This is not a bad thing. You're finally growing up. At this rate, you'll have reached a high-school maturity level in no time.

After a very long week, there were few things that could have gotten me up at 7 in the morning on a Saturday. Disneyland was one of them. We'd wanted to go at some point this semester, and Lauren's sister Kristin's visit, combined with the discounted tickets Lauren and Jenn got through their ABC internships, made it the perfect occasion. While the three of them are seasoned Disney World veterans, I had never been to either Disney before. Shocking, I know, but I was so excited to finally see what all the fuss is about.

We'd only been inside for a few minutes when we got sidetracked. A brief venture into a gift shop so Kristin could buy sunglasses turned into us spending too much time trying on all of the silly ear hats.

Afterward, we stopped by the castle to take pictures. I've been told this castle pales in comparison to the Disney World castle, but since I had nothing to judge it against, I thought it was awesome.

Then it was time for the first ride of the day: Buzz Lightyear! Which Jenn is ridiculously good at, by the way.

In our search for a mid-morning snack, we were entertained by how literally everything at Disney is Mickey-shaped.

After traveling through the galaxy on Star Tours, the awesome Star Wars motion simulator ride, we decided to tough out the long line for the Finding Nemo submarine ride and indulge our 5-year-old selves. It was very cute and had some impressive graphics and entertaining commentary.

After the submarine, our FastPass time for Space Mountain was finally up! And it's probably my new favorite ride. In case anyone is not familiar with Space Mountain, it's a high-speed roller coaster completely in the dark so you never know when the next drop or turn is coming. Our on-ride photos at the end of each ride we went on are very indicative of our feelings toward each particular experience. Case in point, how genuinely thrilled we all look in this one.

After that, we had lunch at a Mexican restaurant in the park and rode Thunder Mountain and the Haunted Mansion. Naturally, we couldn't pass up some photo opportunities with Disney characters. Note how I'm being squished by Br'er Bear, who decided the second before the picture was taken to pull us all in tighter.


Then it was time for Splash Mountain. Now, here's the thing: I love water rides. I love water parks, and water slides, and log flumes, and river rapids rides. I find them so much fun that I don't mind being wet. I will readily admit the conditions were not ideal: it was chilly outside, and we still had many long hours of walking around ahead. But there was no way I could go to Disney for the first time and NOT ride arguably the most famous water ride ever. Jenn agreed with me and put aside her own dislike of water rides to accompany me. Kristin refused flat-out. It took us a long time to convince Lauren, but she finally caved, agreeing I deserved my Splash Mountain experience. We knew going in that it would be the perfect experience of the day to document with my FlipCam. So to answer your burning questions (did Lauren succeed in her quest to remain dry? Did the ride break down like it did on Jenn and Lauren's previous Splash Mountain experience? Just how wet did I end up getting?) you must watch.


After Splash Mountain, we decided it was time to take advantage of our park-hopper pass and head over to California Adventure, which Lauren will talk about in the next blog post (this day was simply too much fun for one blog)! But in conclusion, I couldn't have asked for more with my first Disney experience, and I hope it was only the first of many!

-Erin

Sure know how to mix a drink, that's so hot...

Hello!

So, last weekend got off to a pretty kickin' start with a Friday evening at "Henry's Hat," that bar at which I owned Laur, Erin, and Map at some serious Sorry!. Kristin, Laur's sister, was in town for the week, and we wanted to show her a good time at a fun bar...little did we know what was about to ensue.

As we ordered appetizers (they brought us extra chips!) and drinks, we started playing Balderdash, which may or may not be my favorite board game. By the time our sandwiches and pizzas arrived, Map had already managed to reach the finish line.

But then, I noticed through the window that a familiar face was walking into the bar, and quickly whispered at my friends, "Ken Tanaka is here!" And, sure enough, Patrick Gallagher, from "Glee" and "Night at the Museum" fame, entered Henry's Hat and sat down at the bar.

Now, we're not the type of the film and tv students that get starstruck and ask people to pose in pictures with us...but we are the type to take advantage of a good story if the opportunity strikes. So, when someone dared the table to go say hello to Mr. Gallagher, Lauren and I agreed to not only say hello, but to invite him to play Balderdash with us, because we're such big fans. We figured he'd laugh and say no, but that he'd appreciate that we recognized him.

