El Lay

Pig and Whistle

LACMA

Ohhh-Bama!

Bullitt

My Man!

Where's Em?

This time around, we took our travels west to sunny California. M&Em arrived late Thursday night. Rather than heading straight to the hotel, we did it up just right by doing a costume change at LAX and heading right to Ketchup for some food and drinks and a hopeful celebrity sighting. The west coast definitely takes a more lackadaisal approach to life. After waiting an hour just to place our order, we realized we must leave behind our east coast tendencies and just go with the flow. It was a great change of pace. We enjoyed our Ketchup experience and drove around Sunset Blvd before heading to Woodland Hills for our first stop of our journey.

Friday morning, Emmett headed off for his first interview - GPS in hand - only to find out the office was 50 feet behind our hotel. After a weird and uncomfortable interview, we were off to Arcadia for interview #2. After Meg dropped Em off at the hospital he was interviewing at, she made her way to the biggest mall she's ever seen. Walking around a huge mall unsupervised for 3 hours, Meg was in complete awe of this retail sanctuary. Awhile later, Meg picked up Em and were off to Hollywood - the Orchid Suites. In what seemed to be a replication of Danny Larusso's new home, Meg and Em quickly realized they weren't in Kansas anymore. The hotel was nasty - Em showered ON a towel so his feet wouldn't touch the tub and Meg wouldn't even consider sleeping under the gross, dingy covers. A few calls later and we were off to downtown LA to what seemed like our second home, Hilton Hotels.

After settling in, we were off to Burbank to meet Deborah for some Thai food. Burbank was such a cute place with plenty of shopping, bars and eating and friendly west coast faces. Catching up with Deborah was wonderful and after dinner we headed to her place in West Hollywood for some live music and more catching up. We left Deborah's awhile later, drove through Hollywood and headed back to the hotel.

Saturday morning we were back in Hollywood bright and early for some breakfast at Mel's Drive-In. We then took in the sights - Kodak Theatre, Mann's Chinese Theatre and the Walk of Stars. After attempting to walk to The Grove (a HUGE farmer's market) we gave up and drove the rest of the way. We walked around, enjoyed the fresh samples, people watched, shopped a bit and grabbed some delicious pizza. When we were done with The Grove, we drove to the La Brea tarpits and LACMA (LA County Museum of Art). We took some pics, enjoyed the sights and were then off to Beverly Hills. In Beverly Hills, we drove down Rodeo Drive, enjoyed a drink at The Ivy and feverishly looked for celebrities - or even a paparazzi. NOTHING! On our way back to our hotel, we enjoyed some fine Mexican cuisine at El Compadre - right across the famed Guitar Store on Hollywood Blvd.

After some R&R (and realizing we slept through dinner reservations), we were off to Musso & Frank's Grille for some bevies and to meet up with an old friend of Emmett's. We were then ushered out by the waitstaff and headed to Pig & Whistle for some good ol' Irish fun. After party with Jen & Ed Norton's brother - we mean, Adam, just his look-alike - we stayed for a few more drinks before realizing there were more bars to see. We went to the Geisha house but sadly were turned away because they were closed. What better alternative than to head to In N Out burger to complete our night.

3am back at the hotel we finally rested our bodies before our 5am wake up call. The way home was a bit of a struggle as we were exhausted, hung over and still full of exitement from such a great weekend.