First, I switched fonts again! Moving on:
I was so excited to return to my second home this weekend, but my plans came to a complete halt when I had to be rolled over onto a later flight with a longer flight time. Of course the one place I needed to fly to made me experience the woes of standby, right? Upon arrival to LA, unfortunately there was a car accident at LAX which, combined with post-5pm traffic, kept me at the airport for nearly an hour.
Now I know I always talked about how much I didn’t want to live in LA, and, after Friday night, that is still true. I really missed my friends though, so I can’t say I wasn’t bummed to find out I literally had 24 hours in the city. However, I was able to salvage some of my time and spend time with a few amazing friends!
Yesterday morning, I was able to get my graduation sash in the works to be embroidered. Once I checked that off of my list, I headed to Santa Monica to meet up with my friend, Rory, at Third Street Promenade. We struggled at the Apple Store for an hour then we grabbed lunch at Steak n Shake. After a delicious lunch and some time to catch up, I continued on solo to take a walk on the pier [and get some beach pictures, of course].
After spending a couple of hours there, I ended up stranded on the pier, but I was saved by the bell as my friend, Cynthia, was coincidentally shopping at Third Street. Best friend telepathy, I tell you! We eventually headed back towards USC to continue on with our pre-scheduled dinner plans. But it wouldn’t have been a real day in LA without sitting for a full hour in traffic!
Once Cynthia and I finally got to dinner at our favorite spot, Boiling Crab, we had an extremely sub-par experience. If you’ve never been to Boiling Crab, it’s a tiny seafood chain with less than 10 locations (one in Dallas, one in Las Vegas and the rest across California); it’s known for its–for lack of a better word–interactive experience where you’re able to open your food from its shell(s) and choose different sauces and a number of sides, all while wearing a giant bib (not to mention, it’s cheap for LA!). Because the locations are extremely popular, but very small in size, waits are usually about an hour on a regular day and up to two hours on Saturday nights. Because of this, they have started offering a To-Go option which is supposed to be around a 20 minute wait. As stated before, this is our favorite spot and we have never been disappointed, but, without going into full details of the night, we will definitely be writing in. We still love the place, but we are for sure swearing off, and never recommending, the To-Go option.
To end my last hours in LA, I decided last minute to attend my friend Jordyn’s birthday soirée. It was honestly such a great note to end on because I was scared I wouldn’t get to see anyone!! It was essentially a mini London reunion which made it that much sweeter. 🙂 After taking photos as well as having a dance break, everyone headed out to take the night into town while I headed back for a way overdue bedtime.
This morning, I switched to the earliest flight back to Dallas to avoid a full flight, but as I made my stop at Las Vegas, the one thing that I was told “rarely happens” happened: I was taken off the flight to accommodate other passengers. Thankfully, I was able to get back on at the last minute, but I learned a lot about the standby process this weekend. Unfortunately, I didn’t even scratch the surface of people I wanted to see while I was in LA so I apologize if you were one of those people! Although I wish I could have been there for much longer, I’ll be back in May for the grand finale (and a couple of days afterwards too)! Overall, I guess this trip was kind of bittersweet, but with every obstacle came a greater reward ❤
If you enjoy reading about my Non-Rev travels, you can catch all the best highlights as they happen on Snapchat: @alexasdrawde
xx, AE
Lex in the City 