We went up to the bar, and stood next to him as if we were ordering more drinks, until Lauren had the guts to say, "Are you...are you Patrick Gallagher?" When he confirmed, she gushed about what big fans we were. As he introduced himself and shook our hands, I smiled and asked, "Hey, would you like to come play Balderdash with us? We're at that big table over there." He considered, and then said, "Well, would you mind if I could only play for five minutes?" Laur and I gasped and said, "No, of course not, that'd be amazing!" And so he told us to go back, and that he'd come over in a minute.

And he did. Much to our disbelief...he ended up staying and playing the game for about half an hour, all the while telling us stories about his acting career, talking about growing up in Reading and spending summers on the Cape, and giving us advice about our specific career paths.

What a guy. He eventually left to go to a charity event, and we sat in awe for a little while about how bizarre our lives keep getting. All in all, a good way to introduce Kristin to the LA life, eh?

^This is a picture from when Patrick Gallagher was at the bar, and Laur tried to get a picture as discreetly as possible. The other patrons kept getting in the way!

Stay tuned for Disneyland adventures!
-Jenn

I was an extra as a party planner in this one movie. I really learned a lot from that experience.

As most of us were playing catch-up at work from the recent long weekend, I will now be playing catch-up in the blog. Sorry, folks, but this week was busy, so I'm forced to blog about last Monday on Sunday night.

The long weekend was much-needed, though. I know our blog doesn't always get this across, but most of the time, we're functioning through 14-hour days. Having an extra day to relax, especially with the truly gorgeous weather, felt wonderful.

The weather was perfect last weekend: bright sun and 80 degrees. I know you East-coasters are about ready to stab me through the computer screen, but if it's any consolation, we're told our current weather conditions are the worst California's seen in a long time; it's rained a lot, and hovers at around 60 degrees regularly. (That may not be consolation at all, but, hey, you signed up for winter when you decided to stay over there.) Anyway, the timing couldn't have been better, because we got to spend our Monday holiday at a beach--several of which are located about 20 minutes away from our apartment.

Well, spending the whole day at a beach was the original plan. We had decided Redondo Beach sounded really fun, and had enough to do to occupy an entire day--that is, until Jenn found an event where Colin Firth was speaking after a screening of A Single Man. We backtracked our planning, decided to save the activity-laden beach for another weekend, and found its neighbor, Hermosa Beach, a lot more plausible. Because it has less to do and to see (aside from the soft sand, summer sun, and cooling sea breeze), we could leave early and make the Colin Firth event on time.

So, basically...best day ever?

We were joined by Nick and Mapgar again--they're fast becoming our standard adventure buddies--and made it to the beach by about 11 AM. Traffic worried us for a short while (the beach was a popular plan), but by the time we set up our towels and flopped onto the ground, we didn't have any cares in the world.

Actually, that's an exaggeration; Mapgar was reading a god-awful script for his internship, and it provided him with quite a bit of frustration, though the rest of us got a lot of entertainment out of it.


When we started to warm up, we even ventured into the water to cool down.


...Not very far into the water, though. Apparently, because there's no Gulf Stream on the West Coast, the ocean is colder here. Noted. It was still fun frolicking in the Pacific, regardless.

After a few hours of sun, we decided to hop in the car, grab a quick bite to eat at the first place we saw, and head home to shower and change before the Colin Firth session.

The first place we saw was the Ocean Diner, which had a giant sign in the window advertising the healing powers of cake. How could we not stop?

We always find the strangest places to eat. The food was fantastic, Mexican-inspired diner food. The decor of choice for this particular restaurant was World War II themed--the reason for this was unclear. However, it did amuse us in a more innocuous way than Casa Jimenez (of the desert adventure). I especially enjoyed the small article on French robots.

Lunch took longer than anticipated, of course, so we had to high-tail it home, only to change clothes at lightning speed and jump right back into the car so we could make the movie.

I will refrain from commenting too much on the movie, so that I don't spoil it, or heavily influence anyone who wants to see it. We all gave it about the same review, however, which was: Colin Firth was good, the movie itself really...wasn't. It wasn't awful, but it didn't live up to expectations.

What did live up to expectations was the Q&A from Mr. Firth which immediately followed the screenings. He is incredibly charming in real life, and had some wonderful things to say. Highlights:

"When I first met [director] Tom Ford, he sort of smouldered at me from across the room."

