California [Hollywood / Completed]
The remainder of our trip was spent up in Hollywood / LA (same thing really...)
The drive up was beautiful - The highway runs right a long the coast on one side, and mountains on the other - no other highway will ever look as beautiful as this one... of course, we'll always have 287, 80 and 280... not to mention the beautiful parkway and turnpike... ::shudders::
We arrived to totally different weather than San Diego (it's funny how 2 hours of driving north can change the weather so drastically) - This time of the year, LA experiences a weather pattern they like to call "June Gloom" which is exactly what it sounds like... overcast all the time... We had some moments of Sun, but not really...
We checked into a Days Inn with some fun interesting pictures painted on the doors from movies, like the Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man, Indiana Jones and The Delorean from Back to the Future... We met up with Christian shortly after and grabbed drinks at his favorite local spot "The Palms" - They have an amazing beer menu - mostly all local brews - I don't think they even had a Bud or Coors tap in that place - We ate some food that made us all really tired, but decided to head over to Germ's other favorite place "The Well" - I enjoyed The Well a lot... The place is very dark inside... the lights extremely dimmed, no TVs on the wall... it's really chill... not to mention, the Juke Box was awesome (no crap... just all rock n' roll), and the Bar Tender was extremely gorgeous... We finished the night off and headed back to our Hotel
Thursday, we went to the la brea tar pits and looked at gigantic skeletons of Wooly Mammoths and gigantic pools of tar where tons of fossils were found... it was interesting... I got tar on my hands... Then we spent the rest of the day driving around Beverly Hills looking at rich people and their houses, and then eventually into Santa Monica... The traffic in LA sucks... So it took a while - We drove by the beach and then ended up at this place called "Margaritas" on the 3rd Street Promenade... Our waitress was pretty / fake / but nice enough... She served us gigantic margaritas and 2 for one Sol Beers for hours... I actually really don't know how long we sat there... We got out of there just as the Lakers game was getting interesting... Thank goodness too because I hate the Lakers... We walked the Promenade for a little - There were musicians set up playing all over the place... mostly drummers and guitarists... Drunk Geronimo decided he wanted to play one of the drummer's kits, so he tipped the guy and started playing... and then decided to give him a lesson on a beat he knew... it was entertaining... Ken did the same with a dude playing guitar... ah drunk ken and christian playing instruments in the middle of LA... it was great :-) too bad there wasn't some dude playing a piano otherwise I would've joined in too - The day ended with us chilling back at the Hotel outside the room, getting told to be quiet by the staff at 2am, heading back to Geronimo's apartment, watching about 45 minutes of a movie called Time Crimes and then hobbling back to the Days Inn very tired
Friday was my favorite day in LA - In the morning we grabbed breafast at the 101 Cafe where we saw our first star sighting Adrian Grenier... afterwards Geronimo gave us a tour of the famous Capital Records building (where he works) - We got to see the Mastering Studios where they showed us a demo of how they redid a Pat Benatar record... It's amazing how different the new remastered recording sounded from the original as he showed us back to back... the drums sounded like they were recorded yesterday... We wandered around the building a bit, saw Germ's office, went to the roof, got a really nice look of the Hollywood sign and the rest of LA, and then went down to the studios... There are no words really to describe how cool it felt to stand in the studios where so many famous musicians recorded... The coolest part by far was when they let me play Nat King Cole's piano (Steve captured some video... hopefully he'll post it) - After the Studio, we headed over amoeba records (the world's largest Independent Record store). The store was amazing... two levels of awesomeness... While I was taking a peek at the music DVDs, I was alerted that Quentin Tarantino was walking around shopping... So I went and looked for him only to find him walking straight towards me... I wasn't star struck or anything... he was just a normal old douche wearing a crappy old ACDC shirt, a leather jacket and jeans... I resumed my shopping shortly after... the rest of the day was spent back at Germ's pad to rest up... we went out to the Palms again and hung out with his work buddies, played some bar games like darts and intense shuffle board... headed back to The Well again to close the evening... gave Germ goodbye hugs and back to the Hotel we went... we had to drive back to San Diego the next day to catch our flight...
The drive back was a little sad but nice... When we arrived back into San Diego, the weather was again all of a sudden perfect... We grabbed lunch at an In N Out Burger... it was awesome :-) headed back to Buck's grabbed our stuff, and on to San Diego Intl we went... I gave Buck a huge hug and promised I'd return next year with Karen... The flight back was really shitty... we hit a huge pack of turbulence halfway through because there was a storm to left and right of us and we were flying right through the middle... just a whole lot of up and down and shaking... I hate flying as it is... to be 15 miles high, and feeling like the plane is all of a sudden going to go into a nose dive does not sit well with me :-/ we landed in Newark, and the passengers clapped... I guess they felt the same as me
My Limo picked us up in a big stretch limo... it was a nice touch to the end of our trip... very comfy and roomy :-)
And that's basically it... I drove back to Montclair, slept and here I am
It's good to be home, I'm gonna go grab a cup of coffee and continue to miss my two great friends on the West Coast, the weather and the In N Out Burgers
Enjoying my Time on Earth :-)
PS: Here are some Photos of LA from my phone...
3rd Street Promenade
@ Margaritas
Capital Records
John's Star
June Gloom from Atop the Capital Records Building
"Those are Good Burgers Walter..."
