How did you...how did you get this picture?

Shawty's like a melody in my head...

As is customary for LA folk, we have been spending a lot of time in the car. And, as the cast and crew of the musical know, that means we've been listening to a lot of radio. While no station will ever replace SoJo, we have found one with a pretty decent rotation of songs--just enough repetition of Gaga, "Down," Ke$ha, Britney, and (fittingly) "Replay" to keep us entertained. And to keep us singing this song...on repeat...like my iPod's stuck on replay...(okay, okay, I'm done).

Anyway, the point is, we've been driving a lot. Usually, though, we only drive to get from A to B. However, last night, after the Youth Alumni Panel (a mandatory event from BULA), we realized that we didn't have any plans. Most people in our program (including us) don't know Los Angeles well enough to offer any decent suggestions, so after the Q & A ended, we were left without a concrete idea of how to spend our Friday night--especially knowing we had to be up at 8 AM for yet another mandatory event this morning (to be discussed in Jenn's upcoming entry).

So, to solve the we-don't-know-LA problem, and the we're-bored-on-a-Friday-night problem (and to ease the Bay-State-read-through-is-happening-and-we're-missing-it pain), we decided the best idea was to drive around aimlessly, using our GPS's "points of interest" feature as a guide. I grabbed my DSLR, Erin grabbed her Flip camera, Jenn grabbed her car keys, and we were off.

We started driving to Sunset Strip, which wasn't really what we were looking for. So, we tried to turn around. But finding an appropriate place for a U-turn was difficult, and as we continued down the road, it became increasingly less appealing; we realized we were headed up one of the mountain bluffs that I've been staring at in awe for the past week, and that was way cooler than doing a U-turn.

It was not an easy drive--it comprised nothing but S-curves straight out of a video game, and it wasn't exactly well-lit. Jenn managed, though, and once we caught one glimpse of the view, we knew we had to soldier on. Erin did some quick google-searching on her Blackberry, and found out that apparently the best view of LA at night is at the top of Mulholland Drive, which we'd driven past moments before. Done...and done.

We kept pulling over to enjoy the view before realizing that it only got better with each passing hairpin turn.

We finally found the actual outlook point, and stopped to enjoy the beautiful view of the twinkling lights in the city (and to finally appreciate how enormous Los Angeles truly is). And, despite the loud couple that broke up in an explosion of expletives slightly to our left, we were blown away by what we saw. Our pictures and videos can't really do it justice, but lord knows we tried anyway.





In the end, though, there are a few moments we felt couldn't really get across outside of video. The first video is a compilation of what I've told/shown you. Observe:



The second is when we thought we were going to get attacked by a mountain lion.
You heard me.

Keep an eye out for Jenn's next update-- it promises to include some more pretty incredible photos. Apparently, for the last 24-hours of our lives, we've taken the scenic route.

--Lauren