los angeles – Page 2 – Sip of Starrshine

Last time on Spring Break 2016, we drove away from Las Vegas after indulging in gluttony and finally headed to Los Angeles for my first-ever visit to the City of Angels. We settled into our AirBnB studio in the scary-by-night Arts District and tried to catch up on rest knowing that we wouldn’t get many opportunities for rest over the rest of our trip.

This was also one of the few days that Megan and Don were rid of us. Maybe next time they’ll think twice before inviting us to the bachelor/ette parties right before the wedding AND to dine with them during their honeymoon at Disneyland right after the wedding. It was a lot of face time with us, possibly more than the cumulative time we’ve spent together during the rest of our friendship…

It rained all day on our first day in LA. This was pretty disappointing as I shook a fist at Adam Levine for teasing me with hot southern California days. From what I understand from my friends who live in the area, LA doesn’t handle rain very well. The wifi at our AirBnB studio wasn’t working, and when I contacted our really lovely host, she found out that all of downtown LA’s wifi had been knocked out by the rain. Welp, sorry data plan, I needed a lot of directions.

Mmmm pie!

Earl Grey pie

Shepherd’s Pie

With our horchata latte

I love pie a lot

That also explained why I couldn’t check in on Belly at Pie Hole (review) the nearby pie shop that I was dying to visit as soon as I saw that it was near our studio. We gobbled down a little Shepherd’s Pie and a slice of Earl Grey pie, washed it down with a horchata latte, and braced ourselves for a taste of LA’s infamous freeway traffic as we prepared to head to…

The Getty Center

Ben and I weren’t really sure about what the must-see attractions in LA were, but The Getty Center came up time and time again, so we decided to visit on our first day. It took us 40 minutes to get off an exit ramp that was 1.5 miles away from our destination, but that’s fine, it wasn’t as bad as I thought the traffic would be getting there.

(I also may have had my only celebrity sighting trying to get off this exit ramp, as I maaaaaaay have seen Benny Fine driving past us? But, honestly, it could’ve just been a guy with dark curly hair and glasses…)

The Getty Center is one of the two buildings that comprise the J. Paul Getty Museum and it houses 19th- and 20th-century works of art across several multi-level buildings.

You take a tram up to the museum so that you don’t have to drive up to the ridge, so that there isn’t an ugly parking structure, and for fun!

Despite the rain, the drought wasn’t really helped

One of the most famous pieces at the Getty Center is Van Gogh’s Irises, which became the 10th most expensive painting in the world (account for inflation) when it was acquired by the Getty Center.

My big head blocking your view of Irises — My big head blocking your view of *Irises*

I had a lot of fun getting in the museum mood with Ben and hiding from the rain that just would not let up…Read More »

Last time on Spring Break 2016, the bachelorette party crew enjoyed a lot of good food, some poolside chillin’, and an amazing concert at the new T-Mobile Arena by The Killers, with Wayne Newton, Shamir, and special appearances by the Blue Man Group and Dan Reynolds from Imagine Dragons. After all that excitement, it was time to get ready to leave Las Vegas…

Thursday was our last day in Vegas, and I woke up with the sun yet again despite how dead-tired I was the day before. But it was going to be our last time seeing the desert and the craziness that is Las Vegas, so we just enjoyed it while packing our things. At this point, Kristine had already flown to LA (which I momentarily forgot when I woke up and thought I had kicked her off the bed whoops) so Megan, Jennifer, and I just chilled and finished the champagne and orange juice we had while waiting for the boys to pick us up in the rental cars and watching HGTV. (I think I understand why people get so into HGTV now; we watched two full episodes of Flip or Flop because we just felt too invested.)

I was so willing to wait through anything, though, because the bachelor and bachelorette party crews were finally uniting over a magical thing: gluttony at Wicked Spoon. I am a big fan of buffets and was pretty excited to try out the caliber of buffet that Vegas offered, seeing so many trips by so many friends that checked off this Deadly Sin off their list.

Considering that we had been waiting in our hotel for this epic food-stuffing for over an hour, we were completely famished. Walking in was a little bit overwhelming for me, because I knew that I wanted to pace myself but also that I wanted to eat a lot of food and fast. These, as you can imagine, are conflicting goals. So, I took a stroll around the buffet to get an idea of what I definitely wanted to eat and what could be passed over in case I got too full.

A view of the buffet — A view of a portion of the buffet (the salad part, because goodness knows I needed this section)

Wicked Spoon is nice in that they do small, individual portions of food instead of having you scoop out too much of every dish and realizing that you got too excited too soon. (This happens to you too, right? … right??) So they call it “small plates”-style but it’s perfect because you just get a little dish of food and you don’t have to share anything muahahahah! This also aids in pacing because you can only fit so many little dishes onto your plate.

Let’s just share some photos of my food now, shall we?Read More »