Southern California is, as I’m told, the land of smog, traffic, and exaggerated wealth. As soon as we drove within the borders of the City of Angels, I noticed a heightened tension that seemingly drifted through the air. It is what it is, though, but it’s definitely not a city for me.
We headed off the interstate to Studio City. It’s a little city outside of LA that is exactly as the moniker describes; a town with many major studios. I have to say, it was pretty amazing to be staying right across the street from Universal Studios. After driving around the town in search of a restroom, we went into a neighborhood, parked the car and proceeded to steal wireless internet from some wealthy individual. That’s a good way to get a little adrenaline going and steal from the rich. Also, just on the outskirts of this neighborhood were the massive drainage canals made famous by The Terminator. I was impressed.
Other than that, we spent the next day and a half doing the general tour of this massive city. As Jon alluded to, we definitely got the locals perspective because we barely left the confines of the car. You may think I’m kidding, but I’ll give you an example to the contrary. We decided to eat at a now famous diner called Mel’s Drive-In. Once driving in to the little tiny parking lot, we were promptly greeted by a valet attendant and a sign reading “Complimentary Valet Parking.” This, by the way, caused Jon to quickly pull a U-turn for fear that complimentary was, as he thought, not free. After convincing him otherwise, we proceeded to pull up to the attendant where he then parked our car in a spot that was literally 10 feet from where we were standing. As you can imagine, this made an interesting moment after exiting the restaurant. The attendant had to run 10 feet, grab our ticket, run another 10 feet, then drive the car a few feet to where we were standing for 3 minutes waiting for this whole process. The ridiculousness of the city was astounding. Definitely a city for car fanatics, though. I have honestly never seen so many amazing cars in any other area.
After this and a really nice hike up Runyon Canyon, we headed south to Huntington Beach. Now, this city is much more my style. However, I was a bit disappointed with the scenic views of oil rigs and tankers off the coast. The water had a nice greenish brown hue to it, but I figured if the dolphins could play in it, so could I. So, I strapped on my wet suit and headed in to the cold water with a surfboard under my arm. This was truly the crowning moment of the trip. I had an insane amount of fun out there by myself catching little waves and riding them into the sand. It reminded me of times back in FL where I would drive to the coast at 6am to catch a few hours of surf before heading to work. These were truly blissful moments where I could focus all physical energy on the act at hand and all mental energy to figuring out my life between sets. “You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf.” It’s true.
The rest of the time was mostly spent in front of a fire pit, exploring Main Street, and drinking. The Main Street area was truly a surfer’s paradise. I have to say, it was a bit glamorized with its surf shops focusing more on fashion than the sport, but the true believers were still around and just as anxious to shed their Billabong shirt to get in the water and actually surf. So far, this is number 1 on my list. We’ll see if it holds up.
As you may know by now, I like to highlight people in all the places I write about. However, there weren’t really any people that stood out in my mind. There were of course the amazing people I met through Jon, but I’d like to avoid talking about them for fear that I wouldn’t describe them or the experiences I had with them accurately. They’re actors; they don’t want any publicity…. I wish I could personify Ruby, the mascot for the diner at the end of the Huntington Beach pier, though.
Here is a little addendum to the entry. I actually managed to think of someone that was sort of memorable for my visit. It was annoying me that throughout my three days in LA and Huntington Beach, I wasn’t able to highlight a single person.
On the first night in LA, we went to a restaurant called Salt Creek Grille. We were serenaded by jazz music as we dined on our high price, yet cheapest on the menu, salads and burgers. As we were unable to get seated in the dining area, we made our way over to the bar and were promptly greeted by our waitress. With a cheery spirit, she took our drink orders and offered us some menus. Once we had ample time to peruse the menu, she came over to grab our order. As she stood there, she couldn’t help but recommend and suggest in a non-pushy way. It is something all the good servers do and I was thoroughly captivated.
However, here is the thing that made her stand out. Just as soon as she was about to recommend something, she would bend her right leg at the knee and tuck it up toward her back. It was like seeing something out of a Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks movie, whereby Meg Ryan would lift her leg just as soon as the kissing became interesting. We later found out her nickname was Tennessee, from her slight southern accent, but in actuality she was mostly raised in New Jersey. Apparently, she had some remnants from her childhood. She was transplanted from Jersey to LA in order to help open the restaurant. Already she was a bit jaded with the flighty personality of the LA actors and said during a two week period they managed to go through 3 sets of wait staff. I guess auditions are more important. Little did they know, they could have gotten experience on the kiss-leg-lift….
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