Road trip up coast

Last weekend a group of us made the ~300 mile trip up coast to Central California wine country for a fun few days of beautiful scenery, Disney movies and of course, lots and lots of wine ;)

On the way up, we stopped at Paso Robles - a pretty mid-California town with a lot of wine shops on the main street where local wine makers sell their products. We stopped by a few to sample some wine and buy a few bottles - the boot of the car was jammed-full with bottles by the end of the trip! I'm not usually much of a wine drinker as I prefer my cocktails, but this trip helped me learn to appreciate wine more and taught me how to 'taste' wine properly.

In each wineries 'tasting room' you would typically try out 5 or 6 different wines, usually starting with one or two whites or roses, then moving on to the reds. You are only poured a small amount into the wine glass rather than a whole measure, and there is always a 'tipping bucket' on the table where you can discard of the rest once you've had enough - the staff aren't offended because if you're visiting lots of wineries you'll end up pretty drunk by the end of the day if you drink every single sample! Professional wine tasters don't actually swallow the wine and just spit it out, but none of us did that of course ;)

The tasting menu listed all the wines, including what type of wine it was (lots of Syrahs), the year, the different 'notes' you could taste in it, how many cases have been made and what meals it would compliment best. You start by swirling the wine around the glass a little, then take a sniff of it to take in the smell before tasting it. All the tasting rooms had a plate of snacks such as crackers or breadsticks to take a bite of to cleanse the palate  in-between wines.

Feeling pretty tipsy, after we'd finished in Paso Robles we then drove another hour north to King City, a small town where my friend Elizabeth's parents live and who were very kindly letting us stay for the weekend. They cooked us a nice dinner then we had a chilled evening playing board games and drinking more wine (...what else?) The view from their house was so pretty and they had the cutest dog ever :D :D

View from the house

Soooo cute!

Saturday was a lovely sunny day, perfect weather for driving around the surrounding country side. It was nice to experience a different type of environment after spending over a month in very dry Southern California and to actually see grass and fields! We visited several vineyards, including the one where Elizabeth's dad works. He gave us a guided tour of the whole place, including the vineyards (where we ate some grapes straight off the vine), barrel store, tanks of wine and pretty garden area which is hired out for weddings.

Tasting room open, yay!

Lots and lots of wine....

Grapes growing

Lots of flies hovering above this..!

This is how wine is made

After a massive meal to soak up all the alcohol we'd been drinking, we headed back to the house for an evening of trivia quizzes and Disney movies (complete with drinking game... yes more wine involved!) The following day we stopped at a few more wineries on the way back home, then took the coastal route back to LA including a stop at Santa Barbara for dinner.

Beautiful fields everywhere...

More wineries

So pretty

HOW much wine did we all buy...?

On Tuesday we had a night out to celebrate my birthday, involving a delicious meal at Hamburger Marys, an amazing restaurant in West Hollywood that do the best buffalo burger ever and massive cocktails. We then went to Koreatown and hired out a booth at a karaoke bar and drank a strong Korean spirit that Amanda noted tasted like nail varnish remover... no wonder our singing sounded terrible. The instructions and everything on the remote control were in Korean, but we managed to figure out how to work it. The night ended with the obligatory group sing-a-long to the ultimate karaoke song, Don't Stop Believin' - a great end to a great night!

My day in photos - Hollywood

Another week and another blog! I haven't really written much here lately as I feel I haven't done anything all that noteworthy worth blogging about - my days are roughly 50% lazing around watching the Game Show Network and 50% walking around the city getting coffee and shopping while trying not to spend too much money; two of my favourite things to do. Earlier this year when work was stressful, what got me through those days was the thought of coming out here and being able to have nice lazy care-free days walking around in the sunshine. And here I am!

So yesterday when I was out and about in Hollywood, I thought I would document my afternoon in pictures to share a 'typical' day, so here goes. I try to alternate between different places on different days, sometimes Silver Lake/Los Feliz/Echo Park local neighbourhood, sometimes the Beverly Center mall, sometimes Melrose and around West Hollywood, sometimes up in the canyons. Yesterday I stuck to central Hollywood where some of my favourite shops, coffee shops and sights are.

When I got out the Metro at Hollywood/Vine station, the pavement sidewalk was blocked so I had to go out the other way. There were lots of people lined up against barricades with big banners with Shakira on them - I didn't stick around to see what was happening but I read on Digital Spy this morning that she was honoured with a Hollywood Walk of Fame star, so I guess that was it! So I walked down Hollywood Blvd past Pantages Theatre where Wicked is about to have another run which has been advertised on posters all over the city, now if only I had seen it there originally in 2008 ;)

Wicked - showing next month

Bring it On the musical - MUST SEE!!

Hollywood sign - exciting the first time I saw it years ago but novelty soon wore off!

