A week under the sun....

Day 1: (Or, as I like to call it…get up, fly, drive, nap, eat, drink, crash….)

My first day in Los Angeles was spent in misery…. At least until the evening. I really am not a good traveler. I am a chronic overpacker and I don’t enjoy being without all my comforts. Luckily, all my fears were allayed when we checkedinto the Luxe hotel on Sunset Boulevard. It is easily one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever stayed in and I instantly felt comfortable there. After carefully navigating our way with Tim’s parents down to Venice, we met up witht eh rest of his family that was in town for the wedding at the C & O Trattoria. I had been nursing a bit of an upset stomach all day (traveling makes me nauseous) but being close enough to the ocean to smell it set me right as did a wonderful dinner. After dinner we all headed back to the hotel for drinks with everyone who was attending the wedding from out of town. We gabbed with strangers until late into the evening and flopped into bed around midnight…

Day 2: Celebrity Sighting Numero Uno & Dos (and also, new shoes!)

Our second day in L.A. we decided to make good on the reservations we had made at The Ivy before we left. We drove all the way down over to Beverly Hills, paid for expensive parking and wandered through a few stores with insane prices before heading over to the restaurant. The collection of bejeweled and botoxed ladies should have been a clue for me, but after the host was unspeakably rude to me, we decided to ditch the whole scene and head across the street to the Newsroom Cafe and have a more affordable lunch. If you are ever in the neighborhood I recommend you do the same. If you get a seat on the patio you can see the Ivy pretty clearly, but the waitstaff is much nicer there and the food excellent and a bargain.

After lunch we decided to head down to Santa Monica for some retail therapy. We wandered all around and finally met up with Tim’s sister Sarah and her family. After hanging with them for a bit, my niece Olivia and I headed off in search of bargains and lip gloss. Shortly after we trekked off, we got a call from Tim saying that they had just seen Nicole Richie walking around. We dashed from store to store trying to see our first celeb, but we didn’t find her. Eventually, I gave up celeb hunting for shoe hunting and landed a hot new pair of shoes for the wedding.

After that, Tim and I decided to head back to the hotel. As we were walking back up the promenade, I saw this girl not 3 feet in front of me. Teeny tiny face and frame, with HUGE sunglasses. It was Nicole Richie! I said, “ Hi Nicole…” (Creative, I know..) and she said Hi back. It was kinda cool. My first celebrity sighting. Sure she’s not really that famous, but it was interesting to see how small and sickly she looks in real life…Someone give that girl a sandwich. After seeing her in real life though, she reminded me of Mr. Burns in the Simpson Episode where he is taking the injections that make him glow. Very Strange…

Anyway, dinner was had at the In & Out Burger near UCLA. It was so good. Yay for junkfood! WE came back and kicked it in the bar with some more friends from the wedding and…. FYVUSH FINKLE. Don’t be jealous that I met two celebrities in one day!

Day 3: Sugar-Free Red Bull Fountain? I think this might be heaven…

The day of the wedding Tim hung out with his fam in the morning while I chilled out with my robe and another upset tummy. Guess the burger wasn’t that great of an idea after all. Anyway, when he got back we got all dressed up and headed to St. Martin of the Tours for a very beautiful and VEEERRRRRY LOOOOONG wedding ceremony. Then there was that awkward moment where everyone took communion and since I’m not catholic, I just said… “No thank you…South Beach. No Jesus for me! Too many carbs…” Hahaha….

The reception was at the Malibu Beach Club in… you guessed it… Malibu. It would have been better if it hadn’t been so cold, but everything else was beautiful and I was very happy about the Vodka and Sugar-Free Red Bull Fountain. I’m thinking of getting on of those installed in my house. Oh, and I got TIM to DANCE with me! It was awesome… He never dances, but he did at the wedding it was so fun. All in all, it was a wonderful night and well worth the trip.

Day 4: Zaftig Ladies are HOT

On Sunday, we decided to head to the Getty Museum. Call me a dork, but this was easily the best day we had on the vacation. That museum is so cool and it was so beautiful out that day. I really enjoyed every bit of it and I took lots of pictures of all the festively plump ladies in the paintings. Chubby naked girls are so fabulous… We also had dinner that night with Tim’s parents and their friends, the Rice’s, who turned out to be really fun cool people. They had a son that was killed in the WTC on 9/11 and they talked about it some. It was startling how matter of fact about it they are, but it was really interesting to talk with them about everything that went down with them afterwards.

Day 5: And that is what my dinner looked like the second time around…

And after being iffy pretty much all week, my stomach decided to rid itself of it’s contents somewhere around 2:30 on Monday morning. I don’t know if it was food poisoning or too much pasta (or wine) from the night before, but I woke up Monday feeling awful. We had reservations to take a boat to Catalina, but Tim’s Mom wasn’t feeling up tot eh trip and either was I, so we decided to do round two of Los Angeles touring and drove all over the town we saw all of Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and on up to West Hollywood, Hollywood, Mulholland Drive, Bel-Air…. It was awesome. I never did see the Hollywood sign. It’s actually pretty elusive once you get down there. It was a good day though and we had a wonderful dinner in Brentwood at this restaurant that I can’t remember the name of.

Day 6: San Diego, spanish for, “A Whales Vagina”

The last full day in California we checked out of our hotel early and drove down to San Diego. It was SUCH an amazing drive. We saw tons of beautiful scenery and pulled over a few times to admire the view. Once we got into town we checked out Old Town for a while and wandered into lots of little shops selling useless crap. The highlight of that day though, was visiting Balboa Island (So Charming) and Coronado Island (So pretty). We went to the Del Coronado Hotel (Where they filmed, “Some Like It Hot”) and walked all over admiring the inside and out. That place is amazing. I’d love to stay there sometime…

After that we headed down to the Gaslamp Quarter and had some King Crab and Lobster. So delicious… Mmm. I get all slobbery when I think about it. After a bit more shopping and way to much ice cream, we finally said good night to San Diego and headed back to the San Diego Hilton (a pretty nice place, but they didn’t have free internet… LAME!)

Day 7: (Or as I like to call it…get up, fly, play slots, fly, nap, fly some more, drive, home, blog…)

Waking up at 5:30 is never a picnic, but the flight home was pretty good. We had a short layover in Las Vegas, and just enough time to play some slots. WE did not win anything. So we ate expensive airport food and complained to each other about missing our cats.

After all that, I have to say, even though we didn’t do anything huge and crazy, it was a really fun trip. Los Angeles doesn’t really have my vote though. I thought San Diego was way more fun and more real. L.A. just isn’t for me. I mean, I guess if I was loaded it might be a fun place to shop, but there is something small and dishonest about it. Give me the Rocky Mountains or give me death. ;)