First day in LA

Wow. I'm here for a Rotaract conference, and my first day was ... surprising. First of all, Midwest is the best of the airlines. The seats are so big and comfortable - and they bake you chocolate chip cookies on the plane! They're all warm and gooey! Next, the super shuttle people put me in the wrong van, which resulted in it taking three hours to get me to the campus where I'm staying this weekend. I was CRANKY. The guy driving could have been really cranky about it, too, but instead he just bitched about immigration and then dropped me off without letting me pay. Nice!

So, still cranky Annie, I checked in, changed, and started walking to the convention center. Starving. Dehydrated. With a headache. I found a little, local cafe on the way and stopped in. "Do you have any lunch-type food?" The guy asked me if I liked spinach and cheese. Who doesn't? So he let me use his restroom, said, "Sit down, relax, I'll take care of you," and he did. Minutes later, I had a warm, spinach-cheese croissant, a couple of aleve, some water, some nice magazines to read, and a skim vanilla latte with a heart-shape made in the foam on top. Perfect way to turn around the day!

Well, after the travel delay, lunch, registration, and getting my bearings, I'd missed the entire first day's session. What would I do tonight? I knew one Rotarian there, and he pawned me off onto this nice college girl from Egypt. Mona. She's awesome. Just as we were on our way to seek a local restaurant and city map, she spotted two Spaniards who she'd met earlier in the day. "They have nothing to do. I know it!" So we tag along with Oscar and Alex for the evening. They're going to Hollywood.

We hop on the metro, after receiving instructions from the convention center staff, and promptly miss our stop. After we get back to the right transfer and get off at Hollywood and Highland, we peruse some of the stars on the sidewalk, and then walk about 20 minutes down to a filming set where Oscar has a Production Coordinator friend. Rosana gave us a tour of the Weeds set! So cool. We were the typical tourists, taking pictures with the various set pieces, pretending to look angry or thoughtful sitting in the director's chair, you can imagine. (Weeds spoiler: there's an underground tunnel to Tijuana and there's going to be some drive-by action. Geno's going to be so jealous!!)

Then Rosana sends us on a walk that takes FOREVER to this incredible Argentine restaurant. Amazing beef. So delicious. I think it's called LaLa's, or something like that. Oscar and Alex are cracking jokes the whole way - everyone speaks excellent English. Alex tells me about how he and his wife met through Rotaract, and Oscar tells me about the respective lists that he and his wife have - movie-stars-you're-allowed-to-sleep-with-and-not-get-in-trouble. Hers are George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and he can't remember who else. His are Halle Berry, Angelina Jolie, and Jennifer Aniston.

We continue to have our pictures taken every 5 seconds at various entertaining locations, and cab back to where Oscar and Alex are staying - the University of Southern California campus. I insisted that instead of taking a cab back to my campus accomodations up the street, I'll walk. They tried to be all chivalrous, but I'm a tough, city girl, remember? I didn't realize it was ten city blocks..... or that I got to the wrong side of campus where there's no security guard to let me in. So I jumped the fence, muddied my black Donna Karen bag, and went inside to hit the sack.

But did I? No! I mingled. Made contacts. Got some Italy leads. I'm so relieved that this isn't the stuffy, boring, pointless, self-congratulating mess of a conference that I worried it would be! There are a lot of cool people here, and I'm excited to move forward with the Italy contacts, too.

BTW, I'm definitely moving. But that's a story for another post.....