LA and San Diego

This trip has taken forever to blog about- sorry! Too much going on!

Anyway, after we left Santa Monica, we headed over to Hollywood to waste time.  We drove around for awhile, through Beverly Hills and through the city to see the big houses and what it was like.

We stopped for dinner at a Sushi place.

Then we walked a couple blocks to the walk of fame (I think it's called?)

Robin Williams had just died the day before, so his star in the sidewalk was barricaded and covered with flowers.  It was also surrounded by news vans.

We walked back to the car and right before we got in we saw a celebrity- Andy Dick was walking out of the Trader Joes we parked by.  We locked eyes but I didn't say anything because he is known to be kind of a douche.

Jiavani suggested we visit the Griffith obvservatory.  We headed to Griffith park where the Greek Theater is (there was a Smash Mouth and Uncle Kracker show that night haha)

It was about to close, but the line up to the observatory was packed.  It said the parking lot was full and people were walking from the bottom (they probably didn't make it in time) but we drove up anyway and got the very closest spot- super lucky!  The observatory was awesome, they had a pendulum clock that always swings the same way, but the earth's rotation moves the rest of the clock.

They also had a tesla coil which was super exciting because we were right up front when they turned it on for a few seconds!

The best part was the view though.  You could se the entire city of LA and Hollywood from the top of this hill.  It is a must-do if you are in LA!

We found Jia's place which was right downtown.  The next day was Disney (which I already made its own post)

The day after Disney, we met up with our friend Brian who also lives down there.  Luckily he and Jia are friends so we could all hang out.  They took us to this DELICIOUS place called Stout.  They are so confident in their recipes, you aren't allowed to change or add things to their burgers (you may take things off, though)  The flavors were all pretty strong on the menu so I was worried, but I picked one with this lemon aoli stuff that was perfect.

 Afterwards, we went out for fro-yo.

 Then we went to this coffee shop to meet up with Brian's GF since she lives nearby.  This place was the most stereotypical barista experience you could imagine.  They were a bunch of hipsters in vests that gave you weird looks.  Shut up, we know coffee in Seattle, I promise my order will be delicious.

 Jia had stuff to do so we went back to Brian's since we were staying the night.  He lives next to this german bar so we went there for awhile.

 Then we went back to his house to play this hilarious drinking game with "house hunters" show based on what they talk about when they are looking for houses.

It was so fun to hang out with them!  The next morning we left for San Diego.  It was our 5th anniversary!

We stopped at La Jolla first.

Then we went to get some Mexican food (being next to Mexico, we heard you can't go to SD without getting Mexican and had Jia reccomment a place).

 The burritos were SO good.

We went to another beach later on and just walked around and got ice creams.

We found some cliffs to watch the sunset from.

That night we took Lyft to TGI Fridays.  They don't have them around here anymore so we were so excited.

We stayed that night at Jia's mom's house.

The next morning we went to a meatball place called Soda and Swine.  BEST MEATBALLS EVER.  It wasn't even expensive!  We tried to get one of everything to try (it was all good) but we couldn't finish our food.

The best meatball in my opinion was the chicken one.  We also got smoked pork (delicious) and beef marinara (pretty classic tasting).

 The bathroom floor was made of nickles...the problem was it smelled like change and that is gross.

Next we went to Coronado beach

And ended up in "Old Town" San Diego which was cool and had a lot of mexican stuff.

We ate In-n-Out one last time and headed back home to our kids.

It was definitely a great trip, though next time I'd recommend just flying straight to LA :)