My girlfriend Cassidy and I had been contemplating another trip ever since Gooseberry Falls, but as college students on a budget we had to be a little choosy on our destination. After a few ideas (New Orleans and Montreal) ended up impractical for various reasons, some cheap $160 tickets to Los Angeles came up and we pounced. After a couple Airbnb arguments and subsequent relocation, we had a rough itinerary, and lodging and airfare combined for both of us ended up around $600-not horrible.

Wednesday

We left very early (4 AM) Wednesday morning and took an Uber to the light rail station to get to the airport. We were flying Spirit, and each had packed a very small bag that we could carry on with us so as to not spend unnecessary dollars (did I mention we were on a budget). The bags were packed pretty tight but not horribly so, and we made do. I slept through almost the whole plane ride and we landed almost 30 minutes ahead of schedule in LAX. With no bags to claim we walked about 100 yards and were thrown into the chaos of the surrounding LA airport, which is practically a self-sustaining economy itself. We rode a shuttle to the bus station and subsequently couldn’t find a bus to take us in the right direction. Thankfully Venice beach is only a few miles north of the airport. We hopped in another Uber and pulled up to the boardwalk itself. Our trip had begun. I looked at my phone. It was 9 AM.

After caching our bags at a hostel, we brunched at a nice vegetarian place called The Butcher’s Daughter. Everyone was beautiful and the guy (an actor) at the table next to us was talking to his date (a screenwriter) about how he had gone to Bali with his father to reset and unwind after his latest project failed. But he could still pay for avocado toast. I had the egg sandwich and Cassidy had a nice breakfast burrito and our waiter had extraordinarily good looks. We walked the boardwalk at Venice, changed and went swimming. Cassidy wouldn’t wander out far but I went into the 8 feet waves fearlessly and bravely. I left with moderate whiplash and approximately 1 pint of water in my sinuses. Although it doesn’t really have a reputation for a swimming beach, it was really fun and the boardwalk has a cool rundown ambience to it. After the swim we tried to hike a short ways to a coffee shop further away from the beach, which turned into a hike a long way from the beach because all the coffee shops had no seats, or no seats available, or a cup of coffee cost $13. We found one and hoped to charge our phones, but alas-no electrical outlets. Get it together Venice.

After deciding that we’d rather take a 30 minute car ride to the AirBNB than spending 2.5 hours on public transit we hopped in a car and arrived at a house with a thatched fence near an Armenian grocery store, a 7-11, a Thai Restaurant, and a Laveria.

We ate at the Thai Place (delicious) and went to bed at like 8 pm since we had been awake since 2 AM Los Angeles time.

Stuff I couldn’t mention: Hole in the wall weed dispensary witch doctors, sunburnt tourists, free canvas buzzfeed bags from a friendly Buzzfeed employee, spending too much on an Uber to North Hollywood

Thursday

After I woke up we got a feel for our surroundings- we were in a room with a concave mattress made completely out of tarps and cloth. Cassidy insisted it was ‘nice’ but I thought it was more reminiscent of camping than your typical AirBNB. The house was a typical bungalow and had three bathrooms, but in the backyard there were two campers and maybe 8 of the huts outside-they were perhaps 8 feet by 8 feet and all were under a tarp that stretched across the whole backyard. It was unusual but not poorly done-it did feel glamorous, and no one seemed turned off or intimidated about the situation. It was reminiscent of a hostel or a commune. We made a few friends at the house and don’t have much bad to say about it, but if I had to guess it breaks more than a few zoning laws. Me and Cassidy did the math and estimate that they have about $9000/month coming in from this setup.

We hung around and got our bearings at first, and I went for a walk around the neighborhood so that I could get a feel for what was going on in the neighborhood. We had our leftover thai food for lunch and then took an Uber to Griffith Observatory. It was hot and super sunny and we had initially planned to do a short hike but ended up bailing on that and just walking around the observatory for a while before going to a shaded roped off deck to hang out until the observatory itself opened. The observatory was excellent and really beautiful, and provided an awesome view of Griffith Park (which is actually really mountainous) and the Hollywood sign. We paid $5 to attend a planetarium show which was worth it and then took a few pictures before we argued about which bus to take down. But we made it down, upon which we had to take another bus that we subsequently missed. Fortunately, Griffith Park is not too far from Hollywood Boulevard so we uber’d there for like $5 or something practically as cheap as bus fare.

I was surprised to see that Hollywood Boulevard wasn’t quite the zoo I expected it to be. And then it was. The sidewalks were packed, people were everywhere, I saw spiderman, wonderwoman, and a lot of homeless people. We stepped into the mall for a second and were swarmed by thousands of tourists just like us. As we had seen a bunch of Hollywood stars and weren’t really impressed. We sat on a bench and tried to find something to do. We tried to get into a showing of Jimmy Kimmel but didn’t make it in time, so we went to Zara where Cassidy played dress up with me. I got a shirt.

