Memorial Day Weekend

Palm trees at Santa Monica beach

It's been a good Memorial Day weekend. Unlike many of my LA counterparts, I did not make a trip to Vegas this weekend. That seems to be the thing to do out here. I swear, a good chunk of my LA friends on facebook and twitter were talking about Vegas. I guess it makes sense, it is only a 4 hour drive away. Kind of unbelievable! I will definitely have to plan a trip there soon, since I've never been.

Spent a good chunk of my weekend hanging out poolside at my apartment complex. It's nice, because it's a small and quiet pool and there aren't many children around. Most of the people who live here are young adults, with the occasional older couple. I haven't heard any babies crying or screaming 4 year olds yet. Now that I've said that a couple with a newborn will move in next door, right?

On Saturday I took a nice long walk around my neighborhood in Toluca Lake. I first made my way towards Riverside, which is the main drag of downtown Toluca Lake. I was planning on finding a place to eat and side outside with a book. Ended up at Bob's Big Boy, which is incredibly unhealthy but I hadn't had a Big Boy burger in AGES. So it tasted muy delicioso.

After that, walked through the neighborhood, including passing by Miley's house (neither her nor Billy Ray were around, drat) and enjoying the nice weather and sunset.

Yesterday, after hanging out poolside for a couple of hours, I found myself antsy. I couldn't stay in the apartment, I had to get out. So, I decided to act tourist for a day and found myself driving into Hollywood, and checking out what was going on at Hollywood and Highland.

Answer? A lot. Of course it's a holiday weekend and Grauman's Chinese Theater, The Kodak Theater and the like were jam packed with people. Not only that, but several characters were hanging around Hollywood Blvd. I saw Captain Jack Sparrow, Spongebob (he hit on me actually, kind of disturbing), Spiderman, Chewbacca, Dumbledore, Shrek, Woody and Buzz Lightyear...they definitely had a ton of activity going on.

Dumbledore with some kids at Grauman's

I found that I didn't really mind though, I liked seeing a place with such activity. I strolled through Grauman's and looked at all of the signatures and hand and foot prints. I'd actually only been once before, when I was about 12 or 13. A lot had changed since then. The Harry Potter kids have their own little space at Grauman's, for instance. And Shrek - yes SHREK has a star on the Walk of Fame. A fictional character. That seems a bit much for me.

Emma, Daniel & Rupert at Grauman's

I walked through the Hollywood and Highland shopping center, got a look at the Hollywood sign, though the lighting was kind of bad at the time of day and the sign kind of blended in with the mountain but it was there nonetheless.

If you look REALLY closely, you can see the Hollywood Sign

After that, I decided to drive down Santa Monica Blvd through Beverly Hills and on to Santa Monica beach. Many LA peeps had told me that Santa Monica isn't really the best beach place to go to, but it was too late in the day for real beach time, and I just wanted to walk along the pier, get some grub and see the ocean. I figured Santa Monica would do since it was the closest.

Close, sure, but let me tell you something. Traffic? Goodness. It took me about an hour once I got into Santa Monica to park because traffic moved so slow. I should have known, oh well, lesson learned.

I had a lovely walk along the beach, and along the pier. Had a nice little dinner at a restaurant on the pier, sat outside and watched the sunset. Got a great pic of the sun setting behind the mountain along the water.

Santa Monica Pier at Sunset

Santa Monica definitely isn't the place I go to for a beach day. It does have a lot of beach area to hang out, but it's kind of...young? The pier has the rollar coaster, carousel, amusement park type games. Not a lot of shopping, though there is shopping close by. I like the beach towns where you can easily be walking along the beach and there's a ton of local shops and restaurants and so forth. Mission Beach/Pacific Beach in San Diego is like that.

I'm told that Manhattan Beach is the best LA beach so when I have an actual full beach day I'll check it out. Apparently that's where my dad used to go when he was young. I'm learning all sorts of things about my dad's California upbringing.

Today I spent most of the day poolside, reading and soaking up the rays. There is something super relaxing about just sitting out in the sun, catching a nice cool breeze and reading. It's becoming a weekend ritual now.

Not much else going on right now, everything is going well. Sang in my first mass with the choir on Sunday, and it was really nice. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about choir singing (my college choir got really annoying after awhile, but maybe it was just because I had too many other things going on) but it is actually really nice to be singing in a group again. I needed to get back to singing on a more regular basis, and this will help. One thing that's good to know - I haven't lost my choir skills. I can still sight read like a pro. So that's been super helpful in learning stuff fast!

Now, it's back to work , but at least it's a short week!