Christmas Vacation Pt. 2 (Los Angeles!)

Okay, okay.. Let's finally do this. I kind of forgot about it and then figured I just wouldn't write about it all, but I can't completely leave it out because it was so amazing!

My first Tuesday in L.A. Rosanne had to work, which gave me the time to just relax and catch up with the time difference. In the evening we went to Glendale mall, which was fun. Believe it or not, this was the first and only time I've been to a mall in the USA yet! They had really cool fountain, spraying water up on the rhythm of the music that was playing. I had a hard time not to spend all my money on clothes right away..

On Wednesday we had decided to do the L.A. tour, which looking back, might not have been the best idea for that day. When we arrived at Hollywood it was pouring rain and it was so foggy that we could not even see the Hollywood sign. Still full of good spirit we went to sit on the top of the double-decker tour bus, but after about 45 minutes we were both so soaked and freezing cold we really needed to go inside again. When we arrived at Santa Monica I had not heated up one bit and I was highly uncomfortable, so I decided to buy a whole new set of clothes at H&M. Although it may seem like a waste of money to buy a complete new set of clothes just because it rained, I'm very glad I did, so that I could enjoy the rest of the tour. We walked to the Santa Monica pier and I had to try very hard to imagine how nice it would look on a sunny day. Over all I still had fun though, it felt kind of typical that the one day I'm in L.A. and want to do the bus tour it rains, it never rains there normally! Oh well.. After rain comes sunshine so luckily that left us with much, much better weather for the next days.

The following morning we went by Hollywood again on our way to Universal Studios, so that I could still see the Hollywood sign. Weather had completely turned and we took some great sunny shots that morning. Universal Studios was a lot of fun! We did the Universal Studios Tour and went by the sets of major films and series. It was really amazing to see how they did lots of the special effects and let you be right in the middle of it! The rest of Universal was pretty cool too, they had some different kinds of rides, lots of photo opportunity and Grinchmas! So there was a big Christmas tree, fake ice and the Grinch to take photo's with.

Friday afternoon we left for Santa Barbara, that was really really cool too. When we arrived at the hotel we got a discount and a better room because the guy at the desk helping us was originally Dutch too, so that was already a great beginning. Our cottage was very cute, like a little vacation home. Because we couldn't go out we build our own little party and spend the evening jumping on the beds and singing along way too loud with Dutch music. I can appreciate De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig and other Dutch rap a lot more when other people can't hear what I'm singing. On Saturday morning we ate breakfast on the pier, looked for some souvenirs and then arranged to do a Sunset Cruise that evening. It took us forever to find the boat that afternoon and we had to run to even make it, but once we were on it was pretty amazing. I like being on the water and seeing the sunset was absolutely beautiful. The next day we went on a boat again, this time for a Whale Watching Tour. This was definitely one of the most fun and unique things I've done in my life! First we could just enjoy being on the water and seeing Santa Barbara disappear in to the distance. Then our boat was suddenly surrounded by hundreds of dolphins! Some of the dolphins were even swimming under and besides our boat, coming up just where we were standing at the front of the deck. I had never seen dolphins in the wild before so I was already saying to Rosanne that even if this was the only thing we'd see on this whole tour, it would be way worth it. But, we did see more! A little while later we spotted whale's and our boat slowed down to keep up with it. Finally we got really pretty close to one. It was amazing to watch the whales spray water up, come up for air and then go down again. Every time it was about to take a deep breath and go underwater for a longer time the whale flipped his tail all the way up and everyone started snapping pictures like crazy cause it looked so beautiful. Unfortunately it was really hard to snap a picture just at the right time, but we got some okay ones and that image is now burned in to my memory anyway. In total we saw the dolphins, 5 or 6 whales and sea lions. We also went by the Channel Island, which is an amazing series of Islands, one of the few on earth untouched by humans. Sunday afternoon we had to leave Santa Barbara again, but I thought it was a beautiful city and I'd love to go there again someday.

On my last day in L.A. we went to Disneyland. Strangely, as I was looking forward to this the most, this turned out to be the least fun out of all the thing I did that week, which says something as I still had a great time there. We went with Rosanne's host-mom and the 3 year old twin girls. There were long rows everywhere and because we were with the kids I couldn't go in as many roller coasters as I would have without them, but the kids rides were nice too. I love all the Disney stories, so no problem to ride through Alice in Wonderland or Winnie the Pooh. When we did the Splash Mountain (sort of water roller coaster, but not really scary) we got stuck just before going up for the biggest splash. We were lucky we were not 2 cars ahead because that one really stopped almost vertically just before going down. It was quite an interesting experience though, all the light flicked on and after a while we were kindly escorted out through the emergency exit. We walked through the backstage part of the park, looking far less fancy than the actual park itself. About 20 minutes later the ride was up and going again and we gave it another try, this time with success and I got nicely soaked like I was supposed to.

Tuesday I arrived back in Seattle and was intermediately faced with cold weather and the endless amount of homeless people here again. One of them started following me and I had to start shouting really loud for him to finally give up on me. Afterwards I felt so guilty I did give money to another homeless woman at McDonald's, but then their employees looked really annoyed at me too, it's never right... Besides that I am really glad to be back though. L.A. was a great experience but I glad I live here and not there. Here I can see my mountains, I have my friends, I have Seattle and the weather is really not that bad (although people say this is just an extraordinary mild year and normally it's worse). Next week Wednesday I'll be here 6 months, time is going so fast!