I have to admit, I liked Universal a lot more than I expected to! Since we got there (relatively) early we decided to go on the Studio Tour while there was a shorter line, which turned out to be the right move since the lines progressively got longer as the day went by.
The tour was actually very clever, there were a bunch of sets specifically set up for the tour, from a 360 King Kong experience...
to a flash flood in little Mexico...
to the set of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas
and a subway earthquake!
All in all, it was pretty cool! I liked that there was a video on the tour bus itself, which meant they were able to show clips from movies filmed in areas as you were driving through them.
And of course seeing awesome friends that I love...
and remember from childhood!
And then we finished it up with an amazing dinner (as usual) at the Cheesecake Factory.
The next day we headed to Venice Beach, explored, hung out, were beach bums etc. The typical perfect/relaxing stereotypical summer activities. :) Venice was certainly an unusual place! From people with medical screenings for marijuana to henna tattoos and trinkets for sale, it seems you could find just about anything at the large outdoor street vendors.
The next week I was able to meet up with Ryan again in Santa Monica...
and then was 4th of July weekend! Brendan came in town and we had a blast!
I am glad I had the 4th of July weekend with Brendan to look forward to, however, the Friday before was my last day at ATS. :( It was bittersweet leaving because (not only was I really enjoying myself), but they also threw a pizza party for me. So after saying my farewells, it was off to a weekend adventure.
Saturday we went to the Getty Villa, which was pretty neat in terms of cultural experience. There was a bunch of Greek/Roman artifacts to look at and gardens to stroll through. The whole complex itself is built to model an ancient Roman home, so just walking through the museum was an experience.
I have to admit that our favorite part was probably the Herb Garden. We spent a ton of time sampling a little and sneaking a few tastes :)
That afternoon/night we headed to Hollywood to get the full tourista experience. After a quick dinner of fish tacos, we walked the Hollywood stars:
And saw the signatures & hand prints/footprints outside the Chinese Theater.
After that was a movie at a uber-fancy movie theater with FAN-TAS-TIC popcorn called the Arclight. It was expensive, but definitely worth it. Probably going to have to go back to that...
Sunday morning we grabbed some breakfast and wandered our way over to this impromptu car show that shows up in the mall parking lot near my apartment every weekend. There were actually some really sweet cars!
Then off to Santa Monica! The lazy day at the beach was perfect, wandered the pier and the appropriate carnival snacks of kettle corn and a snow cone.
The plan was to go ahead to the show at the Rose Bow, but we ended up getting stuck in traffic for ages. The entrance was blocked off, got stuck in traffic again trying to get to the other entrance... Once the fireworks started then they wouldn't let anyone move. Soooo we parked the car and were able to watch the majority of the fireworks through the trees. It wasn't perfect, but at that point after a perfect day... who cares! It turned out fine, particularly after we got some gelato to end the night!
All in all, 4th of July was amazing. Weekend before was amazing. Been a great past few weeks!
This week I started with my new job at SIE. It's been ok so far, nothing too exciting so far, but that's to be expected as it's the first week. We'll see how it goes! This weekend meeting up with Melissa and Tung for some festivities!
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