Friday, 8/21After waking up at the crack of dawn to go to Shacharis with Yehoshua
(to his credit, he did tell me when later Minyanim were), I hung around the house while the Yehoshuas went to work until it was a more normal time to wake my wife. We walked just a few minutes to breakfast
Pico Cafe where we got some awesome smoothies for a slightly pricey $6 each.
Interesting way to get people to help pay the CC fees, I guess…After breakfast, it was time to sightsee. I hadn’t done much research, but that was because Yehoshua really just laid out the main touristy activities, and we decided that’s what we wanted to do. With plenty of Uber referral credits at our disposal, we grabbed one from the cafe and headed to
Rodeo Drive. The free 11 minute ride priced out at $5.60. Pretty good prices in LA. We jumped out of the car and headed down the famous street.
The morning haze that LA is apparently famous for was out in full swing.
I don’t know how busy Rodeo normally is, but we were confused by how quiet the street was. It was already after 11AM and every store was empty. Every store was also staffed with "sophisticated" employees by the doorway seemingly standing guard as if to say – Ha! You WISH you could afford to shop here. Of course, being LA, things had to be a little interesting…
It was fun to browse through as we walked to the end of the street, where, just across the street, we found the park that houses the
Beverly Hills sign.
We continued to walk into the Beverly Hills neighborhood and really weren’t too impressed with the houses (at least on the streets we walked on). Most were smaller than 5 Towns houses – although just as boringly boxy.
Being LA, though, we passed some more interesting things...
Everyone needs a Statue of Liberty on their front lawn, right?
Dr. Seuss’s house? Yehoshua informed us it’s known as the house with no straight linesAfter hitting up 2 of our touristy goals, it was time for lunch. I know LA is all about its food, but we decided to just go as close to our next stop as possible, so a free 15 minute/$9.15 (it was surging!) Uber later, we arrived at
Pizza World.
I wasn’t in the mood for pizza, so I took a chance and started with the nachos, which turned out to be DELISH!
I then stuck with my Mexican taste buds and went for the empanada, which was basically like more nachos just with guacamole, rice and beans. If only stores had pictures of their food (I know, it’s not so easy). Whatever, the nachos were good and so was this despite having to avoid the beans (not really my thing).
Total cost for the 2 of us was $31, which isn’t cheap for a pizza place, but we didn’t really get pizza. After filling up, we walked across the street to the
Farmers Market in the parking lot of the Grove, where we spent a few minutes browsing.
We then turned around and entered
The Grove. When I first heard about it, I couldn’t understand why people make such a big deal about visiting a mall, but within minutes, I understood why. It’s a really nice outdoor mall, with a great feel to it.
The trolley adds another special element to the atmosphere (although we did not ride it).
After a while of browsing, we grabbed another Uber for our next destination. 20 minutes ($7.89) later, and we pulled up to
Hollywood and Highland. This intersection, as well as the streets in the surrounding area make up LA’s Times Square.
It’s also home to all the famous Hollywood stars.
We walked around, avoided the creepy costumed people that somehow made their way here from Times Square
, found a huge candy shop and stumbled into another really nice open-air mall.
A few floors up, we got our mandatory view of the
Hollywood sign.
A little closer for youAs it was starting to get late, we grabbed our final Uber to head back to Yehoshua’s. However… once we got in the car, our driver – who informed us we were his first-ever Uber ride
– said his Uber account just kicked him offline. We checked my phone, and I, too, was locked out. He tried to get it working for 5 minutes, but then we all just gave up, got out, and unfortunately, requested a Lyft (couldn't get my Uber to login). Luckily, I had a $5 credit on that account, and we opted for Lyft Line (similar to Uber Pool) to save some money. There was already someone else in the car, so we were 3 altogether, and his stop was on the way to Yehoshua's. After we dropped him off, the driver tried picking up another passenger, but they were a no-show. Finally, after 28 minutes and $11.45 after the discount (including Prime Time surging), we got off… at the wrong place. Turns out we were a 15 minute walk to Yehoshua’s, and I put in the wrong address.
We made it back in time to get ready for Shabbos and that was the end of a wonderful touristy day in LA!
Shabbos, 8/22After meeting the Yehoshuas last year for a Shabbos in Venice and getting along so well, he kindly invited us for Shabbos in LA once he heard we would be there for Shabbos. Shabbos by their home was wonderful. We had a great time looking over all their Shutterfly books and shotglasses
and enjoyed scrumptious meals! We checked out some of the Jewish neighborhood in the afternoon, and before we knew it, Shabbos was ending. After Havdala at around 8:15PM, we quickly packed up our stuff, said our goodbyes to the Misses and then Yehoshua once again graciously drove us to LAX for our 11:05PM flight. Without checking bags and with TSA Precheck, we were at the gate with plenty of time to spare, which was nice. We considered heading into the UA lounge, but decided we really didn’t need it, and within a few minutes, we boarded the plane. Turns out I hadn’t mentioned to my wife that we were flying J, so was pleasantly surprised. Even though it wasn’t lie-flat, it was still a nice, wide seat.
We got some drinks and got ready for sleep.
No lie-flat and no glass cups There’s no KSML option on LAX-EWR (although that should change once all the UA flights from NY to LA switch over from JFK to EWR), but we weren’t hungry, so we just drifted off to sleep. I always have difficulty sleeping on planes, and I probably got in just a couple of hours, so I’m not sure whether these J seats actually helped me sleep more or not, but the overall experience was definitely better than sitting in coach. Morning came, and we landed just around 7AM. Without any bags, and in my favorite-EWR, we were in an Uber in just a few minutes. One last free ride later ($20 – crazy how much cheaper Uber in LA is) to my mother’s house, and we got into our own car and headed home. We were glad to have flown Motzai Shabbos so we had a full Sunday to rest and recuperate.
And that’s all he wrote! What an awesome trip; thanks for reading!
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