Dinner was at a vegan chain restaurant called Veggie Grill where we tried all of the house-made juices and sodas they have (just $2 for a cup!) and had a good meal. We ended up at a donut shop and walked from there to the Hollywood bowl, where we hung out outside for 30 minutes and then went inside. The venue was awesome and a nice old man named Art loaned us some seat cushions while bemoaning the state of the outdoor concerts for the LA Philharmonic (poor acoustics and subpar guest conducting.) I really enjoyed the pieces, especially Brahm’s first symphony, a classical reflection on love. A German trumpeter featured in a Hummel piece and we heard about Art’s corporate career at Xerox over the intermission. We headed home after that and slept wonderfully.

Stuff I couldn’t mention: Overpriced Coca Cola, no recycling, Hollywood Tour guides, wiping off cans before you drink out of them, Grumpy Cat Hollywood star hoax, donut salesmen

 

Friday

Friday was one of our least busy days. It was our first foray into public transit from the door and it was pretty easy and pretty time consuming. We rode a bus to the train station and the train station bought tap cards so that we could use bus transfers.

From the first train we switched to a second and ended up somewhere Northwest of USC’s Campus. We ate at a big food court at an Ethiopian-Vegan place and it was very delicious. We shared Horchata for desert. We walked to the California Science Center after that, a free children’s-oriented museum. It was fun but not awesome, so after an hour or so we walked across to the USC Campus to explore. We looked around the beautiful, mostly brick campus. It’s super open and none of the roads are accessible by car, so it’s an awesome campus. We hung out in the library to beat the heat and charge our phones. I read about communist spy librarians. It was interesting.

 

We hopped on a bus to Downtown’s Grand Central Market, an open air collection of restaurants on the ground level of a building. Known as the epicenter of LA’s food scene, it was awesome to walk around the place-from sushi to carnitas, it was incredible to take in. We went with ramen at the end of the day, at an all vegan ramen shop. We scored a spot outside and enjoyed delicious ramen. The bus ride home was eventful, where we almost missed the train, and when we got off at Burbank Station we realized the bus didn’t come for another 45 minutes. We got on a bus that got us closer to the Airbnb and Uber’d the rest of the way.

Stuff I couldn’t mention: Hog Maw Tacos, Alfred the squirrel, Air horn wielding teens, no-touch tide pools, nice train conductors

 

Saturday

Saturday we got on a bus to someplace near Hollywood called Café Gratitude. Our server (Nicholas) didn’t greet us until we had been there for over 10 minutes and we didn’t get our food until 30 minutes after we ordered it. It was delicious, but we complained to the kitchen manager Ernesto who was really disappointed in the service and offered lunch on him next time we came in. 1/10 service 8/10 recovery and I really liked Ernesto.

While we were there we saw the famous comedienne Tig Notaro and her kids, along with her wife Stephanie Allynne. Their kids were really cute and it was cool to sight a celeb, albeit a B or C-lister.

We rode a bus to the Broad (pronounced brode, not brode) and found out that the wait time to get into the museum was 2 hours. Cassidy wanted to go but I wanted to find something else to do, so we compromised for Cassidy to stay in line while I explored the Walt Disney Concert Hall (LA Philharmonic’s permanent residence) and the LA Opera hall. I found a rock for Cassidy’s brother Carlen and by the time I made it back Cassidy was almost at the front of the line. The museum was really cool, a lot of contemporary art with some cool video pieces and plenty of sculpture. I saw some Basquiat’s and Warhol’s for the first time and that was cool.

We dined at Grand Central Market again and I had sushi. I accidentally ate a glob of wasabi and my heart rate is still elevated. We left from Grand Central Market to Chinatown where we ran into some big festival where everyone was launching confetti cannon-firework-projectile-launchers. There were a bunch of food trucks and stands. We ducked out of the chaos for a second to grab some bubble tea and explored a few shops. I got a picture in front of a restaurant featured in Jackie Chan’s Rush Hour. We rode a bus home and watched Tig Notaro’s TV series, One Mississippi.

Stuff I couldn’t mention: fake crab, overzealous security, Jenny Holzer, fake cat poop, burly security guards eating vegan coconut soft serve

 

Sunday

Sunday was our beach day, and we rode some busses and trains to Santa Monica beach. We had some lunch and got cranky at each other cause we were both hungry. Once we got in the water, things were a lot better and we had fun playing in the surf. The beach was packed.

I rented a boogie board for an hour and had a lot of fun with that, even though Cassidy thought I was trash at Boogie Boarding. I’m not. I want to be a professional.

After that we left the beach, got some Powerade and tried to find a place to change out of our swimsuits. Cassidy managed to change in a hotel before we got kicked out, but I had to change behind a dumpster. We walked 1.5 miles to a Veggie Grill (worth it) and refreshed with some tasty veg. On the way back, we hitched a ride with a Louisianan transplant who dropped us off right by the pier. We explored the pier and had an awesome conversation before we hopped the train home and got on a bus with a gang member who visibly did drugs in front of us. We finally got home and crashed hard.

Stuff I couldn’t mention: Iranians, the merits of to-go vs. dining in, hot feet, food sharing with strangers, inadequate surf, fierce sunburn.

