OUR HOUSE: Seven Days in LA

A couple of weeks ago Marty and I went to LA. Marty had another sales training and I went along for a nice relaxing week. I had hoped that the weather was going to be really nice because I wanted to spend some time at the beach, but it was freezing. I had to buy a sweater. I was bumbed.

We land in LA and the first thing we do is catch a cab and go to Hollywood, we were going to participate in The Amazing LA Race. I love the real Amazing Race and I always thought Marty and I would do awesome. We were both so excited. The race was a foot race to who knew where. We knew nothing about LA. Oh ya and we were carrying our luggage on our backs. Marty and I have packing down to a science so we don't have to check luggage. He has a backpack and I have a backpack and a big purse. It got pretty heavy and I got a little grouchy. Our first stop was the Hollywood Bowl, an outdoor venue for concerts, the place was huge. It seats over 17,000 people and we had to search for our clue among the seats. We solved a puzzle that lead us to Graman's Chinesse Theatre. Funny story, there were people stashed around from that were supposed to give us clues or whatever. Small note there are a billion crazy people in Hollywood, I wanted to just punch someone. This lady kept coming up to us and offering us a country music cd. Well we didn't want a music cd, then she would come back and say I really think you might like it. Well we didn't get it, we had a few free calls to Bob who was over the race to ask for clues. He said someone was trying to give us something but we wouldn't take it. Inside the cd case was the clue. Hello crazies. We had to put our hands in certain celebrities hand prints to find our next clue. We got on the metro and heading to down town LA. We saw the Angels Flight, and old trolly car that goes up and down a very steep hill. We were in such a hurry that I didn't even take out my camera to snap any pictures. Total bumber, I could have had a few winners. We then headed across the street to this super cool open market. There was tons of yummy food everywhere, I just wanted to stop and eat. I hadn't eaten since 5:30 and it was after noon. We then went to the library which had this beautiful garden, then we went to the Walt Disney Concert Hall. We got back on the metro. It was a long ride, it felt good to take off the packs and rest. We headed back to Hollywood and had to find a certain stars name and use the first letter to find our last clue. It took forever. Bob said the race would take about 3 1/2 hours, it took us 5 1/2 hours, we came in second to last. I was exhausted, I got pretty frustrated a few times because certain people wouldn't listen to me. Now looking back on it, it was so much fun. I think it would have been a bit easier if we hadn't of had our pack. Sorry that was a condensed version and it was pretty long.

We did go back to Hollywood on Friday night to go and see Jimmy Kimmel.

That was way fun. The guests were ok, and we got to go to an out door concert, I can't even remember the name of the band. It was pretty bad though, it was dead silent while they were playing. We did get to see ourselves on tv though.

We rode the metro home, probably not such a good idea. We rode through the worst neighborhoods in LA. I was a little nervous. At one point when the car was totally packed we were two of three white people. It felt like I was back in Sao Paulo. I loved riding the metro.