Los Angeles

Who books a last minute flight before dead week? Me....

The flights happened to workout and I finished all my homework before the weekend. I left Seattle Thursday evening and made it there by midnight. It was a long day of travel and airline ineptness. In the end it all worked out for the better and my mom and I stopped by UCLA to say hi to my sister.

On Friday, Gina had a few classes to attend, so my mom and I decided to kick off the start our Friday morning off with some Alfred {Coffee+ Kitchen}, classic LA.

We've been to Los Angeles a few times, but have never made it over to Silver Lake, which is supposed to be a hip new area. After driving around the area, we settled on HOME for brunch and split the huevos benedictos. Excellent! We went back to the main area to stroll through some of the shops and make a pit stop at a Dallas Clayton mural.

Dallas Clayton is one of my favorite illustrators, check out his work!

Also in Silver Lake are adorable painted stairs. My mom and I spent a solid 20 minutes driving back and forth trying to find them, but it was completely worth it.

We still had a little bit of time left before we had to pick up Gina, so we made the rash decision to drive to Santa Monica. Any LA local would have called us crazy. And I can see why, traffic was horrendous. Eventually we made it to Sidecar Doughnuts and ordered a midmorning dessert.

We sped off to UCLA, grabbed Gina, and made our way to Downtown LA. After circling for parking (ugh typical) we sauntered over to one of my favorite places in all of Los Angeles, Grand Central Market. WHAT A PLACE. There are fresh fruits, meats, and candies in every stall along with delicious specialty food.

If you happen to go, you definitely need to eat at Egg Slut. Slightly vulgar name, but every bite is worth it. We each ordered the egg sandwich and scarfed them down. Gina, however, managed to get some yoke in her hair (messiest eater I know).

From the market, we headed over to The Broad, the new contemporary art museum. A separate post for the museum outing is on the way, but here’s a sneak peak!

Joe Zee!

After a wonderful run through the museum, we went across the street to the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

It was fun to walk around and explore Frank Ghery’s beautiful architecture (he also designed the EMP Museum in Seattle!) and take in some of the skyscrapers, plus include a little photo shoot.

Saturday began with a trip over to Beverly Hills to watch my cousin play basketball. It was oddly entertaining and my cousin once he’s older will be able to sink three pointers no problem.

As we rolled into the afternoon, we picked up one of Gina’s friends, Thomas, and explored Abbot Kinney in Venice.

It’s a cute little street about fifteen minutes from the beach. I over heard someone refer to it as the “hipster’s promenade” and that could not be more accurate.

For lunch we ate at The Tasting Kitchen. Maybe we were really hungry, but the food was delectable! On our table were a croque madame, chicken and waffles, and a burger. Highly recommend.

We spent some more time walking around and peeking into specialty shops, such as home décor and paper/stationary.

Also, in this part of town is Salt & Straw. You make recall from my Portland post, I declared it my favorite ice cream shop. Naturally, I demanded we go to which everyone agreed, and I commenced my raving.

Thank goodness it lived up to hype I had established, because I would have never lived it down with Gina. The line snaked around the store, but it was all worth it since I got my sea salt with caramel ribbons. Solid day on the west side of town!

Sunday began in Santa Monica again. We went to the 3rd Street Promenade and down an alley to pretend to be Brandy Melville models.

Later on, we walked a few short blocks to Ocean Avenue to take in the ocean, beach, and Santa Monica pier. Absolutely gorgeous!

Brunch was creeping up on us, so we had to head back towards West Hollywood. After only two drives around the block, we found parking and loaded up the meter. For family brunch, we were having dim sum at a place called Bao Dim Sum House. There was a funny miscommunication and my Aunt Caroline thought brunch was 30 minutes earlier than it actually was. Gina and I went and met her Blue Bottle where she was passing the time with some coffee.

Brunch was incredible! It was also great to spend some time with my extended family, especially since my grandparents had just returned from the Philippines on Friday.

We parted ways with my aunts, uncle, and grandparents, and did some last minute shopping at Century City before dropping Gina off at UCLA. Then it was back to reality and time to finish up winter quarter.

Awesome weekend and very thankful to see my sister!

GlobetrottinggretybearMarch 24, 20161 Comment