California

Last weekend I visited my stepsister and her boyfriend out in Los Angeles. They have a six month old named Jake, whose birthday is the day before mine. He's very cute, very good-natured. It was a lot of fun to play with him and make silly faces and watch him be fascinated by all sorts of things.

It was also fun to go see Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Rodeo Drive,. I actually bought some jeans there, so even though they were only like $40 I can still say I got them in Beverly Hills should it ever come up in conversation (doubtful). We also went out to Santa Monica Pier and my Mom and I rode the ferris wheel. It was gorgeous, and so unusual for me to see such a wide beach surrounded by mountains. Not like the beaches in Florida, where everything is flat. After that we drove up to Malibu and watched the sunset, then drove back through Topanga Canyon, stopping at a lookout point where you could see the San Fernando Valley all lit up in the early darkness.

I have been to California in the past, but it has been about fourteen years since I was there last. Back then I was a teenager and even though it seemed fun and cool to be there, I was very interested in doing things like seeing where the stars lived and buying keychains everywhere we stopped. It was nice to go back with a more mature perspective (although I still kept my eye out for any celebs--no luck). Hopefully one day I will make it back to Northern California, which I preferred over L.A.

The only thing I wish we had done more of was eat out at nice restaurants. Honestly, I flew 3000 miles from New York to Los Angeles only to eat at El Pollo Loco and a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. There was one really cool Cuban bakery called Portos that we went to on my last day there, actually. It was in Burbank, and it's the kind of place where you walk up and place your order and then they bring it out to your table. The food was very good there, though, and they had an amazing selection of desserts (chocolate mousse!).

Anyway, I can understand a little better now why people want to live there. The mountains are lovely and the ocean seems so much bigger than here on the East Coast, and let's not even get in to the weather. But it's not for me. Too much driving on "free"ways and mountains for my comfort. And no connectedness--if you're not working in the film/tv industry and don't manage to get to the beach very often it's probably easy to forget you even live there (like every other place in America).

Next stop: England!