Monday

Monday we weren’t sure what to do so we tried to get into a studio audience. We went for Jimmy Kimmel and Conan, and a spot for Conan opened up right away. We ate some breakfast and watched some more One Mississippi before we got on a bus to Studio City. We had some burritos where I ran into a relatively unknown Soundcloud rapper named De’wayne Jackson-I took a picture with him. He was one of the guys that got me into rap, surprisingly enough, off of a remix of Kendrick’s HiiiPower.

We walked to the studio since we had time to kill and pretended to see celebrities. We crossed over the illustrious LA river and arrived at Gate 8 at Warner Brothers Studio, where we were corralled and had our pictures taken (presumably so the producers could seat the most attractive people up front). We walked through the lot past a bunch of sets before we arrived at the studio.

Me and Cassidy were seated right up front, cause we were the most beautiful. First we got directions to the exit from the Warner Bro’s fire chief, and then a hype man got us HYPED. The band worked the crowd up with a few songs and then things settled down. Conan went on and did some one-liner type-deals before the first guest, Bob Newhart, who is very old. The second guest was a comedian and he was really funny, at one point I was crying and trying to not make any noise as to disturb everyone watching ALL ACROSS THE COUNTRY. The show ended with us pretending to applaud Sheryl Crow, as she had a scheduling conflict which required her to tape in advance. We took a Lyft home (which was nicely appointed) and I had 5 for $5 tacos from a Mexican Groceria.

The power went out which was very interesting for all parties. I was in 7-11 at the time, and was the last person who made it out with their purchases. It was out until like 12:30. With our phones dead, no light, and no wifi, there was not much else to do but shower in the dark and go to bed.

Stuff I couldn’t include: Yes, no, rock, Gypsy

Tuesday

We were trying to hit two museums today, the LA County Museum of Art as well as the Getty. We got up early to pack and hit the Getty earlier. When you arrive at the Getty, you take a tram up to the top of the hill where the museum is located. It’s an extraordinary open campus museum with a few galleries connected by some terraces and with some gardens on the grounds.

Cassidy and I split up at first to do our own thing. I explored some Gothic art and learned about the religious history of art. We met up at Rembrandt and then went and saw a room chalk full of masterpieces-Cezzane, Rodin, Monet, Manet, and Van Gogh, who signed his famous ‘Irises’ with a simple VINCENT.

We grabbed some lunch at the cafeteria and enjoyed a shady lunch under the great architecture. We tried to nap on the lawn for a little as we realized that the LACMA wasn’t possible and enjoyed the Gardens. Finally, we checked out the photography exhibits. One was an interesting collage-ist, one I found a bit documentarian for my taste, and the last was a photographer named Chris Killip who embedded in a fishing community in England. There was a video of him going through his pictures and talking about the meaning and his relationship to the subjects which I really enjoyed. We left on the tram and took a bus and a car to LAX. The Uber driver was a woke music producer named Antonio.

When we arrived at the airport I forgot to take my laptop out through security and got held up for a while. But we made it through and got to the terminal just fine.

We went to another terminal for some food and I dragged my feet a little through the duty free shop as Cassidy continued on. On the escalator I ran into famous, multiplatinum recording artist Swae Lee of the hiphop duo Rae Sremmurd. Then we ate dinner and almost missed our flight.

Stuff I couldn’t mention: Cassidy being right, Swae Lee’s middle finger, bodyguards, posse members, juice cleanses, hodgkins lymphoma

The flight was uneventful except for a bit of an in-flight hiccup with some screaming babies. When we got off the plane we walked to the light rail to get home.

When we got off the light rail platform, we turned around to a man slamming his head into the now departing train and then the concrete. We were screaming at the people in the train to call 911 as he laid dazed on the train platform. I called 911 through the emergency dispatch box on the platform and we went over to the man.

Another man got off at the same stop us as us and two dicks tried to steal his bike as he was trying to help the man who had hit his head. The guy who had hit his head was on the ground not moving and bleeding out of his ear.

After a little while a lady who had gotten off at the same stop started trying to move the guy around. I was freaking out because although his eyes were open, he was not able to move and was not able to talk. I was freaking out at the lady and she kept being aggressive towards me and saying she was going to hit me. I was scared but I hoped that if she would yell at me she wouldn’t move the guy around at all.

The police finally arrived and they got some information from us. Me and Cassidy took an Uber home and ate some granola and went to bed.

And then our trip was over, just like that.

A couple takeaways-I feel like I really got a feel for the city of Los Angeles—I knew some neighborhoods but I never really got the topography or geography, and I really feel like traveling on our own and constantly looking at bus routes and google walking routes.

We had super full days every day, and a lot of that was due to us taking our time and seeking out new parts of the city, along with the relatively high public transit times. Public transit, by the way, was more than adequate even though almost all sources said that you needed a car as a tourist. We intended to use a split of public transit and Zipcar to get around but really relied on public transit more than anything along with Uber to fill in the gaps.

It was awesome that we left early and got back late-it basically meant we had 2 extra full days of travel without having to pay for lodging, so that was awesome.

Finally, as I sit down to write and reflect on this trip I realize how insane and action packed it truly was. I could write for pages and pages about it and all the crazy experiences we had, so many of them unplanned. The 7 days cost around $600 for me total-I think I’ll do another breakdown later talking about my costs for the trip.