Our last stop for the USA was Los Angeles. We couchsurfed with a guy in Hermosa Beach. We didn’t get to spend as much time in that area or with our host as we would have liked but it looked like a great area. We bought a LA Go Pass which allowed us to have access to 30+ tourist attractions. We spent most of our time in Hollywood area site seeing. We went to the wax museum and posed with all sorts of “celebs.” We walked around the walk of fame and looked at all the other sites hollywood blvd. had to offer. We also went on a tour of Warner Brothers studio. The tour was really interesting – I had done it before but because there are different shows going on and a different tour guide, there was a big difference in what I had done and what we did together. We got to go on the set of a couple TV shows (2 broke girls and something from ABC family) and learned a lot about the steps of production. We also got to step into the Central Perk set of friends which is set up eternally as a monument, and a everything batman museum!

My friend Justin has lived in LA for a few years so we met up with him and went to dinner followed by a night of karaoke at my favorite place – Dimples. The owner of this bar – Sal – is the creepiest human being ever. The night began with him referring to me as “Athena the pussycat” and referring to the boys, both Rob and Justin, as my “playboys.” Sal’s comments continued once I was on stage and he requested that I do a spin on the stripper pole that is placed center stage. I refused so he started the foam machine up which sprayed  “foam” (globs of soap) onto the stage/mic area…gross. After my song he announced over the loudspeaker “All that snow was because you didn’t swing on the pole. If you get up again, there will be more where that came from.” Then as the bar got more crowded, there were a few birthday girls and the birthday shots started flowing. The birthday shot comes with more of Sal’s disturbing quirks. It starts with a lei (so you can get “laid on your birthday”), then he places a thong on your head so you have a clean one for your birthday and then he gives you a birthday shot which is actually just Coca-Cola and whip cream. This shot cannot just be taken though. He asks that you find a man of your choosing and he sits on a bar stool with the shot in between his legs. Then he requests that the girl take the shot without using her hands and then yells “blow baby, blow” while taking pictures. It is truly horrifying and he is the most disgusting man ever. Regardless of how horrid Sal was (is) – we had a great time singing karaoke. 🙂 If Sal did have one redeeming quality, it was that he gave us DVDs and pictures from our performances.

We used the last of our Go Pass to go to Six Flags – I initially thought this wasn’t a good choice since we have Six Flags at home – but we hadn’t done anything close to an amusement park on the trip and may not have the opportunity to do anywhere else so by that logic we decided it was a great idea and headed out. As per usual, it was PACKED. We knew we only had time to ride a few rides so we picked the top 5 and started waiting in line. Every coaster we rode was better than any coaster I had ever done and much better than what we have in Atlanta. One had the tallest coaster loop in the world; one was the first ever spinning coaster so the seats spun while you were doing loops; one was a 5D coaster with music in your ears. We had a great time!

Our last night we got tickets to a Dodgers game and lucky enough they were playing the Braves! We had amazing seats, 21 rows behind home plate. We were able to get even closer towards the end of the game. It was a great game with at least one hit every inning but eventually the Dodgers came out on top. Yasiel Puig was a homer short of the cycle and went 4/5, and everyone went nuts for his every at bat. He has got to be the most exciting player in baseball right now.

Before we headed to the airport we had lunch with a family friend of mine, Michelle. We had a lovely lunch and it was great to catch up with her and a great way to end our trip in the States.