California Part I: Los Angeles

One perk of getting to the airport four hours early is having time to catch up on my Google Reader, Facebook, five days of Perez, work email, work email and more work email and also to start some documentation of my week. I've been in California since Wednesday and, even though it's only been five days, it feels like an eternity. I've covered a lot of ground in the last five days, not only geographically but also by way of activities.

The first leg of my trip was in LA for a work conference/excuse for everyone to consume large amounts of alcohol. But let's start from the beginning.

DAY ONE
I worked from home on Wednesday morning and called a cab to pick me up at 1:30 and take me to the airport. My cab driver was a little on the crazy side. He had long, stringy white hair and a matching beard (think Santa Clause) and has been driving a cab for 20+ years. We talked about a lot of things on the ride and it came out that he's a "taxi pirate" for Halloween each year. He described his costume to me and at one point said, "Maybe I have a spare hook with me. No, I left it at home." Bummer. I was really hoping to see it. He also did some role-playing where we pretended it was Halloween and he gave me his pirate speech. Good stuff.

I carried on two laptops and my co-worker asked me if bringing my Mac was really necessary. He clearly doesn't know me. I worked on the plane which was pretty impressive since I'm typically asleep before it even starts moving.

We finally made it to the hotel and I realized that this was the first time I've ever stayed in a hotel room alone. Let's just say I did not mind the king size bed all to myself.
I had a pretty sweet view...of other buildings...from my room.
I dropped off my stuff and headed to the gym with a co-worker. This picture was after running a couple miles. I spent the weekend taking pictures of my self in an attempt to document. I felt pretty ridiculous but still continued to do so.
My co-worker and I decided to order room service (another first!) for dinner so that we didn't have to get ready to go out again. I spent the evening eating and working. Fun, no? It's a good thing I went to the gym because the chicken strips, fries and molten chocolate cake were calling my name!
After dinner I curled up with the April conference issue of the Ensign and then went to sleep. I laughed to myself as I thought about my night of gym, working and Ensign reading vs. most of my co-workers' night of clubbing.

DAY TWO
We got up bright and early on Thursday, loaded up two buses and drove out the the ghetto. We partnered with the LA Department of Public Works for a service project that I actually really enjoyed. We went to Cyprus Park and picked up trash and painted over graffiti. One co-worker was literally afraid of getting shot because we were painting over gang graffiti. I laughed at her at the time, but as I was out on a street corner - alone - painting a wall I will admit I was a little afraid myself. There was a cop with us the whole time and I can't decide if that made me feel better or worse.

We swept up everything from underwear to CD's to feces to coloring books and painted four square blocks of concrete and I can't tell you how good it felt to be serving. It was so amazing to see how much we accomplished in such a short period of time. I wish I had before and after pics to show the difference. I'm sure someone tagged one of those walls within hours of us painting them, but it was still fulfilling and made me want to find some way to serve in Seattle on a regular basis.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in meetings and getting ready for the cocktail party that night. The party was at a club on Hollywood Blvd. which sounded glamorous until I got there and realized it was a club in a mall. Seriously. But it ended up being a lot more fun than I anticipated.
I ran into Chats McGee and he said, "You look really nice. I didn't even recognize you at first." Umm...thanks, I guess?

This is what I look like after about 30 Diet Cokes and having an entire drink dropped directly on my feet (the same feet that were aching from standing in heels all night). Still smiling!
The whole night I had the strangest urge to dance. Like full-on dance. But no one else was and I didn't want to be that girl. Plus, I couldn't have used alcohol as an excuse for my behavior.

DAY THREE
Even though I was probably one of the few that didn't pass out on my bed at 4am, I still managed to oversleep (by an hour!) and had to rush down to the conference on Friday morning. It made me laugh that they had a basket of Red Bull with the breakfast buffet.

After four hours of conference I made my way back to the airport to pick up my rental car and start the second leg of my trip - visiting Brandi and her adorable Cecilia!

To Be Continued...