The City of Angels: Day 1

And so it begins! My good friend Katie arrives promptly at 2pm (Austin time) to pick Nyla and I up. When she arrives we're in the process of fitting all of our stuff into my giant suitcase. With baggage prices at $25 a bag, we decided it would be best to consolidate. Surprisingly, it's no big feat to get all of our stuff into the one bag (we're both notorious over-packers. I think between the two of us we had 6 pairs of high-heels). The drive to the airport from my house is an easy one so we get to the airport in no time, say our good-byes to Katie, and make our way to the United desk where we are greeted by the overly-smiley attendant. The lady greets us, weighs our bag and informs us that we have to lose 5lbs. At 55lbs, we're definitely over the weight limit. We pull the giant bag off to the side and examine it's innards. I grab as much stuff as I can that can fit into my carry on but it all seems relatively light. The heavy stuff seems to be my shampoo and conditioner and the like. I grab the cheapest stuff and toss them into the garbage. I figure it'll be easy to buy all new when we arrive in LA. In the end we manage to lose 4lbs of stuff and the lady deems it 'good enough.' She checks our bag in and we head towards security...

Little did I know that the stupid attendant checked my bag in...but not me. As we reach the security line I notice that the piece of paper she gave me says nothing about seats, or boarding times or anything. In fact, it only reads 'baggage claim receipt.' I leave Nyla in line, in a huff, and make my way back to the United desk. Luckily, there's a line. So instead of having to face the overly smiley, but useless attendant, I just go to the do-it-yourself kiosk to check in.

I meet Nyla on the other side of security and we find our way to our gate. Of course it's the very last possible gate in the entire terminal and of course we had to dress up a little just because we're going to LA...



But eventually we make it on the plane and head to our seats. We are the very last row on a very tiny plane. The plane is so tiny, in fact, that our seats, which lean against the bathroom, don't recline.



We also get the never-ending joy of smelling everything that goes on in the bathroom. On the plus side, the lovely flight attendant, Erica, takes pity on use and gives us each a set of ear plugs. They make the flight a much more pleasant one.



After the flight, the trip becomes much more smooth. We arrive safely in LAX and arrive in baggage claim just as our bag does. We easily find the bus for Advantage Rent A Car, fill out our paperwork and jump into our ever-so-cool Nissan Versa (in red!).


We promptly dub her 'CiCi'

The most useful thing in the world on this trip is Nyla's GPS on her phone. Everywhere we went we used it and it made navigating the giant city of LA completely simple. I almost felt like we were cheating, but it was worth it! So using the GPS we easily find our lovely residence, The Wave Hotel. We get our room number and our keys and head up only to discover unmade beds, fast food garbage and dirty towels. At first we think it's the wrong room and someone is still staying there, but then we realize it was just never cleaned. Nyla calls down to the front desk and the lady tells us to come back downstairs and she'll get us another room. When I arrive at the desk she's talking very quickly in Spanish to what turns out to be the house keeper. Apparently the house keeper is saying she cleaned it and since it's so late in the evening, all the house keepers have left so no one is there to clean it for us. Luckily, the desk lady has one other room to give us, which turns out to be a far superior room.





The beds are far across the room from each other, it's bigger and is just all-around nicer.

By this time we are absolutely STARVING. Manhattan Beach has a lot of restaurants, as we saw driving to the hotel, but we decide we're just going to stick to something we know is cheap, Olive Garden. I'm not sure why we thought this was a good idea, considering neither of us actually like Olive Garden. I guess we thought it would be inexpensive. WRONG. We forgot that we are in LA and everything is expensive. Although we have a nice time, the food is still mediocre and the prices are an unpleasant surprise.

We're both exhausted by the time dinner is finished (don't forget we're 2 hours ahead of Pacific time) so we finish the evening by just taking a short drive through 'downtown' Manhattan Beach. It's a very cute little beach town with a beautiful pier and we definitely decide we'll enjoy exploring it...but not now. So we head back to the room and are asleep by 10:30pm.