Los Angeles*

*the Greater Los Angeles Area to be more exact. Days filled with (mostly) sunshine, lots of traffic and friends. A huge thank you to Monica and Jeff for hosting me and to Ryan for helping me out and taking me around!

I got to experience one of the notorious things about LA as soon as I got off the plane – traffic. It took us two hours to get to Ryan’s parents’ house with lots of sitting around, but it was a good chance to catch up. We got Chipotle for dinner and just chatted with Ryan’s parents where I was staying.

The next morning Jessica picked me up and we went to Griffith Observatory. We hiked up the hill, decided to go off the beaten path and made it up to a beautiful view of Los Angeles. It was a really warm and sunny day and I, of course, was happy to see the Hollywood sign, even if it was far away.

I was really surprised you can go in to the observatory for free, but they had some interesting stuff there. To be fair, I have learned most of it in school, but it’s always fun to watch eclipses, a demonstration of the Tesla coil and see how much I weigh on Jupiter. It was also the only time I’ve had mac and cheese in the States.

Unfortunately I wasn’t feeling well once we got back, so I took it easy for the rest of the day. I went to dinner with Courtney and we had ramen in Fullerton. I went to bed early and had a very chill next morning at the house, watching Netflix and enjoying the sunshine in the yard.

Ryan and I went to Hollywood and the arts district later that day as I was feeling better. I also got to see Ashley at the church where they work and it was so much fun chatting again. Hopefully we can see each other again this summer in Estonia.

In Hollywood we went to the Chinese Theatre, walked on the stars and looked at the handprints on the ground. Since Ryan studied film, he told me all sorts of fun facts about the movie industry while I was there. We walked in the Dolby Theatre, which is where the Oscars take place, and I got to walk up the same steps all those famous people do every year.

We decided to have hot dogs in the arts district and our journey there was once again long because of the traffic. We drove by all the movie studios though, which was very interesting. Universal Studios has a theme park next to it, Warner Brothers looks exactly like it does in movies and they’re all surprisingly close to each other.

We went exploring around some beaches with Ryan and Daisy. First Laguna beach, where it was foggy and windy, but still beautiful. There were cliffs and rocks in the water with smaller areas with sand that you could go down to. Just as it was getting warmer and starting to clear up we headed to the next beach in Newport.

We hoped to see some bigger waves at the beach in Newport, but it was actually even calmer than Laguna. It was still nice, with palm trees, yachts and summer-y feeling houses. I just love being by the ocean.

On our way back we took the tiniest ferry to Balboa island and stopped for frozen bananas. They also sold Balboa ice cream and I’m not sure how that’s different from regular ice cream, but the frozen banana was delicious. We also made friends/ felt threatened by a bunch of pigeons. They were really aggresive.

That night we went to worship night, since everyone I know in LA are from WACC. Courtney and I got together at Ashley’s other job before the worship night and enjoyed a little drink and snack. The worship night itself was very different from what I’ve been to before. There were a couple hundred people there and at times I felt like I had just come to a concert that I could sing along to. Afterwards we went to In-N-Out to hang out with the younger people and I saw real life cheerleaders (the wondrous things for foreigners).

Now, going to Disneyland was always in the back of my mind when I knew I was going to LA, but I hadn’t really made any plans before I got there. So in the morning of my last day Ryan texted me, that he could get me a ticket for 40$, do I want to go? So obviously we went to Disneyland (the ticket is normally about 150$). At first we thought I could only go to California Adventure, but when we got there we realized it was to both parks and had a fast pass.

So with this new discovery of having both parks at our disposal, I had to see everything. Ryan was once again a great tour guide, since he has an annual pass and has been going there for years. I could learn all the tricks of a local and heard a lot of fun facts about the different rides.

We tried to go on as many rides as we could without waiting in line for too long. There was a lot of people visiting that day and we still wanted to enjoy our time without stressing about all the rides. I think the longest wait we did was for Pirates of the Caribbean for about 30 minutes. The roller coasters were all quite mild compared to what I thought they would be.

Ryan took me to all the different “lands” within the park and it was so interesting to see how fast they could change the landscape, how intricate the details were and how much effort has very obviously been put into the parks. You could go from the streets of New Orleans to the greenery of the Critter Country to the new and futuristic Star Wars in just a couple of minutes.

Unfortunately we didn’t see that many characters walking around, but at least both Minnie and Mickey were there. We also caught glimpses of Cinderella and Prince Charming, and Princess Tiana. We also managed to get a picture with Pluto.

I think my favourite ride was Soaring, where it feels like you’re flying over some of the most famous places on Earth. It just felt so incredibly realistic and I wasn’t expecting that at all. Time went by so fast and suddenly it was time for the final shows after an absolutely beautiful sunset.

We saw the fireworks from afar and stayed in California Adventure for their final show. It was all done with water, sound and lights – they showed clips from Disney movies on the water that formed kind of a screen. I don’t know how to explain it exactly but it was magical to see.

We ran over to Disneyland for their final show as well, which was more of a combination of reality and movies and I finally got to see a lot of the characters. It just reminded me of how much I love Disney and musicals. What an epic end to my adventures on the mainland!