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| I'm freeeeeee |
I celebrated the end of my senior year of college by driving to California by myself to visit Mitch and Jess. The trip was borderline not-going-to happen, but I decided to go after my depth reporting professor told me my story on immigration patterns in Nicaragua was at a great next-to-final-draft stage, and that I would only have minor edits to do.
hallelujah for finishing that on time
As soon as I got the email from my professor, I texted Jess and Mitch and told them it was a go. That was Thursday, and I left Phoenix the following Saturday.
It was the first time I'd ever driven to California by myself, but it was great. I spent time listening to podcasts and music, and stopped to take ridiculously great photos of myself like the one above.
When I finally arrived at Mitch's house (the traffic in Azusa and Pasadena was horrendous) I quickly set up my laptop and realized I had a paper due in my photography class the day I would return to Phoenix. (Spoiler: I didn't write the paper until the night before it was due.)
Mitch and I hung out, caught up, and just enjoyed seeing each other. He moved back to California from Phoenix in October or November, after getting a really sweet job in television production.
Saturday was spent hanging out with his parents at Taste of the Town, a local food and wine event to benefit charity. The best food there was tri-tip barbecue and these ridiculously delicious chocolate covered strawberries and sugar cookies. And cold brew coffee. And cupcakes. And other delicious sweets that I ate W A Y too much of.
It was also really sunny that afternoon and I got ridiculously burnt, but I loved spending time with Mitch's mom and dad; they're an absolute riot. My family isn't particularly good at back-and-forth banter, but his parents are, and I really enjoy that I can make humorous, sarcastic, funny comments with them without offending anyone.
Monday was spent at Disneyland and California Adventures, which was the original intent of this trip. Mitch told me he wanted to take me to Disneyland before I graduated, so I made it happen by wrapping up all of my homework before I left.
We started the day off in Disneyland and hit up all of the necessary rides (Indiana Jones, Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean) and made dinner reservations for the Blue Bayou.
At that point, we hopped over to California Adventures and ate at Carthay Circle, a historic and delicious restaurant I was unaware existed. We had deep fried cheese-filled biscuits. It was awesome.
My favorite part of Disneyland was, by far, visiting Cars Land.
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| this ride is my dream. CARS LAND IS MY DREAM. |
Here's a fact about me: I'm a Cars fanatic. It is, without a doubt, my favorite Diseny-Pixar film. I love the soundtrack, the plot, the characters, the colors, the lights, everything. I love everything about that movie, and being able to ride Radiator Springs Racers (complete with ANIMATRONIC CARS CHARACTERS. I GOT TO SEE MATER AND LIGHTNING MCQUEEN) was a dream come true.
That's the magic of Disneyland--your wildest imaginations can come true.
And, of course, the second best part of visiting Disneyland was visiting with Mitch. He's one of my best friends, and he knows so much about the park (and a lot of park employees). It was a great experience with him--also because we both agreed that riding the train around Disneyland for 45 minutes was a good idea when we were 210% exhausted.
Disneyland closed at 7:30 that Monday night, and California Adventures closed at 9--right after we got off Radiator Springs Racers for the second time that day.
But the early closing times were alright, because Mitch had to catch a flight the next morning, and I had plans to meet Jess at her coffee shop in the morning as well.
I surprised Jess when I walked into Holy Grounds. She greeted me as a customer, then realized .5 seconds later that it was me. Before long, we were on our way to the Grand Central Market for lunch.
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| We got giant burritos. |
Jess had never been there (or at least didn't know how to get there) so we let her sister Sara lead the way. After walking through the glorious city, we arrived and it was just as I remembered. Crowded, delicious looking, and very urban. The Grand Central Market is something I dream for Phoenix to have someday (and I think the new DeSoto Central Market is the closest thing we've got.)
After scoping the place out, we found a burrito place and each got giant burritos. We sat outside, in the breezy weather, and ate our burritos. It was amazing. It was also, coincidentally, Cinco de Mayo.
Purely coincidental.
After the market we visited The Last Bookstore. If you haven't been there/heard of it, I highly suggest you check it out. It's like the Powell's of LA, only smaller and less industrial looking inside. It's like Powell's and Bookman's got together and had a baby.
I bought two David Sedaris books (he's one of my favorites, partially because I had to write a long paper about him during my senior year of high school) and we decided to go to Starbucks/Glendale Galleria (a mall where famous people hang out) and read.