According to Hollywood High School, it was 85F :)

I got an iced latte at my favourite coffee shop near the Palladium where I sat and read a few chapters of my book. There's always lots of hot guys there, some of which are probably famous but I don't watch enough TV to recognise them, and you get a lot of people reading scripts and on their laptops typing away most likely working on their screenplays. After my coffee I walked along Sunset Blvd, passing the Nickelodeon studios where something was being filmed outside, but again I don't really watch TV let alone Nickelodeon so I had no idea what it was for. I went down some side streets and went in a cool shop where I fell in love with a pair of $45 earrings which I am very tempted to go back for, and saw some cool street art down that road as well as a trailer in the street parked up for yet more filming.

Palladium, great venue

The Coffee Bean, my chosen spot for a great latte and cute guys ;)

The Arclight, amazing cinema

Best music shop ever!

But no I didn't shop there this time, spend way too much there usually...

Cool street art

TACKYYYY gift store

My trip did have a purpose - to post a letter - so I went to the post office, then got my favourite frozen yoghurt from a place I love near Runyon Canyon - a lovely place to go hiking that has ammmmmazing views, not been back since last year but will probably go walking there next week some time. As I headed back towards Hollywood & Highland mall, the sidewalk was blocked yet AGAIN so I had to cross the street to get past - some film festival or something was being set up. Then I finished my afternoon in the Hollywood & Highland mall, passing Spongebob Squarepants and many wannabe rappers handing out their demo CDs on the way.

Yoghurt!!!

English pub on Sunset

Cacti!

AFI event being set up

So that was my day. This weekend we're driving up to Central California on a road trip to visit some vineyards, looking forward to sampling lots of free wine ;)

Happy November

Well, it's November!

Halloween was really fun. People make a big deal out of it over here - lots of houses had creepy decorations in their front gardens and lots of kids were out trick-or-treating last night in their cute costumes. But it's not just for kids - I saw plenty of adults dressed up yesterday, including a woman on the Metro dressed in a bloodied wedding gown. On Saturday night, we went to a few Halloween house parties. Paul went as an anti-capitalism protester and I went as the person who got injured when he threw his brick through Starbucks window, complete with fake blood and black eye. No photos, as I looked pretty awful, but not as awful as I looked and felt the next day after drinking a bad mixture of vodka and tequila ;) Costumes and hangovers aside, it was a really fun Halloween weekend, topped off with a couple of scary movies last night involving nuclear wars and demented dolls.

San Diego last week was a lot of fun. I took so many photos of the zoo, park and around the city so I won't post them all as they are all on my Facebook already, so here's some of the highlights.

Puma - just a big kitty cat really...

What come's out the elephant's back sides...

...Is loved by the dung beetles!

Capybara - my favourite animals

Polar bear enjoying lunch

...And so is this panda

The beautiful orang-utans

My favourite 'alien' cacti! I've found the same ones on my every visit to Balboa Park :D :D

Hillcrest - such a cool neighbourhood

Gaslamp Quarter in the heart of San Diego

Down by the harbour

Historic musical artefacts in Hard Rock Hotel ;) :)

Another week in LA

Well it's been another week of shopping and Starbucks... just waiting for my Euromillions numbers to come up so I can live like this all year round ;)

Last Saturday we went to a house party in Hollywood, where I sat on the roof drinking rum with people dressed up as characters from Peter Pan. Luckily nobody attempted to fly off the roof. Next weekend there's talk of a Halloween party, now the big question... what to dress up as! People over here take Halloween very seriously and go all-out when it comes to costumes (unless you're my brother, who went as 'someone who'd been to a play' last year as he'd just been to a play) so your typical witches and werewolves just won't do. Any ideas? The more random the better!

Halloween plates, so cute!

Soooo many pumpkins

Creepy...

This week I've alternated between being lazy and laying around watching game shows and music documentaries on TV, and shopping around my favourite parts of the city. I never bother with the high end places like Beverly Hills as it's too pricey and pretentious, although I do like the Beverly Center mall as they have a huge Forever 21 \o/

Beverly Center!

Hollywood and Highland is another of my favourite places to shop, as it's easy to get to and it's a fun place to hang out... if you don't mind pushing your way through tourists and Sesame St characters along Hollywood Blvd...

Hey Big Bird... no I'm not giving you $10 to pose for a photo!

View from Hollywood & Highland mall as I had my morning (well, 1pm) Starbucks :)

Then there's Los Feliz, which is a bit too hipster for me - you need ironic facial hair and a 2nd hand plaid shirt to look the part - but there are lots of great vintage shops and brunch places there... and a restaurant which should open a chain in the Staines area as the name is so fitting ;)

El Chavo... OK, it made me laugh

The Grove is probably where I shop the most, mainly as Amanda works there so we pick her up most days. Right in the middle of Hollywood, it's great for celeb spotting, although the only time I ever spot stars there is when Amanda's shop has book signings. Last weekend we went in there to meet her, but were pushed out the way by Ozzy Osbourne's bodyguards who were walking him back from the toilets...