"As an actor, you do what you're told. You feel what you're supposed to feel, be it happy, or sad, or disappointed, or whatever the script calls for. It's just that this script called for much more, allowing me to feel and explore many extremely different emotions."


And one woman's "question":
"Your performance was beautiful, but you'll always be my perfect Mr. Darcy."

After tweeting about these (and a few other) experiences, Amadeo responded with something that sums this day up quite nicely, I think: "Why are your LA lives so magical?"

The truth is, we've been trying to jump at a lot of opportunities. I, at least, don't want to have any "what-if"s. So...just wait 'til you hear what events transpired the following weekend!

--Lauren

Photo credit in this entry goes to Jenn.

I guess you weren't as discreet as you thought.

Before I continue telling you about our long weekend adventures, we want to give a quick shout-out to everyone who sent us love for Valentine's Day in the form of delicious chocolates for all of us from my mom (thank you! :)), more chocolates for Jenn, and two deliveries of flowers for Lauren. Thank you, everyone!


Picking up where Jenn left off, we kicked off day 2 of President's Day weekend with our first official west coast beach trip! While the east coast was being bombarded with snow (sorry, guys), the LA weather was absolutely gorgeous this weekend with highs near 80. With our LA partners in crime Mapgar and Nick in tow, we set off for Venice Beach.


We basked in the sunlight, read, chatted, created a sand dragon, dipped our toes in the very cold water...all in all a perfect day at the beach. Then we set off for a walk along the pier and found this pelican chilling on the railing, nonchalantly attracting the attention of almost everyone who walked by.

Then we went to the boardwalk in search of food, and didn't quite find what we expected. For starters, the houses along the beach are crazy. No two look anything alike: the styles ranged from bright purple to log cabin to dollhouse-esque.

As we walked along the boardwalk, it quickly became apparent that we weren't going to find what we were looking for in terms of food or atmosphere. I can say, though, that if you're looking for excellent people-watching it is definitely the place to be. We saw some interesting sights. We ended up heading back to the more conservative town area and eating at a little cafe before going home.

Later, we weren't quite ready to call it a night so we decided to venture back out for some late-night geocaching. While searching online, Jenn read about a particularly epic multi-step geocache that involved math, trivia, and Grauman's Chinese Theater. What's not to love? And naturally, it turned into our best geocaching adventure yet. In order to give you all a better idea of exactly what our favorite new hobby is, we decided to document the entire thing from questionable parking through several red herrings to... well, you'll just have to watch for yourself and find out how it ended up.



Check back in soon for the beachy, celeb-studded conclusion of our holiday weekend!

-Erin

"I had to hide. It was the only way to keep you safe."

Hello, East Coast! (...and West Coast. And Middle-America. And places other than America.)

Apologies on the long delay in blog-posting--we took a relaxing break from adventure last weekend to do errands and meet up with old friends in new places (like the Argentinean restaurant Malbec, which had the most delicious chorizo sandwich).

So, what better way to kick off the weekend than with a night out on the town? And what better place than a restaurant that has not only a dinner menu and drink menu, but a board game menu? Henry's Hat, on Cahuenga near Universal Studios, was a lot of fun. Dinner was good, drinks were okay, but the music and the atmosphere? Excellent. It had the same feel as Bay State favorite Sunset Cantina in Boston, except...with board games!

We played "Sorry!" I never thought this game could be this fun.

I won. As per usual?

The next morning, after a well-deserved sleep in, we hit up the Farmers' Market for lunch. Much to our delight, everything was Mardi Gras themed!

We migrated toward a large crowd that forming around a small stage, and found ourselves in the middle of the most ridiculous dog show I have ever seen.

I give you...Mutty-Gras. An adorable mini-Gonzo banana-shaped dog was named the Queen. When we sat down with our food, a parade began around us, serenading us with saxophones and trumpets. I love right place/right time moments.

Afterward, we played with the adoptable puppies in front of the toy shop (I feel like they're pandering to their audience a bit) until we had become hopelessly attached to all six puppies and their unique personalities.

Later in the day, we searched for inexpensive things to do near Westwood, and realized that this was the perfect time to try out one of my favorite hobbies: geocaching. Usually, caches are hidden in the woods, on or around hiking trails. As the sport (of sorts) has caught on, urban geocaches are showing up in cities across the globe.