We stopped and bought really fancy chocolate because coffee and nice chocolate on a cloudy day with a good book is a great way to celebrate time with friends.
We also played a really great game called try-to-guess-the-famous-person, and in one instance, it went like this:
There was a guy with red pants who walked past us with a camera slung over his shoulder.
We all stared at him, figured he wasn't famous (but was handsome) and continued staring.
He stared right back and continued walking.
Ten minutes later, he came back, introduced himself, and asked Jess if he could take her photo because he liked her sundress and sun hat and book.
We died laughing because we had been talking about him, and now here he was--taking Jess' photo! Like she was famous or something!
That was the most LA thing to happen to us while we were at Glendale Galleria. We didn't see anyone we absolutely knew was famous, but we saw pretty people being pretty.
And there were a lot of man buns, which is my personal favorite.
Our calm afternoon turned crazy when we hit up the rock gym.
Jess is a devoted member, and is very good at it.
And by "very good" I mean much better than me.
I saw her climb walls I probably wouldn't be able to climb anytime within the next few months, no matter how much I trained.
She's been at this for a while, and is really good at what she does.
I, on the other hand, fell ~10ish feet from a 12 foot wall with no ropes.
Relax, there was a mat to catch me.
But when I got up, I reflexively started crying because that's what your body does when it thinks it had a near-death experience.
I redeemed myself by climbing a different 12-foot path without ropes.
It was such a good workout; I was sore for at least 4 days afterwards. I think I may get a rock gym membership when I get a job after camp this summer, because my parents live very close to a rock gym, and I like the sort of full-body exercise you achieve from rock climbing.
After we tired of that (after I couldn't climb or stand any longer) we went on an adventure searching for chips and guacamole and headed home where Jess and Sara went to bed and where I wrote a three page paper on an amazing photographer named Kevin Russ.
There are far worse topics I could have written on.
I eventually went to bed and woke up the next morning to Maroussi, Jess' dog, in bed with us.
Jess warned me that Maroussi was super cuddly in the mornings, but I didn't know that meant he liked spooning and pawing and kissing whoever was in bed. During one of the pup's wiggle and cuddle sessions, I took a very solid paw to the face and laughed it off. Soon after, we all got dressed, loaded the car, and headed back to Phoenix--with Jess and Sara in tow, of course, because Jess wanted to visit Phoenix and for goodness' sakes, driving alone is nowhere near as fun as driving with another person.
Stay tuned for post-college adventures, like living in a different city for three months!
That was the most LA thing to happen to us while we were at Glendale Galleria. We didn't see anyone we absolutely knew was famous, but we saw pretty people being pretty.
And there were a lot of man buns, which is my personal favorite.
Our calm afternoon turned crazy when we hit up the rock gym.
And by "very good" I mean much better than me.
I saw her climb walls I probably wouldn't be able to climb anytime within the next few months, no matter how much I trained.
She's been at this for a while, and is really good at what she does.
I, on the other hand, fell ~10ish feet from a 12 foot wall with no ropes.
Relax, there was a mat to catch me.
But when I got up, I reflexively started crying because that's what your body does when it thinks it had a near-death experience.
I redeemed myself by climbing a different 12-foot path without ropes.
It was such a good workout; I was sore for at least 4 days afterwards. I think I may get a rock gym membership when I get a job after camp this summer, because my parents live very close to a rock gym, and I like the sort of full-body exercise you achieve from rock climbing.
After we tired of that (after I couldn't climb or stand any longer) we went on an adventure searching for chips and guacamole and headed home where Jess and Sara went to bed and where I wrote a three page paper on an amazing photographer named Kevin Russ.
There are far worse topics I could have written on.
I eventually went to bed and woke up the next morning to Maroussi, Jess' dog, in bed with us.
Jess warned me that Maroussi was super cuddly in the mornings, but I didn't know that meant he liked spooning and pawing and kissing whoever was in bed. During one of the pup's wiggle and cuddle sessions, I took a very solid paw to the face and laughed it off. Soon after, we all got dressed, loaded the car, and headed back to Phoenix--with Jess and Sara in tow, of course, because Jess wanted to visit Phoenix and for goodness' sakes, driving alone is nowhere near as fun as driving with another person.
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