Hollywood Trip Recap

 After rushing back into town after my reunion last weekend I had to unpack and repack in about 2 hours and head to the airport.  My job sent me to Los Angeles, Hollywood specifically, for a conference.

It got off to a bit of a rocky start with a plane delay. Not just any plane delay though. An international flight had to make an emergency landing in Montgomery and because the 6 gate regional  mini-airport doesn't have customs agents they had to "quarantine" the international passengers. This meant they wouldn't let anyone thought security. My fellow passengers and I had to sit and wait while they flew a new plane in to pick up the stranded international passengers and get them on their plane before they would let us into the terminal. At least we weren't on the plane that was coming to get us! That plane arrived in time, but they would not let the passengers off of it until the international passengers got on their plane. Makes a lot of sense, right? This meant we had an hour delay, which had me stressed out because I only had 1 hour and 30 minutes between my 2 flights. By the time we got there I had 30 minutes between flights and went running through the airport to get from one end of the D terminal to the other end of the A terminal in Atlanta. Thankfully my flight got delayed 20 minutes which meant I was on time and even had time to grab dinner.  Aside from the guy behind me who liked to push the buttons on the tv screen on the back of my chair really hard and occasionally drum on his tray table, both of which warranted me whipping around like I was trying to see what the heck was going on...like I didn't know. We got there about 11pm local time (1am my internal clock time), and I headed to find my shuttle to take me to my hotel.  By the time I laid down it was 12:30am local time (2:30am my internal clock time). I was sooooooo grateful that my conference didn't start until 2pm the next day.

1. A gorgeous sunset over my hotel.
2.  I'm in Hollywood y'all!
3. Pretty palm trees on Hollywood Boulevard. I felt like I was in a tv show. 

I slept in that morning, but not too late because I had some site seeing to do. Monday morning was the only time I would be able to, so I had to take full advantage of it. I realized Friday afternoon at work that my hotel was right around the corner from the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Grauman's Chinese Theater (the one where the start get to do their foot prints and hand prints), so that was my first stop. I decided I wanted to try to walk the entire Walk of Fame....the whole 3.5 miles and I took and obscene number of start pictures.  Plus I got to see Vin Diesel get his start on the walk. Well I saw the crowd that was very dense around him. I tried watching from a staircase across the street but it was hot and I was hungry so I walked over to Baja Taco for lunch before the ceremony was over so I could beat the crowd. =) I took it back to my suite (apparently if you get to a hotel really late you get a room upgrade) and get ready for my meetings that lasted all afternoon and evening. By the time they were over I was starving. My hotel was attached to The Highland Center and had tons of restaurants in it. I settled on Travestre and enjoyed a pizza, tiramisu, and a glass of wine on the patio overlooking the mall so I could people watch. I don't usually go out to eat by myself, but it was kinda nice, although I would much rather have had Eric with me! I went back out to take some pictures of Grauman's Chinese Theater at night and ended up finding a dance studio performance in front of Madame Toussads's Wax Museum. I stayed at watched for a little while before heading in for the night.

1. The Hollywood sign from Hollywood Boulevard.
2. Grauman's Chinese Theater where the stars leave their foot and hand prints.
3. The Kodak Theater where lots of events have been held (most recently the 2013 Oscars!).
4. Stars, stars,everywhere!
5. The lesser known Grauman's Egyptian Theater.
6. Hollywood Boulevard from the middle of the street!
7. More Hollywood Boulevard
8. El Capitan Theater..."Hollywood's First Home of Spoken Drama"

Some of my favorite hand and footprints from in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater:

1. Gene Kelly; 2. Abbott and Costello; 3. Marilyn Monroe; 4. Jennifer Anniston; 5. Danny Kaye (one of my favorite stars from the 40s and 50s) Make "Em Laugh is still one of my favorite bits!; 6. Adam Sandler; 7. Will Smith; 8. Tom Hanks; 9. Roy Rogers, Trigger, AND his gun; 10. Gene Autry and Champ; 11. John Wayne; 12. Frank Sinatra; 13. Judy Garland...had super tiny feet; 14. Julie Andrews; 15. Yul Brynner and 16. Deborah Kerr (from The King and I)

I realized after my walk on the Walk of Fame that I took 250+ pictures of the stars....here's just a sampling of some of my favorites!

The "start" of the Walk of Fame and the newest star on the walk....the crowd was nuts!

The next day I had meetings all day, but that didn't stop me from running across the street to grab a donut from a little shop. They were delicious (yes they....I'm on vacation and it was only 2). I finally met the Alabama coalition rep on Tuesday so I had someone to do things with after that. For lunch we went to a Mongolian BBQ place in Highland Center, and then for dinner we went to a burger place. But no just any burger place, 25 Degrees, a super fancy top 10 burger place in the country. It did NOT disappoint. I had the biggest, juiciest burger I think I have ever had.

The food deserved it's own collage:

1. Dinner my first night there was at Trastevere....great Italian in Highland Center
2. My Salsiccia Pizza, bread and wine from Trastevere
3. Amazing Tiramisu for dessert at Trastevere
4. The second night I went to an upscale burger place called 25 Degrees
5. I went with their Number One Burger that consisted of ground sirloin, caramelized onions, crescenza (tart, creamy cheese), plelibato Gorgonzola, bacon arugula, and thousand island dressing....and it was amazing.
6. An explanation of 25 Degrees
7. Donuts from the Highland Donut (breakfast one morning)
8. Fries and Onion Rings from 25 Degrees....sooooo good!
9. Cupcakes from Crumbs....dessert on Night #2

I called it a night after dinner because I had to catch a shuttle to the airport and 5am..... Yeah early.  After a long day of traveling I made it back to Alabama around 5pm and headed straight to basketball tryouts.  I know, call me crazy, but our head coach didn't realize I was traveling that day when she set the tryout date.

I am going to call the LA trip an overall success.  Would I have rather had someone there with me to sight-see?  You betcha.  But then again it was kinda fun exploring on my own.  I surely would have cut down on the amount of awkward selfies I took.  It was really neat to get to see Hollywood and now I can say I have been there, but I don't know that I would jump on a plane and go back there tomorrow. I guess I am turning into a bit of a country girl after all! =)