My best friend comes to visit!!! (Vacation Pt 1)

The past week has been.. the best. No joking. No exaggeration. My best friend is the bomb dot com.

Below is a (somewhat) condensed overview of what our epic LA vacation was like:

Day One: R arrives! It's super late at night, but we still manage to stay up for several hours catching up and getting excited for the week ahead of us :)

Day Two: Cafe Tropical for the strongest of coffee and delicious guava cheese pies (nomnomnom). Church with R's cousin, L. From here on out, the three of us are pretty much inseparable. Seriously. On Day 9, after not seeing L for... one day... "I miss you"'s were actually and genuinely exchanged. Anywho... post church (and more eating), we met up with old friends at Milk for some yummy desserts and so much laughter :)

brotha from anotha motha, making me miss my real brother :(

Day Three: We sleep in so late, we miss our planned hike... and go eat instead :) After a relaxing outdoor brunch at Alcove, we head downtown to the AG Factory to visit L at work... and to shop in their warehouse!!! Friends, i am talking JEANS FOR $30, DRESSES FOR $5... all AG. Twas a dream come true. Don't believe me? Check out these photos. In the bottom one, i'm so happy my eyes aren't even open.

Day Four: Brunched at my favorite brunch place in all of LA - Blu Jam! Stayed way too long, ate way too much, enjoyed every minute :) Somehow we dragged ourselves home to change for our hike up to the Hollywood sign! And to celebrate our hiking achievements (we made it to the top in one piece!), we met up with L at The Boiling Crab for pounds of shrimp :D

Roma via Paris & Crunchy French Toast

At the start of our hike!

Halfway there :)

We made it! ...the sign looks a lot less impressive from this photo, but it was cool i swear.

We were there! Right behind that massive H!!

and then i hugged a tree. normal.

Day Five: Back to Cafe Tropical for more extra-strength coffee and guava cheese pie, this time with L who had spent the night. We stayed long after our food had been devoured, laughing the hours away :) I had a last minute audition, so R and L were so gracious to help me get ready... we would later find out... I BOOKED THE ROLE! i really couldn't have done it without them :)

Day Six: We finally made it out to the beach on day six! Santa Monica was beautiful as usual, and we spent the day shopping, strolling on the pier, and of course, eating :) After a brief setback in our plans (flat tire. boooooooo), we met up with L at our friend's cafe in Little Tokyo - Cafe Dulce - for the best coffee we have ever had. Serious. Go there. He spoiled us with more coffee and pastries than we were prepared for... but we still found room in our tummies for the best ramen LA has to offer at Daikokuya. nom. But the day wasn't over yet - a spur of the moment decision found us at the midnight showing of Men In Black 3... it was awesome. i cried. no, seriously. i cried.

Cafe Dulce obsessed.

Day Seven: R and i hit up Roscoe's for some chicken and waffles (yup, more food) before packing our things and driving up to Santa Barbara for the night. A wee vacation within a vacation - how fun is that! The drive was breathtaking - it was my first time in SB, and i absolutely loved it. We met up with my friends from NU and danced the night away at the Hood Internet show (and at a random bar afterwards in which we dominated the dance floor, prompting the DJ to deem us the best crowd he had ever DJ'd for... the ten of us... the best crowd... awkward.)

Reunited!

Us in a nutshell.

Day Eight: We spent the better part of the day on the beautiful SB beach. Le sigh. Take me back to there :(

i love my best friend :)

Day Nine: one word. shopping. lots and lots of shopping. we woke up early, picked up L (aforementioned "I miss you"'s were exchanged), had a lovely brunch, and drove out to the Camarillo Outlets. oh my epic shopping trip. never in my life have i shopped that hard. and most likely never again... that is until the next time R comes to visit :) when our feet couldn't stand to walk any further, our shoulders aching from the weight of our purchases, we made our way back to Cafe Dulce one more time to be spoiled again with coffee and pastries galore. Our friend S gave us a sneak peek at Dulce's new store (grand opening next Wednesday for all LA people!! shout out shout out promote promote support support!!!!!!), an adventure that ended on the roof of the building, looking out on all of downtown LA - such a beautiful, peaceful, memorable experience :) much much later that evening, we finally made our way home and stayed up the entire night laughinglaughinglaughing and trying hard to forget that R would be leaving us at 6:30am the next morning...

Matching friendship bracelets. Jealous?

Three glasses-wearing geeks :D

i acknowledge that this entire post may hold no interest for anyone (minus me, R, L... and our moms) so here's a one sentence summary: we never stopped eating, we never stopped laughing, and rachel took 15 photos of my cat.