New LA Experiences

After living in Los Angeles for almost I year, I feel I have somewhat boxed myself in. I used to do new stuff all the time, but it has began to trickle down over the past few months. Yes, I try new restaurants a lot, but I still get into ruts. I have done most of the big tourist attractions, but there is so much more to do in LA. I think the thought of saving money kept me from experiencing all that LA has to offer. In reality, Los Angeles has tons of free things to do. So I am making a vow. I am going to get out of my box, and I am going to try new things. Each week I am going to try to do something new. To kick off my adventures with a bang, I decided to do a variety of new things this past week! Easing my way into trying new things, I took my little furry friend, Rufus, to a park. Unfortunately LA doesn’t allow dogs off their leash, but Rufus and I lounged on a bench for a while until kids overtook the small park. Rufus isn’t exactly accustomed to children and began wildly jerking on his leash. At this point, I was done for trying new things for the day and quickly scooped up Rufus and exited the park.

While I enjoy trying out new restaurants, that same mentality hasn’t transcended to trying new bars. I have found a few select bars that I love and rarely try new ones. Keeping with my theme though, I convinced some friends to try a new, small lounge in Hollywood. A cute old man in tails and a top hat welcomed us to The Lounge Next Door. There was an instant speakeasy feel as we were escorted through velvet curtains into a room of exposed bricks, dim lighting and intimate couches. Adding to the 1920s theme, the waitresses were clad in classic flapper dresses and long-stranded pearls. Many classic cocktails adorn the menu along with some new favorites. Upon our waitress’s suggestion I ordered the Hotel Nacionale, which smoothly combined rum, lime juice, pineapple gomme and apricot brandy. The drink was delicious but unfortunately super tiny for its $12 price tag. After checking in on Yelp, I whispered a secret word to our waitress to receive a free appetizer. We ordered the spinach and goat cheese pizza that was also topped with spinach, walnuts and roasted apples. The strange ingredients actually married well with each other. I can say I will be back to The Lounge Next Door.

The next day, Jessica and I continued with our new tradition of Saturday beach days. Instead of going to an LA beach though, we headed south to Orange County. I have been to the OC a couple of times, but never farther south than Huntington Beach and never actually to the beach. Our adventure was going pretty well until good old Google maps took us on a toll road. This normally wouldn’t be a problem, but neither of us had enough change to pay the toll! Jessica ended up asking the people behind us for the 65 cents we were short. Cruising deep into the OC, you see a completely different part of Southern California. There are orange, barren hills and purple-colored mountains in the distance. Cookie cutter mini-mansions line the canyon valleys with identical red roofs. We branched off from the highway and began our crawl to the beach and suddenly we were there. The deep blue ocean off Laguna Beach greeted us with cloudless skies overhead. We found a small cove beach and set up shop. The views were absolutely breathtaking. After a few hours the tide unexpectedly washed up and partially drenched us! We saw this as a sign it was time to go. To avoid the toll, we took Highway 1, or the PCH, north through other OC beach towns. It was my first time through Newport where a lot of Jayhawks call home. We turned off the PCH when we hit traffic from the US Open Surf competition in Huntington.

All in all, this past week marked a new start in my LA experiences. I fully plan to keep up my pledge to try new things and broaden my own horizon.