My Trip to LA/San Diego!!

As most of you know, I took the plunge and went out to California to see what all the hype was about. I headed out there with my girlfriend Anna bright and early Thursday morning in hopes to see the "tourist-y" spots like Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Malibu, Venice, Mulholland Drive, etc.

This was at 7am...yet we were very excited about our upcoming trip!

When we were getting close to the LA area, our captain got on the intercom and told us to look out the window...Low and behold, this was our view:

The Grand Canyon!

I am sure seeing it from 30,000+ feet in the air does not do it justice but I have always wanted to see it! I got an excellent capture of it too! After we landed and got our trusty car (which we named Penelope or "Penny" for short) we were on our way!

Penny was so good to us- and she got GREAT gas mileage!

We were on our way to Hollywood! We decided to take the long way from LAX so we could hit up the beaches along the way! Our drive took us through Santa Monica, Venice, and Malibu where we saw views like this:

They have the best backstreets that take you on some wild twists and turns but the scenery is out of this world! Anna and I loved sightseeing around here because every single house was different than one another. We could not find two that were remotely the same.


When we finally got to Hollywood, we stayed at the historic and iconic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel (Thank you Kayak! ) The hotel had a 1930's feel to it and with great customer service! Just take a look of their main lobby:

So gorgeous inside!

The next day was a much needed walk down Hollywood Blvd.! Being across from the Chinese and Kodak Theater we were definitely in the thick of the action and buzz so it was pretty easy to just stroll across the street to take some pictures! Of course I had to get mine taken with my all time favorite idols:

Paula!!

Michael Jackson!

Of course in front of the Chinese Theater was the infamous hand/footprint display where I shot these in memory of my grandmother:

Cary Grant! Such an amazing actor in the 1930's and 1940's!

She always wanted me to be like Gene Kelly...another classic actor/dancer/choreographer/icon!

Of course when you are in LA every girl thinks of the movie, Pretty Woman, and it is a necessity to hit up Rodeo Drive. Although we knew we totally would not belong, we headed that way!

Infamous and beautiful!

If you are following me on twitter, you probably already saw many of these photos as I was too excited at the time to hold them on my phone! While walking down Rodeo Drive we went into stores like Dolce and Gabbana, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany's, Jimmy Choo's, and more! We even saw this little baby parked on the side of the street:

Just to let you all know, that is a Bugatti and it costs between $1.5 and $2 million. Ahhh!


Along our walk, we went into Cartier and I decided to be brave and ask to try a ring on. I was then brave enough to ask how many karats, the cost, and if I could take a picture:

That is a 3.65 karat, $115K ring, ladies! *Sigh*

Ok so as we were feeling kind of down on ourselves at the fact that we were definitely out of place here, we decided to move on. Anna and I took our sight seeing on a scenic route that we found in an LA magazine. At only 10 miles long, it took you down legendary Mulholland Drive to scenic overlooks, canyons, and even some surprises! Along the way we were able to capture views like these:

Charlie Sheen's house! I told you there were some surprises!

Wow! What a view!

Amazing, right?? You would think we had enough excitement for one day...Hell no! We still had so much to do! We headed down to Venice Beach where we were to meet up with our friend Melissa for dinner and to stay the night in Long Beach. After what seemed to be forever (the traffic out there is out of this world!!) we finally got to Venice Beach pier in time to see the sunset:

There were people still out there surfing when we took these pictures! What a bunch of beach bunnies!

Stay tuned for Part 2 which includes hanging out in "Fangtasia" from True Blood, La Jolla seals, the Ravens game, and more! Hope you all come back and read all about my adventures and how I stormed California...on my own two feet...




Until the next step bloggers...