that promoted preservation of the environment. Right up your alley Liz, it was cool, the effects, the stunts, it was all good except the stupid spanish family that sat behind us. My dad almost lost his cool because they talked throughout the entire show which was completely rude. We did our best to block them out. Great day!
August 6th- aaaahhhh the smell of beautiful Beverly Hills. Being girls, my sister along with my cousins were dying to go shopping so we succumbed to their request and we went to Rodeo Drive, which is their version of NYC's 5th Avenue. The grossly expensive, nice to look at, but you can never afford shops and stores. You got your Guccis and Armanis, Tiffany's and Coaches and Burberry's and Pradas and Abercrombies and Salvatore Ferragamos and so on. My dad's former boss, the first African-American billionaire used to live here and my dad showed us his crib and it was a sweet dig. You know he definitely had plenty of loot. Anyways, the people that live here for the most part have money. But then there a lot of wannabes and pretenders that just to like live that lifestyle. It was quite evident in the fact that everyone, seriously, everyone drove a luxury car. While waiting at a traffic light to cross the street, no joke, this was the order of the cars waiting: Bentley, Benz, Beamer, Porsche, Lexus. And this was all over town, not just at this specific intersection. While you are driving through town, we saw all types of houses: the community itself was nice, there were regular set of houses, not too big or fancy at all but the location makes them $$$, then there were bigger more affluent set of homes, and then there was you're celebrity-like mansions like Bel-Air. (Fresh Prince) These houses were up in the mountains, seriously up there. While you are driving on the 101 or 405, the highways here, you look up, and you don't see clouds, but developments of TITANIC SIZED HOUSES. Anyways, while we were walking around, there was this guy dressed up like one of guards at Buckingham Palace, he was a public conceirge helping everyone around town. We were a little scared to walk up to him and he says something in Hindi, he repeats it and then my mom starts laughing. He said something in Hindi and apparently he speaks over 100 languages and can speak bits and phrases. Pretty impressive. Throughout our stay in L.A. my sister and cousins would peer into every car hoping to see someone famous. So far there hasn't been any luck and with most of prime celeb locations done, I don't expect to see anyone noteworthy either. Anyways, I met up with my big redhead amigo from home Jason. He was on teen Jeopardy two years ago, obviously he's pretty smart, so he is out here on an internship for them. It was good to see since I only keep in touch with about 3 other people from home. Good guy, sometimes difficult to get along with, but he was excited to see me. And now that I know his situation it was good to see him also. His internship isn't paid, he is living in an apartment with three roomates (2 bitchy girls), he has a piece of crap car, and he has been here for 2 months, he has family in the O.C., but its definitely a tough time when he describes his job as being a "gopher". He showed me around town that nite, all the hotspots, all the nice areas, unfortunately he doesn't know where Lindsay Lohan lives, not yet at least, he says he'll keep looking. Good job Jay...
August 7th- Santa Monica Beach. Yes, well it goes without saying that this experience was quite unlike what we all had three weeks ago in Long Island but it was still a lot of fun. If I was ever sane enough to live out here, Santa Monica would be a slight possibility, more realistically as a summer house. It's sorta like the Hamptons but with its Cali twist. The beach itself was beautiful, unfortunately it was a cloudy day so it wasn't the best weather. The water, however, wow, I thought NJ was bad, NJ looks awesome compared to Cali. Anyways, we spent the day on the beach just chilling. I just sat around and talked for a while with the family. There was a gigantic boardwalk so we went there for a while. The distinct part of the Santa Monica Beach is its atmosphere. There are permananent volleyball nets set up so you can go whenever and play. There are bike and pedestrain paths set. So many people were out biking, walking, roller blading, going about their day with such casual ease. That is what I love. I would so enjoy spending my day working out here. We rented a bike for the day and went from one side of the beach to the other. It was one helluva of a workout, let me say. I was burned, of course, eating out every day doesn't help, but hey, when you're going back to Frank Dining Hall for the next 8 months of your life, enjoy every chance you get to eat out. Another great day....
Alright kiddos this was the L.A. part of the rendezvous, my fingers hurt from typing, you're eyes probably hurt from reading and you might be skc of hearing from me. Go to bed, relax, enjoy, and hope to hear from ya soon, bye