#That shit deserves its own star on Hollywood Blvd

[gaywatch]

Oh that olive oil scene instantly lands in the Homoerotic Hall of Fame

[sprinkal]

Spring Travels: California State of Mind

Nothing screams #GirlsTrip more than spending a few days in Los Angeles with your bestie followed by a road trip to the valley to attend the music festival of all festivals: Coachella. Side note - I hear that the very first flower crown known to humankind was handcrafted on these sacred festival grounds, don’t let the history books tell you otherwise.

Now that I’ve gained your trust with my factual knowledge, let’s dive into this trip in detail. 

We flew directly from MSP into LAX. Yes, LAX is as much of a clusterfuck as you’d expect. However, we navigated the airport with surprising ease and were able to pick up our car rental directly from one of the baggage claim areas. For car rental, we used Turo which I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend. It’s like Airbnb but for cars. We were able to rent a 2015 Ford Mustang for 7 days for less than $200 (insurance included).

After we picked up the car, we drove about 20 min over to Santa Monica to grab lunch at the pier. We ate at The Albright which is a delicious casual seafood joint right by the beach. Meghan had a tuna melt and I had fish tacos. Both meals were v good. We spent the better part of the afternoon exploring the pier and surrounding beach. 

We rode the Ferris wheel as every tourist should and debated whether we had enough time left in our parking meter to rent bikes and ride down to Venice Beach for ice cream (lesson learned: you do have enough time, don’t doubt yourself). In our case, we drove over to Venice and along Abbott Kinney Blvd to get ice cream at Salt and Straw. This ice cream place was recommended to me by an LA local and omg does this girl knows her dairy products. I had literally the best/most unique ice cream I’ve ever tasted, which consisted of a double scoop of 1. Honey Lavender and 2. Chocolate Gooey Brownie. We enjoyed our ice cream while window shopping the cute lil shops on Abbot Kinney and pausing to snap some pics at this very Instagrammable wall:

I want to mention that we had to wait approx. 5 min to use this wall because a group of 14 year old girls was passing around a $1,000 camera taking various photos for the insta. I bet they have more followers than us too. Sigh.

After the ice cream, we drove back to Santa Monica to meet at my friend D Will’s place. He’s a friend from college who moved out to LA last September. He took us up to Malibu for a short sunset hike then back into town for some tacos at Benny’s Tacos. He emphasized the importance of trying local tacos while you’re in Santa Monica and after seeing for ourselves, I will emphasize the importance of trying local tacos while you’re in Santa Monica. We pre-gamed back at D Will’s then ventured out to a bar called The Bungalow. This bar was recommended to me by that same LA local and yeah this bar is kickass. It’s got a hip, nautical vibe. The drinks are a lil pricey but fuck it, we’re on vacation. We hung out, drank, met some dudes from Greece, and then called it a night.

The next morning, we said goodbye to D Will and made our way over to Dogtown Coffee for locally-produced Caramel Macchiattos and acai bowls. 

Truth bomb: I still don’t know how to pronounce acai. I’m pretty sure you need to know how to say it in order to become an LA resident though. It’s like a rite of passage. After b-fast, we picked up a bottle of white wine and headed over to the most amazing beach I’ve ever stepped foot on: El Matador State Beach.

Look how prettttttttttty it issssssssssssssss! No 4 real. After beaching it up in Malibu, we stopped for sushi at Bui Sushi (for those who want great sushi but don’t wanna pay Nobu prices) and then made our way to WEST HOLLYWOOD.

I gotta pause here and mention that our night in WeHo was like something out of a movie. Buckle your seatbelts.

We chose a cute lil Airbnb that was strategically walking distance to the Pump and SUR restaurants. Confession: I am a huge Vanderpump Rules fan so it was important 2 me that we check these places out while we were in LA. We had reservations at Pump for dinner so naturally we dressed up extra AF. 

Dinner was expectedly overpriced but the ambiance was fun and we met this really cool middle-aged couple dining at the table next to us and they even invited us to fly out and stay in their summer house in the Hamptons sometime (which we should prob follow up on, right???). After dinner, we walked a couple blocks down to SUR so that I could fan girl on the Vanderpump Rules cast members. We were successful in this endeavor. I met Arianna, James, Lala, and Scheana, while enjoying some drinks at their front bar. SUR also has this really fun ‘photo booth’ thing which Meghan and I took full advantage of. After a couple drinks at SUR, we decided we wanted to DaNcEeEeeeeeeeee. We asked the bouncer what was close by. He suggested we walk back towards Pump and hit up The Abbey which is a gay bar about a block away. We took him up on this suggestion. THIS BAR WAS NEXT LEVEL. They had sexy go-go dancer men hanging from the ceilings, drag queens performing for the masses. People were coming up to us asking if we were famous simply because of our extra AF outfits. We were not prepared for this shit. In addition to the inherent craziness of this bar, we also happened across more reality TV stars. We spent the remainder of our night hanging out with some of the cast from MTV’s Are You The One? and even exchanged phone numbers. You can basically consider us D-list celebrities at this point. This night ended with us hailing a Lyft back to our Airbnb and PTFO.

The next morning, we had hangovers and a craving for In-N-Out Burger so we indulged. If you’re ever traveling to a state with an In-N-Out, YOU NEED TO CHECK IT OUT. I don’t care how basic you feel. Instagram celebs are right on this one: they are truly the king of fast food burgers. Read this article that ranks all their secret menu items. Neapolitan shakes and animal-style double double’s. Life changing stuff.

After soaking up the booze via fried foodz, it was finally time to embark on the 3 hour drive to Coachella Valley. I considered reviewing the festival in this same post but I mean it’s ~*CoAcHeLLa*~. Coachella deserves its own post.

In summary, Los Angeles is a wild, crazy fun time. It’s a city that everyone needs to experience at least once. Because it’s huuuuge and the traffic is heavy, I suggest mapping out the neighborhoods and points of interest you want to see ahead of time. We were able to cover a lot of LA ground simply by planning ahead (Santa Monica, Venice, Malibu, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills). Hope you enjoyed this post/find it helpful next time you’re in Lala Land!