To play, you need to go to geocaching.com and search for caches near where you want go. Once you find one whose title/description sounds appealing, all you have to do is type the coordinates the site gives into your GPS (handheld is necessary for hiking, but for the city, our car GPS's and smart phones worked fine) and go. Each cache has extra hints that you can decode if you're having trouble finding the cache at the coordinates.

When we got to our first cache, near UCLA, we needed to use the clues to pin-point the cache. The first clue, once we decoded it, was "Ptolemie III." This led us to a statue in the garden with the same name, and after looking up, around, and down for a while...Mapgar found the cache!

Success. We won't tell you where exactly, in case you want to find it yourself. Inside was a log and a pen, so we signed as "Team LA State from Boston." Some caches have prizes inside--you can bring a trinket to put in, and take a trinket out to keep. Smaller ones (as urban ones tend to be) usually jsut have a log. Which is still cool!

Cache 1: Success. On to cache two, whose coordinates were about a mile away.

The title of the cache took us to the Mann Village Theater in downtown Westwood. There were a lot of people around, so we had to be as inconspicuous as possible. "Don't alert the muggles," the site had warned. Our only clue was that the cache was hidden in a place that would be good for dropping off unwanted team members. Right as we were about to give up, Lauren found it!

Just a log in this tiny magnetized tin! The guys in the green ambulance behind Lauren were pretty amused, I think. They watched us search (okay, we're pretty bad at the covert thing) for about fifteen minutes.

It was getting to nightfall, and since we had stumbled into the best parking spot in all of Westwood, we decided to stick around the area for a bit and go to the IN-N-OUT around the corner. Delicious decision.

After we ate, we had just enough time left on the meter to find the third geocache, which was only two blocks away (or so we thought). The GPS led us down a creepy backstreet behind a fire department, which seemed right because the clue was "put out the fire."

We searched all around the fire department to no avail. Using Nick's smart phone power we pulled up the website again, and noticed that someone had commented that there was a great view of the skyline from this "park-and-go" cache. Hmm, how convenient, the fire department is right next to a tall parking garage with an open roof!

The roof was covered with fire extinguisher stations--perfect metal for hiding a magnetic tin mini-cache. We searched the whole roof, checking out the cool night skyline. Found nada.

We even went back down and searched the police boxes on other floors, but in vain. The cache remained hidden! Eventually, we admitted defeat. Next time, cache...

Still, two out of three ain't bad. Stay tuned for more geocaching adventures later this weekend!

"Truth" is a relative term.

...And, apparently, so is "time," when you ask a GPS how long it takes to get to the Mojave Desert.

Let me back up. Why were we going to the desert, you ask? Well, here's the thing: I can't really speak for Erin, because living with her is new (and, by the way, awesome), but Jenn and I haven't really had legitimate weekends before. Between class, Bay State, projects, and Best Buy, we've always worked through weekends. It's exciting to have these opportunities where nothing is due, there are no pressing deadlines...we can just relax and have fun. So, come Saturday, when I pitched a day trip to the desert to my roommates, we couldn't really come up with a reason why it wasn't a good idea. Did we have time? Yes. Have we ever been to the desert before? No. Is it expensive? No, it's free to explore, you just have to pay gas to get there.

Well...okay, then! We threw out an invite to a few others, and Mapgar readily joined--despite his recent arrival in LA, during which he'd already driven past quite a few desert landscapes.

Anyway, we got up reasonably early, prepared for a four-hour trip (you know: water, Cheez-Its...the essentials), clambered into my Jeep, and we were off. Using Jenn's GPS (which, unlike mine, is not broken), we typed in the location of the Mojave National Reserve Info. Center, and raised our eyebrows skeptically when it said "two hours" as the arrival time.

We found some great radio stations (as we tend to do), and were in awe as we drove, since the views out our window changed from buildings and palm trees, to dry mountains and desert. The more "desert" it got, the less radio we got. We gradually began to wonder where we were actually going.

Two hours go by, and suddenly we're in Barstow, California. The Mojave National Reserve Info. Center is a mere two miles away, and we're pretty much on-time, according to the GPS. We're hungry, there's a Mexican restaurant staring at us from the exit, so we decide to grab lunch.