Funny Picture from Baggage Claim, Newark NJ
The drive up was beautiful - The highway runs right a long the coast on one side, and mountains on the other - no other highway will ever look as beautiful as this one... of course, we'll always have 287, 80 and 280... not to mention the beautiful parkway and turnpike... ::shudders::
We arrived to totally different weather than San Diego (it's funny how 2 hours of driving north can change the weather so drastically) - This time of the year, LA experiences a weather pattern they like to call "June Gloom" which is exactly what it sounds like... overcast all the time... We had some moments of Sun, but not really...
We checked into a Days Inn with some fun interesting pictures painted on the doors from movies, like the Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man, Indiana Jones and The Delorean from Back to the Future... We met up with Christian shortly after and grabbed drinks at his favorite local spot "The Palms" - They have an amazing beer menu - mostly all local brews - I don't think they even had a Bud or Coors tap in that place - We ate some food that made us all really tired, but decided to head over to Germ's other favorite place "The Well" - I enjoyed The Well a lot... The place is very dark inside... the lights extremely dimmed, no TVs on the wall... it's really chill... not to mention, the Juke Box was awesome (no crap... just all rock n' roll), and the Bar Tender was extremely gorgeous... We finished the night off and headed back to our Hotel
Thursday, we went to the la brea tar pits and looked at gigantic skeletons of Wooly Mammoths and gigantic pools of tar where tons of fossils were found... it was interesting... I got tar on my hands... Then we spent the rest of the day driving around Beverly Hills looking at rich people and their houses, and then eventually into Santa Monica... The traffic in LA sucks... So it took a while - We drove by the beach and then ended up at this place called "Margaritas" on the 3rd Street Promenade... Our waitress was pretty / fake / but nice enough... She served us gigantic margaritas and 2 for one Sol Beers for hours... I actually really don't know how long we sat there... We got out of there just as the Lakers game was getting interesting... Thank goodness too because I hate the Lakers... We walked the Promenade for a little - There were musicians set up playing all over the place... mostly drummers and guitarists... Drunk Geronimo decided he wanted to play one of the drummer's kits, so he tipped the guy and started playing... and then decided to give him a lesson on a beat he knew... it was entertaining... Ken did the same with a dude playing guitar... ah drunk ken and christian playing instruments in the middle of LA... it was great :-) too bad there wasn't some dude playing a piano otherwise I would've joined in too - The day ended with us chilling back at the Hotel outside the room, getting told to be quiet by the staff at 2am, heading back to Geronimo's apartment, watching about 45 minutes of a movie called Time Crimes and then hobbling back to the Days Inn very tired
Friday was my favorite day in LA - In the morning we grabbed breafast at the 101 Cafe where we saw our first star sighting Adrian Grenier... afterwards Geronimo gave us a tour of the famous Capital Records building (where he works) - We got to see the Mastering Studios where they showed us a demo of how they redid a Pat Benatar record... It's amazing how different the new remastered recording sounded from the original as he showed us back to back... the drums sounded like they were recorded yesterday... We wandered around the building a bit, saw Germ's office, went to the roof, got a really nice look of the Hollywood sign and the rest of LA, and then went down to the studios... There are no words really to describe how cool it felt to stand in the studios where so many famous musicians recorded... The coolest part by far was when they let me play Nat King Cole's piano (Steve captured some video... hopefully he'll post it) - After the Studio, we headed over amoeba records (the world's largest Independent Record store). The store was amazing... two levels of awesomeness... While I was taking a peek at the music DVDs, I was alerted that Quentin Tarantino was walking around shopping... So I went and looked for him only to find him walking straight towards me... I wasn't star struck or anything... he was just a normal old douche wearing a crappy old ACDC shirt, a leather jacket and jeans... I resumed my shopping shortly after... the rest of the day was spent back at Germ's pad to rest up... we went out to the Palms again and hung out with his work buddies, played some bar games like darts and intense shuffle board... headed back to The Well again to close the evening... gave Germ goodbye hugs and back to the Hotel we went... we had to drive back to San Diego the next day to catch our flight...
The drive back was a little sad but nice... When we arrived back into San Diego, the weather was again all of a sudden perfect... We grabbed lunch at an In N Out Burger... it was awesome :-) headed back to Buck's grabbed our stuff, and on to San Diego Intl we went... I gave Buck a huge hug and promised I'd return next year with Karen... The flight back was really shitty... we hit a huge pack of turbulence halfway through because there was a storm to left and right of us and we were flying right through the middle... just a whole lot of up and down and shaking... I hate flying as it is... to be 15 miles high, and feeling like the plane is all of a sudden going to go into a nose dive does not sit well with me :-/ we landed in Newark, and the passengers clapped... I guess they felt the same as me
My Limo picked us up in a big stretch limo... it was a nice touch to the end of our trip... very comfy and roomy :-)
And that's basically it... I drove back to Montclair, slept and here I am
It's good to be home, I'm gonna go grab a cup of coffee and continue to miss my two great friends on the West Coast, the weather and the In N Out Burgers
Enjoying my Time on Earth :-)
PS: Here are some Photos of LA from my phone...
3rd Street Promenade
@ Margaritas
Capital Records
John's Star
June Gloom from Atop the Capital Records Building
"Those are Good Burgers Walter..."
Funny Picture from Baggage Claim, Newark NJ