Traveling and California

First, I am going to go on a quick rant about traveling. I travel enough that although I am not what some call a "road warrior", I usually fly at least a couple times a month. I was in the LAX airport yesterday, and it looked really familiar, and it took me ten minutes to remember that I was actually in this airport about a year ago (though for a while had no recollection of this). Most people know exactly what airports and cities they've been to in the last year. Here are a few of my pet peeves of traveling. In the airport bathrooms, everywhere it seems, the stall doors open inward. The direction of the swing on stall doors is never really an issue, except when you're dragging a bag, and you have to walk into a tiny stall, and try to get your bag in far enough to get the door closed. What a pain in the butt! Another pet peeve is when there is a very fat person in the seat next to me. It just so happened that my flight last night was a large lady wearing a large coat. When I get to the seat first, I always lower the armrest to create a barrier of sorts, but she was already there when I arrived, so I was essentially restricted to the other half of my seat. Because taking a red eye next to a fat person wasn't bad enough, some parents brought their screaming baby on the plane, and sat directly behind me. This baby was SCREAMING for more than the first hour of the flight. I thought it would never end. Well I finally got home, and thankfully they didn't lose my luggage too.

Now that I've railed on flying, I'll talk about my trip to California. The trip was actually a business trip to Bakersfield (a bit north of LA), but I extended my trip a couple days to have a chance to visit with friends. I first saw Rina - a friend of mine I've known literally my whole life - since before I was born. Rina got married last year, and just had a little baby boy a month ago. I hadn't seen her since she'd been out there, so I was excited I'd get to see her. I met baby Noam, and although she said he was being fussy that day, I thought he was acting great. He even fell asleep in my arms!! It was nice seeing Rina too since it'd been a while!!

While in LA, I also got to see Ben D. He works for Sony Imageworks and so I met him near his office in the afternoon, and we went to get some food. After working long and night shift hours, Ben has moved up in the ranks and now has a normal daytime job, which is nice =) We went to this Argentine Cafe, and it was really yummy. It really was reminiscent of the cafes I ate at in Argentina earlier this year - Good selection Ben!

I managed to not remember to take pictures at all while still in LA, so sorry for the lack of pictures to this point.

I went to Oceanside (about 90 miles south of LA) to visit with Josh while I was down there, and Josh reserved a time and was cleared to take me in a plane on an "aerial tour of San Diego" so that I could both see him fly AND see S.D., but in the day and a half I was down there, the weather was horrible raining the first day, and really cloudy and windy for flying the second day, so we didn't get to go =( However, we did get to go to the Science museum (a bit reminiscent of SciTREK if anyone is from Atlanta), and a Natural History Museum (similar to Fernbank), but they had a traveling exhibit of the dead sea scrolls, which I'd seen in Israel years ago when I went with my family in middle school, but don't really remember, so that was a pretty interesting exhibit, although I think Josh was a bit disappointed in the actual scrolls - hoping they'd be bigger and more intact. Josh cooked up some yummy fajitas for dinner too (I even ate one or two vegetables with them just to make him happy hahaha) The second day we went to Camp Pendelton where he trains, and I got to take a tour of the base, but specifically his hanger and helicopter. The Cobra was pretty cool, and I actually got to go inside both the front and back seat and check out all the controls and stuff. pretty nifty. We also went down to Carlsbad where the Pacific Ocean beach was really pretty, though it was really windy and way too cold to actually sit out there.

I left Oceanside to go back to LA to meet back up with Ben, and I got to see his new Condo that he bought which is really close to LAX, and he is currently remodeling. It looks awesome. It's pretty big with a great view! you can see the beach from his windows! It will look really good inside when it's done. I can't wait to see the pictures. Ben and I met up in Santa Monica with Miles and his friend Dan to walk through the 3rd Street Prominade, which is a walking/shopping/movie/eating district. We walked all around the blocks surrounding there too, just enjoying the conversation and checking out the stores. We discussed and deliberated what restaurant to go to until there were no more options left, and finally settled on an Italian place Miles had been to once before. It ended up being pretty good, and we sat in there and talked and ate for probably 2.5 hours. After dinner we walked more through the promenade, mostly in the direction of the parking deck since I had a flight to catch.

all in all, it was a nice weekend, and I'm thrilled I got to see everyone!! What an awesome way to get an essentially free vacation from work. I love extending business trips when I have the opportunity!