Tonight I'm going to a Robyn gig at the Hollywood Bowl and tomorrow we're thinking of going to Venice Beach. I've got a trip planned next week, which will involve zoos, cacti... and more shopping! Can you guess where???

Hello LA

Hello from LA!

Well, its been HOT - almost 100F - the last couple of days, although thankfully it's cooling down a bit now to a more managable temperature. The autumn average tends to be around 20-25C, which is my ideal temperature as it's warm enough to walk around in a T shirt without it being unbearably hot. Anyway, enough about the weather, I sound so terribly stereotypically British..!

On my first full day here (Wednesday) I managed to escape the heat by spending most of the time in air conditioned buildings, although waiting for the bus in the afternoon sun with no shade I was *melting*! The bus over here is quite an interesting experience. In LA, everyone drives. LA is such a spread-out, spralling city it's pretty difficult to get by without a car. Luckily, where Paul and Amanda live is very central for both downtown and Hollywood, both easily accessible on the Metro or bus. Anyway, so the bus is limited to mainly Mexicans and crazy old people. You get a lot of crazy people on the bus in Brighton, but the people on the LA buses are even crazier, if that's possible. Like on Wednesday, I saw an elderly gentleman wearing a comedy nose/glasses ensemble you'd find in a joke shop, along with a puppet thing tied to his zimmer frame, to which he was happily chatting away too. And then later on the bus back I saw an old lady with a bamboo cane with a lightbulb type thing attached to the top. Anyway, it certainly makes the ride more interesting, as does the passing sceney; TV studios, Hollywood sign, blue skies and palm trees.

Yesterday, Amanda and I went for lunch in Silver Lake - my salad was delicious but soooo big, I couldn't quite eat it all. Defeated by a *salad*. On the way back we passed some cool street art. I love LA street art, one day soon I'll spend a whole day walking around the city photographing it and do a whole blog about it. I'm also going to write a whole blog soon on another of my passions - game shows. Watch this space...

Three cheese salad - soooo big

Funky graffiti

And more... WALL-E's LA cousin??

This weekend we have some friends visiting, as well as a house party in Hollywood tonight. This morning we had a delicious brunch then went to buy record in Hollywood and got my favvvvvvourite drink on the way home (boba tea, no less) We're currently trying to set up an extremely complex board game, I hope playing it isn't as complex!

Flashback #3 - LA trip 2010

Two more days! I've had a lovely weekend back in Ashford visiting friends and family - yesterday I had an early birthday party with the 'gang', although it felt weird celebrating it in October, I'm not a Libra!! (...although I do have Venus in Libra in my chart) We took lots of silly photos (...to be posted on Facebook soon), did our tradition quizzes (I won!) and ate too much food. Good times. And today I met up with the lovely Anna, Etty and Angelina at Westfield for brunch, which turned into a 7-hour chat topped off with dinner as we were in the restaurant so long. Tomorrow and visiting the grandparents, then Tuesday I'm off!!

And now for my final flashback – Summer 2010! I had a super-long summer that year, because I left my job at the start of May, had 2 months in LA then had the rest of the summer off when I got back as I didn’t start my next job until September... if only every summer could be like that! My trip was pretty last-minute, as I always go away when I’m in-between contracts yet my kind of work is quite unpredictable and hard to plan. On this occasion, I was working on the ill-fated FiReControl Government IT project (Google it... major fail, Government!) which was cut the week after the Elections, so once I found out I was straight on the phone to Virgin Atlantic booking my flights for the following week. ;)

Most of my 2-month stay was spent out and about in LA doing my usual shopping and general walking-around in Hollywood and Silver Lake, but I also spent a week on the East Coast on what must have been both the most tiring and exciting week ever, gallivanting around NYC, mega-casinos in the middle of the Connecticut forest and tacky Atlantic City to attend certain concerts and parties... but what happens on tour stays on tour I’m afraid..!

Biscuit! The cute neighbourhood cat that likes to come into the apartment and hide behind the TV/oven

Dodgers game... I still don’t understand the rules of baseball, but I like singing along to Don’t Stop Believin’ at the end of the game

The 101

Cool street art in Silver Lake

Cool view of the city from Griffiths Park... cool place to have a rave in the middle of the night ;)

Walking through Griffiths Park

Me and my mate Einstein in Griffiths Observatory

NYC was HOT!

OK, so I was walking through Times Sq wondering to myself how England were getting on in the World Cup, then I look up and see this massive screen... funniest thing I saw on my whole trip hahahaha

MGM Grand Foxwoods, biggest casino in the world when it was built. Fun times were had here...

Getting ready to glam up

Night out in Atlantic City, New Jersey’s tacky answer to Vegas

Unicorn!!!