Friday Night: Drove home--er, to my mom's house, to meet with relatives. I went out with Maddie. We were gonna go to Martin's party but it was winding down. So we met up with my friend Christina and did a little bar hop in the Valley. But we were hungry, and so we went first to Tommy's. Then to Bar One, which was just a couple blocks away on Burbank Blvd. It wasn't too big, and there was a creepy old guy there who was bothering the girls. The crowd was very un-LA. I liked it, then I felt uncomfortable because there were no hipsters or anything around. We then left and headed to No Bar, which was a much swankier loungy place right on Magnolia. Despite the names, I would definitely prefer No Bar to Bar One. They played "Don't Stop Believin'" and I yelled at some random girl next to me that she has to sing it too. Her boyfriend, sitting right next to her, agreed with me. Drove Christina back to her place, Maddie back to my mom's place, and myself all the way back to West LA. I wasn't home until 3:30am.
Saturday: I didn't get much sleep. Woke up at 8:30am with a phone call that my mom was on her way to pick me up for our family day trip to Solvang. FUUUUUUUUUUUC. I snoozed it off, and when they arrived, Matt was about to leave so I just decided to go with him. Gintas and Vida were barely waking up as well.
We had the BMW and a huge rental van - one of those big white Chevy vans that can hold 10 people. Maddie drove there, I drove back. We had lunch in Santa Barbara at a nice seafood restaurant near the pier. It was chilly and very windy, there was blowing sand at the beach. Solvang was nice, I tried
æbleskiver. I got the last 2 in the restaurant. Walked around a bit, bathroom breaks essentially. Then we drove back around 5pm. Nothing else too eventful.
I then tried to figure out how I was gonna get to P&A's party. My couchsurfers saved me - Gintas and Vida offered to drive, and the girls from Iowa soon arrived and we made it into a party bus excursion! The party was cool, but it ended pretty soon (A's graduation was the next morning). But the party don't stop - we kept it going on the ride back, including wandering around Santa Monica and onto the pier at (?) 2am-ish.
Sunday: I had to meet the family for lunch in Chinatown. I woke up around 9, sleep deprived yet again, and tried to be on a bus by 11. On my way to the bus stop, a bus passed me. It was already a block ahead of me, but for some reason, I thought, fuck it, and I just
ran for it. And I ran across Sepulveda, and the bus was already boarding passengers. Thank god for this one old lady, she kept asking the bus driver if she'd be getting on the right bus. She held up the bus long enough for me to make it on. I was catching my breath on the bus ride, as people cast me sideways glances. On the bus, after passing Highland, a woman who had been looking at a route map asked me where was Rodeo Drive and Hollywood. She was from Australia (Melbourne) and didn't know that we had already passed the sightseeing places. I directed them to just take the Metro back.
Lunch was dim sum at Empress Pavillion. There was a lot of shrimp. And I'm sure a lot of MSG too, because I was feeling dry-mouth and unusually lethargic all day afterwards.
Back to the house. We didn't know what to do next, so we sat for a couple hours. Then we decided to go to Pasadena. Old town it was. A bit of walking around. I got a "smoothie" (essentially a milkshake) from 21 Choices. It was good, but had a different texture than an ice cream-based shake. But walnuts and oreos actually make a good flavor profile when blended into a shake.
Then we ate (what else do we do) at The Hat. And then went to the Norton Simon Museum; it was closing and we were all tired, so we didn't actually go in.
Back home, but Maddie and I went on a separate wild chase to track down Kuya Jan Jan and Co. They were texting us, but there was a delay in the texts so that by the time we got to LACMA, they were already downtown. It was pointless because they still had to meet with his friend.
I returned, then said bye to the fam. Then Maddie and my mom dropped me off at my apt. Hung out a little bit with my couchsurfers, we watched the series finale of
LOST, then I passed out quickly because I was simply exhausted.
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