I got back from California on the 27th around 7:30pm but I slept over at Bridget’s house instead of driving back to Champaign from Chicago. I ended up having her cat walk over my face early in the morning. Scared the living daylights out of me that I threw it off the bed on the pillow. It ended up sleeping with me the rest of the morning. We were supposed to get up at 8:30 but Bridget forgot to reset it to Central time instead of Pacific so we didn’t get up until a little after 10am when her mom woke us up. We left for school around noon and got back to Urbana around 3pm and here I am.
So we left Champaign in the afternoon on Friday after spending the first four days selling Girl Scout cookies. I missed sleep so much. I had to get up at 6:45 and sell cookies from (or set up) 7:45 to 4pm. I guess it was worth it since we sold 1541 boxes, had it not snowed and rained the first few days we probably would have sold more. Anyways, I drove up to Chicago (Downer’s Grove) with Ashley and Bridget and Kathleen met us at her house after they got out of class. We were all supposed to go to Ashley’s friend’s sweet sixteen party but the other two decided they would rather spend the evening with their family so I went with Ashley. This girl is so spoiled (she was harassing her parents for a car which she didn’t get – but she did go out that night with her friends in her parent’s car and got into an accident, so it’s probably best). They were interesting company, well I sat with the rest of the family (all the blonde cheerleader girls sat at another table). They were originally from New York so it made for a very lively group. We left at nine because we were supposed to pick up Bridget so that she and I could stay at Kathleen’s house for the night. Well Ashley insisted she knew where she was going and an hour later we found Bridget’s house. Lucky for us, Ashley had been to Kathleen’s house who lived 10 minutes away so we didn’t arrive at her parents house too late.
Our plane left around 3pm from Chicago, although something was wrong with the engine so we didn’t actually leave until 4pm. We were flying American Airlines and we were meeting May (our Campus Girl Scout from Japan) who was flying Northwest. Her plane was supposed to be arriving 7 minutes after us and she called while we were waiting to say her plane was delayed 20 minutes but she still arrived before us. We told her to meet us at the Enterprise rental car place, instead she waited in the NW terminal at the closed Enterprise counter. Our cell phones wouldn’t work in the airport so we kept missing her phone calls and by the time we lugged our suitcases across LAX airport from terminal four to two, she wasn’t even there. We ended up getting yelled at by the Enterprise van because we flagged him down instead of standing under the purple sign. Regardless, May started calling us again saying she was waiting for us there and panicking because we weren’t there. However, we showed up just in time and all was well. We ended up getting a Nissan Altima. I couldn’t find anything in the car, I had no idea how to turn the lights on and it just drives so differently from my beetle. My brakes are ultra sensitive and I felt like I was pushing my foot into the ground every time I pressed the brake or the gas (needless to say I eventually got used to it and it was difficult to go back to the beetle now). I started out being a safe driver (almost crashing into a car because I didn’t know the far right lanes were also used for parking) and my navigator Bridget who told me she would tell me the streets well before I passed them would simply say, “That was the street you were supposed to turn on.” So I got good at the U-turns and driving through shopping malls, except on our way to her grandparents’ house. Her grandfather had to come get us because we got so lost in the turns and hills.
That night we went out to dinner at this Mexican restaurant Casa Pulido. I wasn’t all that impressed especially with the abundant amount of Mexican restaurants, but this was supposedly their favorite. Her grandfather, he told us the same stories over and over again. The classic one became the red potato that someone had thrown at the window of his van. Every time we got in he told us the story.
On Sunday, Bridget’s family was coming to visit. She has a very attractive family and a lot of cousins. Again, I sort of miss not having a huge family and even though hers live in another state she stays close to them (although I sort of stayed close to my mom’s when her parents were alive because we did visit them once a year so who knows). We went for a walk down the street, or through the hills, down the Bridal path and eventually back up this hill that reminded me of Christoffelberg in Curacao except I actually made it up this one. After we lunch (so 2pm) we left for Yorba Linda. I had made arrangements to meet with a Girl Scout troop (if we did a GS activity, we could get money from RSO (registered student organization) for travel expenses and all. I seriously hope we get something. We drove 45 minutes out of the way for no reason. They had no interest in us what so ever. They just talked about their own high school friends and interrupted each other like we weren’t even there. The only thing we got out of it was a free GS patch. We were all just so pissed, you could see it on our faces. They were very spoiled high school girls and it’s really amazing they even stayed in GS. Oh well, we kept telling ourselves it was our good deed for the day. When we went back to her grandparent’s house they couldn’t believe we came back so quickly. I’m just very glad we only went to the last hour of their meeting. Bridget’s grandfather drove us to this “Whaling Wall” which is this power plant that has a bunch of whales painted on the walls (which is supposedly being torn down). We had to hear the “red potato” story again.
