Adventures On the Road

You spend so much time going to school and growing up and thinking “what do I want to do when I grow up?” and then all of a sudden it’s here – you’re grown up and you think, ‘how did that happen?’

It’s official.  I’m a grown up.  And it’s not because I’ve graduated from university or because I moved out of the family home (that happened at 17), or because I move from city to city and country to country just because I want to or even because somehow I have a 401k and a stock portfolio.  I am a grown up with grown up friends because we have somehow gotten to the point where we can plan a long weekend vacation, fly across the country and CHOOSE to be ridiculous, frivolous teenage girls.  But even BETTER than that – we can be “Ladies who Lunch” with martinis, wine and cocktails and while sitting amongst the actual teenage girls, realize that we are in fact grown ups – and laugh at how ridiculous that is!

Erin and I joined forces in LA as the “Ladies who Lunch”, drinking ‘Martoonies on Tuesday’, as our friend Kyle would say.  With the realization that we’re grown ups and can do whatever we want to do we had to force ourselves to get moving and leave the hotel.  Not because we didn’t want to go out and explore the city, but because when you haven’t seen one of your best friends in 3 months, you have a lot to talk about and 4 days could easily be spent chatting it up poolside.

But the Santa Monica Pier is so much better!   Drinking wine and eating antipasta on a heated patio, nothing wrong with that!

Taking the drive along Malibu as the sun sets and ending our night at Duke’s for cocktails and the ‘can’t leave without it’ piece of Hula Pie.

Walking around like VIP’s with our “Front of the Line” passes at Universal Studios and after pressuring Erin to take the Jurassic Park ride with me, laughing hysterically at the look of terror on Erin’s face in the photo they took as we flew down the final crest (unfortunately I have no record of this photo).

Realizing that Hollywood is actually pretty dirty, but feeling compelled to tour the Hollywood Stars and hand and foot prints.

And, the real reason why we hopped on flights from opposite sides of the country.  The Glee Concert. Where we joined the thousands of screaming girls (and the two guys that just so happened to be sitting in front of us).

Let me just say…It was AMAZING.  So much fun!  And it put us in such a good mood that we went on a spending spree – buying flip flops of every colour, random T-shirts, movie posters, CD’s from local up and comers, and all of the Pink Berry and Yogurtland we could eat!  The state of California thanks us.  Really, we got a thank you note.

I think the only thing that I haven’t mentioned that has to happen on every trip to LA is…yes, you guessed it. A celebrity sighting!  Well, wait no more.  Let me tell you about that heart-stopping moment when I set my eyes on him.  The double take.  The elbow to Erin’s side and the whispered words from the side of my mouth, “Is that James Marsden?” Now, if you’re not a girl who loves her romantic comedies and remembers when the unsuccessful series, “Second Noah” came on TV, you may not know who this guy is.  But I do, and for a split second (well, maybe 1o seconds) I thought about jumping right back into the elevator and heading back up, even though we were on our way out.

I spent a solid 10 minutes sitting in the lobby glowing. Erin can confirm, I was speechless.  Although not enough to prevent me from calling and texting people.  And while I was on the phone, all of a sudden I get a kick in the leg and Erin gives me wide eyes and says, “he’s right behind you”.  Now this probably did not look subtle at all since Erin tells me that she accidentally made eye contact with him and then he watched as she kicked me.  But let’s just say, we were the ultimate of cool, as I watched him roll his two suitcases to his car.  I was so overwhelmed that I didn’t think about taking a photo for posterity until after his tail lights were long gone.  The only memory I have is the fading bruise on my leg from Erin kicking me.

Alas, no photo, but there are witnesses to this celebrity sighting, so we can call our “Ladies who Lunch” GROWN UP trip to LA a SUCCESS!