From Home to LA

I've been here for awhile now.. and thought I should put down some of my adventures.

I left Blacksburg, Virginia at some really early point in the morning.. I think it was 8:00am. My mom and my brother drove me down to the Charlotte International airport where I would be taking a plane to Atlanta, Georgia. Because that's what happens when you fly to Los Angeles. You can't fly there directly from Charlotte. Which is just stupid. But. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, so after I checked my luggage we just kinda hung around like creepers and people watched. Which was fun.

But eventually I had to hobble in to catch my plane. At this point, my knee was still mostly swollen from my skiing accident a week earlier. It was about the size of a small melon, give or take a few inches. I said goodbye to mom and Alex and promised to keep in touch and then I hobbled through security. I made it through fine. Although apparently if you're wearing a sweatshirt, they have to pat you down to make sure you're not carrying something underneath it. After security I kinda just wandered around the airport texting mainly my good friend Elizabeth and my brother.

When it was finally time to board the plane, I got on and flew for a grand total of 45 min to Atlanta. Stage one of my journey was now complete. But I was also in Atlanta. Yay... Atlanta..

I had about an hour layover before I caught my flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles. This worked out nicely because by the time I made the transition between gates I only had to wait about 30 min for them to start letting people on the plane. However, all the seats were taken, and my knee was slightly bothering me, and my opposite hip was beginning to hurt. It was not fun times standing there. But they finally let us on and I began Stage 2: travelling to Los Angeles. It was pretty cool. I had the window seat. Granted most of the time we were above the clouds, but when we weren't (aka on the takeoff) it was fun to look at the ground because it looks like a patchwork quilt. Yes cliche, but true nontheless..

Anywho, it was a full almost 5 hours from Altanta to Los Angeles, so by the time I was getting to the LA area I could see the lights and such from the city. It was so gorgeous to look at as the plane was landing. You could just see the lights from the city form a backdrop for the buildings. And the haze that surrounds LA is actually quite pretty from the sky when at night. The city is this really pretty orange-y pink-y color.. which was gorgeous.

So I land in LA and have to wait literally ages to pick up my bags. This was mostly due to the fact that they attempted to load our luggage onto a broken carousel thing. So I'm assuming, when that one didn't work, they unloaded it and then reloaded it. But it just took ages. I had to pick up my bags because I was spending a couple days with my friend MaryBeth who goes to school at Chapman. It took so long to pick up my luggage, that MaryBeth and her instructions assistant Amanda had to drive around the airport twice to wait for me. And they were 15 min away when I landed. I was waiting a while for my luggage..

After I finally got my luggage, and finally got into MaryBeth's car, she had a bit of a surprise for me. Turns out, we were going to Amanda's parent's house for dinner and then we were going to see "Valentine's Day" in the theater. Dinner at Amanda's was amazingly good! We had a fiesto taco salad thing.. which was basically a taco salad with more salad and less meat. But it was pretty delicious. And then we had some angel hair with lemon squirted on it (yum) and some asparagus and some chicken. And it was all very good. And then for dessert, we had some brownie cake thing with ice cream that was amazing. It was fantasmic. That's right. Fantasmic. (If you're wondering.. it's a mixture of fantastic and orgasmic.)

After dinner we went to see "Valentine's Day" and the line for this was heaps long. But MaryBeth and Amanda had gotten tickets earlier because they thought ahead like that and we got to just wait in one line instead of waiting in two. It was a good movie, kind of predictable, but good nonetheless. There were HEAPS of famous people in it though. It was kind of like, "let's see how many famous people we can squeeze into one film" and the answer is, heaps.

Anyway, after this, we went back to MaryBeth's apartment where I then stayed up until 4:00am my time. I blame this on being extremely overtired. Which happens. When you've been travelling and movie watching and such. I then slept for a very long period of time. For me at least. I think I got 10 hours of sleep? It was a lot. In the morning I accompanied MaryBeth to some of her classes. They were pretty interesting. I had no idea what was going on in them. There was an art history class that I went to. It seemed like it would be pretty cool. Except that there were no actual notes. Just pictures. I don’t think I could deal with that..

While I was in California, I got to do some AWESOME shopping. I went to an Urban Outfitters (for the first time.. it was pretty cool. VERY expensive, but I enjoyed it), and a Forever 21. Forever21 is soopa cheap, and I pretty much love everything in it. Somethings were like… ehhh.. but I did manage to get a pretty amazing red/flowery dress and a zip-up sweatshirt and some jewelry for like.. 30 bucks? Yeah, it was awesome. I was also introduced to this taco joint called Rubios. And for the record. It’s amazing. It’s better than amazing. It’s fantasmic. Basically, it’s a better, cheaper version of Cabo Fish Taco. She also introduced me to this frozen yogurt place called Cherry On Top. It’s like ColdStone, but for frozen yogurt. You get to pick your yogurt flavors, and your toppings and then you pay for it by how much it weighs. And the store was decorated in polka dots. Who wouldn’t love it?

My last night in LA, MaryBeth and her two friends Amanda and Kelly took me to the beach. It was actually the first time I’d been to the beach in about two years. We built a fire (and by built a fire, I mean we stole it from someone else) and made s’mores and played in the ocean and got yelled at by Poseidon and became friends with a seal named Chardonnay and did a dance around the fire and sang “I Feel Like A Woman” by Shania Twain. It was basically amasome (amazing + awesome). I had heaps of fun with MaryBeth in Cali. Next time I visit, we’re going to DisneyLand :] It’s already been decided. The next day (it was a Thursday if I remember right) she took me to the airport at like 8 in the evening so I could make it to my flight.
I actually got there at basically the best time possible. As soon as I got in line to check my baggage, HEAPS of people started lining up behind me. And going through security was A LOT faster than I thought it’d be, considering it was LAX. I think this was mostly because I got there like 2 hours early. After I made it through security I just wandered around until I found my gate and then I did some more wandering. I went to get some liquids, and some sugar, and then I wandered around some more. All in all I went on a bunch of adventures. After awhile though I realized I had been past the same people at the McDonalds like 4 times and they were starting to give me funny looks so I just sat down at the terminal and read “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.” Which is, by the way is an amazing book that everyone should read. I called mom and dad one last time, told Elizabeth (my soulmate and favorite asain) that I’d talk to her later because I had to get on the plane, and then I boarded the plane. After a normal amount of time, it taxied to the runway and took off. And let me tell you, 15 hours on a plane, makes your bum hurt a lot.