On Monday we got up at 4am. I heard about this the entire trip. We were supposed to be at the CBS studios by 6am. Had Bridget’s grandfather not told us the wrong direction, we could have gotten there by 5:30am not that it mattered. The line was so long and I had to circle because the parking lot didn’t open until 6:30am. Regardless, they only take 320 people per taping (And I only had tickets to the first show anyways) plus a bizarre amount of standbys. They were already on number 77 for the second show and weren’t taking anymore for the first show. I made the guy write “rejected, sorry, etc.” on the tickets since we had waited in the line for an hour. He must have thought we were nuts but oh well. I wanted to get a picture with the red jacket ushers but no one else was in the mood (and later regretted we didn’t have that later on in the week). We had our matching t-shirts and everything for nothing. So I will never watch the Price is Right again unless I find someone who wants to spend the night on the street with me and then maybe I’ll watch it before I go. Otherwise, I see no point. I just have too many bitter feelings.
We decided to go to California Adventure since it was only 7am and nothing was open in Hollywood. We even got to the park before it opened (I can’t remember if this is one I developed my lead foot to go 90mph or later. I might have only been going 80mph because I was still uneasy about the car – I think I started really speeding when I discovered the carpool lane). CA Adventure is like a huge carnival amusement park. We went on the California Soarin’ and I was pretty much a good sport on the rest of the rides seeing as how I get motion sick and don’t care for roller coasters. There were two Bridget and I didn’t go on, one was the CA Screamin’ rollercoaster and this one ride that shoots you up and down like the Tower of Terror. We were originally going to have lunch at this restaurant with Ariel the mermaid but there was this huge line so the hostess sent us to this other place. We had incredibly bad service, I think it was because we were young, but the whole thing just put us in a really bad mood, again. Meanwhile, since we were all still wearing our matching neon orange shirts with navy blue “I ` being a CGS” and everyone stopped us to ask what that meant. The cocky ones would harass us about cookies. There was this one show we went to, behind the animation or something, where it was a more personalized show (we went to the Aladdin musical and the ushers asked us about it and we all answered in unison and everyone started laughing – I don’t really think there was anyone in the park that didn’t know about us). Anyways, the guy wanted to know who was the farthest (and May won that being from Japan) and then he wanted to know what was up with the orange t-shirts. He was amused about our whole aspiration to go on the show and somewhere in the middle he made a plug that we didn’t get to meet Bob Barker so it was cute. I complained the whole time but secretly it was sort of nice, great publicity for the organization if nothing else. It really made us realize how many people don’t wear orange off campus. Anyways, we went to the park’s taping of “Who wants to be a millionaire” and none of us had fast enough fingers, but it at least put Ashley back in a better mood (she was even worse than I was about not getting on the Price is Right). We left a little before the park closed, so probably around 8pm. We stopped really quickly for dinner and everyone was back to being their grumpy tired selves again.
Tuesday everyone got to sleep in until 6:30am and we left an hour later to go to the San Diego Wild Park. Kathleen kept complaining that she needed Starbucks so lucky for her when I stopped for gas there was a Starbucks there for her to get. Then they all slept the two and a half hour drive while Bridget and I paid attention to the roads. We never got naps and it was always Kathleen saying how tired she was (May would complain to me at night, but otherwise you never heard a word out of her, she was so quiet). We got there at 10:30 and I we just sat in the car until we decided what we would do Thursday now that we had a free day. Kathleen wanted to stay at home and do homework and the rest of us refused, so then she wanted to go to a museum and by the time she picked enough museums it was just as expensive as it would be to go to the San Diego Wild Animal park and since the other four of us wanted to go to that, she eventually gave in and we just bought the cheaper tickets.
The zoo is so spread out. We had to see the pandas for May (such a line) and the baby was sleeping in the tree. Most of the animals were out and after we had lunch they went back inside. It was cloudy and wet so it wasn’t the best day. We went to see the koalas which were all sleeping but one. I wasn’t as impressed especially since I thought they were going to have the albino koala out but they didn’t. We went to see this exotic animal show, where they had this “blonde cheetah” (a Golden Retriever dressed in a cheetah costume, apparently it lives with the cheetah and is the dominate one in the relationship. It’s the only way to get the animal on and off the stage). We left the museum right when it was closing, well probably afterwards because it technically closed at 4pm but stayed open inside until 6pm. We ended up getting stopped, or rather having to go through the U.S. border patrol on the way back because it’s so close to Mexico. In the end, they just waved us through. On Wednesday, we got up at the usual time and left for Disneyland. We had to wait for Bridget’s Aunt’s friend so that we could get in free (quite an attractive guy until he talked, he had such a girly voice). We took the train around the park and then worked our way around all the rides except Toontown. It was closed by the time we had the time and Bridget and Kathleen were too obsessed with the Pirates of the Caribbean. When we went on the Alice in Wonderland ride, the lady insisted on squishing three of us in the back. It was quite amusing to watch us get out, I think everyone thought we were nuts especially since we all tried to get up at the same time. We also went on Splash Mountain (fastpass – otherwise the ride was 85 minutes long) and we made May sit in the front (we’re so evil). Bridget told her she wouldn’t get that wet (after our ride at the CA Adventure that got us soaked) but we think they raised the water because she was so wet at the end and it wasn’t from the splash, more from the sloshing on the ride. My foot was drenched from the water coming over the side. We went on this rollercoaster that had this mini waterfall that didn’t get you wet but May insisted on me sitting in front of her regardless (and this was a ride where the person in front sat on the lap of the person in front, so I squished her). They wanted to do all the rollercoasters again but by the time we got through the line of Thunder Mountain again it was 9pm and we just decided to go home.