Oh, Casa Jimenez...how can I do you justice? Everything on the menu was $5.00, which is great. But everything on the walls was a mounted, dead animal--including, mind you, a zebra. Where did they find this zebra? Why is it staring at me while I eat my delicious, cheap Mexican food?

We spent the entire meal giggling uncomfortably, then left, thinking, "Time to hike!"

Little did we know that the Mojave National Reserve Info. Center is actually two hours from the Mojave National Reserve hiking trails. We found out when we pulled into the deserted building (Ahhh....! See what I did there?), and Jenn and Mapgar ran out to investigate the giant map, while Erin and I speculated from the car.
Jenn re-enters with the sentence, "How do you feel about Nevada?" When Erin and I just stare, she continues, "The desert's two hours in that direction." Well, we prepared for a four-hour journey (remember, the Cheez-Its), so we soldier on.

I think it was around an hour-and-a-half later when the GPS said, "You have arrived," and all we saw was this:
Respectfully, GPS, we disagree. Where is the damn hiking trail? Another stop at a giant map indicates that it's quite a few miles down Cima Road, which was quite a few miles from where we were. "Well," one of us says, "We can't stop now."

We finally arrive at Cima Rd., where we obviously stop to take pictures.


Then, we continue to drive down it, keeping our eyes peeled for a hiking trail that Jenn's entered into the GPS (which, at this point, I'm not sure why we're still trusting). When we pass a sign labeled "Hiking Trail," the GPS still thinks we have five miles to go. We figure, we want to see the desert anyway, so we'll turn around if it's wrong.

It is wrong. This is what awaited us at the five-mile-later mark:

LOST, anyone?

By now, it's 3:30 PM, and we can't really hike without risking being in the desert (alone) after dark. But, we turn back to the hiking trail, and figure we'll explore a bit before the sun starts to set. But the eerie silence (and I mean silence) and the fact that we have to leave the car unattended (with no other cars in sight), leads us to believe we're in a horror film.


Our hiking chat went something like this:
Mapgar: "When we come back, the car's going to be gone."
Me: "When we come back, it'll have three flat tires, and a very creepy man in a tow truck will kidnap us."
Erin: "We could leave someone with the car."
Me: "No, that person always dies first."
Mapgar: "Well, I vote that person is not me."
Jenn: "Well, I'm fine. I've got a camera. I die last, because the police always have to find the footage of the other people dying."
Mapgar: "I may kill Jenn just so I have the camera."

And then we'd get distracted by something pretty and pose with it. Pics or it didn't happen, right?


After a forty-five minute picture foray on the trail, we hear a strange noise from a bush, the sun's getting dimmer behind the mountains, and we figure...it's about time to go home. The car was still there, and it was unharmed, and other than the ridiculous amount of traffic (probably coming from Vegas), we got home without any problems.

That is, until we realized we had work and class again the next morning, and we really didn't rest very much all weekend. Adventurers never get any sleep.

--Lauren

(Photo cred. in this entry goes to Jenn.)

Are you making muffins instead of working on your single?

Since this blog is probably making it look like all we do in LA is frolic, we want to remind everyone that last week was the first full week of internships and classes. That means working 9-6 every day, plus classes from 7:30-10 three nights a week. Therefore, we definitely earned a weekend of fun.

After enjoying sleeping in, we decided to spend our Saturday afternoon exploring Beverly Hills. With new LA resident and Bay State alumnus Michael Apgar in tow, we headed out, with Rodeo Drive as our destination.

Photo credit for this post to Jenn!


Keeping our eyes peeled for celebrities, we walked past every designer store known to man. We even saw someone with a tray of glasses of champagne waiting inside the Louis Vuitton store- that's service.

We came upon a cupcake store called Sprinkles that had a line halfway down the block. Having heard from co-workers that it is a must-visit place in LA, we decided it was worth the wait. That was absolutely the right decision, since our cupcakes were beyond delicious.


Of course we couldn't leave without visiting the famous Beverly Hills sign, and, because we're us, taking silly pictures.


Always looking to top the silly picture scale, we found a crazy tree that was just begging to be posed with...and slid down. This photo, taken with the self-timer, earned us a thumbs up from a random passerby.


Not ready to go home just yet, we literally headed for the hills and took a drive past some of the most expensive dream homes I've ever seen. New life goal: own one of these houses, if only for the amazing view.



Stay tuned for Lauren's recap of our impromptu adventure to the Mojave Desert!

-Erin