Don't forget to have fun!!: Sunshine and Breezes

The thing I notice most about Los Angeles (from here on out "LA") is their misconception of "hot" weather. Having left my fair homeland of Florida when it was a sweltering 94 degrees outside, you can forgive me if I think 78 is far from "hot." Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the weather here, but I find the weather person a bit too quick calling things hot. :-)

While Danielle was here we ran around town and did lots of the touristy things. Along the Hollywood Walk of Fame I snapped a photo of one of my favorite stars.

After the walk of fame we headed to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. We had a lot of fun posing with the "stars" in here. Below are a few of my favorites.

This one is for Mom, a lover of all things Jackie Chan. Pardon the workout clothes, we had just come from hiking runyon canyon... where I almost fell down a few times but made it out ok.

This is as close as you'll ever get my clumsy self to skateboarding. I find it funny that even on a board that is affixed to the ground I still look scared and like I am bracing for a fall. :-)

I couldn't resist.

Since I have yet to find a steady job, I have had some free time on my hands during the day. I have started to fill some of this time by hiking in Griffith Park. You may know the park as the place near the Hollywood sign and where the Griffith Observatory (from lots of movies, like the second Charlies Angels) or the Greek Theater are located. The park is huge and has lots of hiking trails. The problem I found pretty early on was that the trails are not marked, and I couldn't find a map.

So what did I do? I started following other people (particularly single girls, cause I figured if they felt safe enough to do a trail, it would be ok for me). Hiking for me is an extreme sport. I don't mind the climbing up part, but the coming down part is quite the experience. As mentioned above, I'm clumsy. The inclines tend to be pretty steep, but they also tend to be covered in gravel so it is VERY easy to slip and slide on the way down.

Everyday I hoped that I would find the trail to the Griffith Observatory, on the day depicted in the photos below I didn't make it to the Observatory. After hiking for quite some time and getting quite high, I decided to call my mother and ask for her recommendation. I could do one of two things:

1. I could keep going, across a tiny bridge I had just come to, up another very steep incline, and then it seemed like the trail would start going down... pretty quick.

or

2) I could turn around and head back.

I decided for option 2. I figured it would be best to learn where the trail went before I committed to navigating the trails back down.

One more shot.

One of the next days I was sitting on the couch and I smelled smoke coming from the kitchen. I panicked. I had not been cooking anything yet that day, but I figured that didn't mean that something wasn't on fire. As I headed to the kitchen I started to see a bit of smoke, but I couldn't see a source in the apartment. That's when I looked out the window and saw this.

The store down the road from the apartment had caught on fire and the wind was kind enough to blow the smoke into the window and the apartment. I was thankful the apartment wasn't on fire, but not happy that someone's business was.

After a few more attempts hiking to the observatory (I'll admit, it was somewhere around 6 or 7) I finally found a map that clearly marked the trails and made it all the way up there!!

Another thing that added in the success of this hike was that I had a new friend who joined me. We made a few wrong turns, but recovered pretty quickly to make it to this view.

Another weekend I got to explore downtown LA with two of my favorite Pasadena natives, Catherine and her son Evren (whom you may remember from my adventures in Italy last summer since Catherine was a classmate).

We started the day at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and then headed to Evren's favorite place, Little Tokyo. In Little Tokyo we got lunch at a noodle place that was highly rated on yelp.

Here's my meal... it was fantastic! Real ramen, not the stuff that comes in the plastic wrapper with the packet of "flavoring."