Thursday we went to the San Diego Wild Park. We took this hour long train ride around their 1000s of acres that were made to look like South, West, East and North Africa and parts of Asia so you got to see the animals in their natural habitats. There were a lot of babies out and most of the animals were awake so it was nice. We also went to the Elephant training show (where Bridget and Kathleen fell in love with “Trainer Jim” who became our standard for rating men over the age of 30) and this bird show. We left around 3pm, everyone happy and cheerful. We of course got stuck in rush hour traffic by the time we got back to the LA area. Since it was still sort of early we stopped at the beach so everyone could say they saw the Pacific coast. I don’t know whose idea it was, but Ashley and I ended up writing “CGS” in the sand with our feet. My whole thing was to just to say I touch the water and by the time the water came up to me, it just kept going so my shoes got entirely soaked and I just gave up. It was way too cold to be on the beach to begin with.
Friday was our day to sleep in since Hollywood isn’t that far. We went to the La Brea tar pits museum. It was okay, did not take as long as some people thought which was fine. We went to Hollywood afterwards. The building we went to to see the Hollywood sign is the same building as “On-Air with Ryan Seacrest” is filmed. There was a crowd of people watching a huge television monitor of him interviewing David Arquette. We were making a big deal how we were within a wall of a celebrity. We ended up going down the Walk of Fame (we had to search for Nicholas Cage for Bridget and then I got the great idea of getting a picture with Bob Barker’s star). There were a ton of celebrity impersonators (mostly of comic book characters and dead celebrities) in front of the Grauman Theater. Then we went back through the Hollywood building (after Bridget took us to the train station by mistake) and everyone was complaining they were hungry. Bridget and I already had decided we were going to take everyone to the Hard Rock Café as a last lunch together but we wanted it to be a surprise. So while they were all fighting behind me I was watching this huge crowd in front of Ryan’s studio because Jerry Springer was coming out. They all thought I was nuts saying his name, but there he was. Then we were ushered by the security guards to move so my picture is just his head between a black jacket. I think that livened everyone’s mood, seeing a real live celebrity (even though he films in Chicago) although May didn’t know who he was. However, she knew about Ryan from the American Idol show so she was pretty excited since everyone in Japan assumes that celebrities are running around wild in California.
After lunch we took a drive down Rodeo drive, what a mistake. There was so much traffic not to mention they are filming something on the street so half of it was closed off (so the next movie that shows Rodeo Drive, we were there) so we took a detour which also caused us to be in the dead center of Hollywood’s greatest traffic and horns. Someone was honking at me for not turning and I started yelling out the window there were people in the street. Anyways, we took the long route home, through rush hour because every time the highway exit came, Bridget would tell me too late. We some how came up with this game of looking at all the guys who were passing us and rating them on the young to Trainer Jim scale and when we found a good one, it was my job to drive parallel, nevermind the traffic or car in front. Of course, there were several times they forgot our windows were open and so were the cars next to us.
Anyway, we were on our way to Bridget’s Aunt and Uncle’s house for dinner. They said in honor of May they were having a Japanese/Asian dinner (just white rice, Mandarin orange salad, and teriyaki meat). I don’t think she felt at home but I guess it was a nice gesture. They are so strange or strict maybe. Her Uncle married this Mormon who has completely changed his way of life and I don’t think his girls are growing up with a very normal life, but what can you do. It’s what he gave up to be with her (and he is quite attractive, a little rude, but he has the looks and the doctor’s degree so he could have anyone, in my opinion). Anyways, we ended up playing Cadoo (which I won, I guess a good adult would have purposely lost, but I like to win) and then charades (I can’t see my parents playing this game with a bunch of college students). We left around ten for her grandparents house and that was pretty much the end of the trip.
We got up a little before 9am for breakfast on Saturday because her grandmother made waffles. Bridget came in my room and said “I know it’s not quite ten, but breakfast is ready.” I just assumed it was 9:45, not 8:45 so when 9:45 rolled around I freaked because no one ready and we needed to drop the car off and get to the airport, but that’s just me for you. When we were in the airport, someone supposedly saw Elizabeth Hurley in our terminal, not that I would have recognized her. Chances are, if there is a celebrity around and not in the right context, I probably wouldn’t recognize them. I think I also have ethical issues of harassing them. We didn’t do the star house trip and I don’t think I would have wanted to because who are we to go marching up their neighborhood, although at the same time, it is nice to see some fantastic houses. Either way, we didn’t do it. We had a 1960s star map from Bridget’s mom and all we did was point, up that street is so-n-so’s house.
[The trip / Pictures ]