It's Bekka: November 2017

Alrighty, here goes part two of the California adventure. We made the 6 hour trek from San Francisco to Los Angeles starting at about 10 am on Saturday morning, staying in LA until 11pm on Tuesday when my mom and I flew home from LAX (where I currently am sitting and writing this).

Ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier

After FINALLY getting to LA around 5 on Saturday we found the hotel, only being mildly delayed by the infamous LA traffic jams. Then proceeding to go to Santa Monica Pier (fully embracing the “so cal” vibes), with the goal of finding a beach before sunset, and a funnel cake, don’t worry we achieved both! Surprisingly parking at the pier was significantly easier than any parking situations we had encountered in San Francisco! When the sun finally set we walked up and down the pier, seeing a bunch of artists and musicians just jamming out.

I took too many water pictures

The next morning I slept in until 7:30 (but mom did not consider it “sleeping in”) and then we left the hotel around 10 to hit Venice beach, again lots of artists and musicians just hanging out and selling their stuff, as well as more formal shops because obviously, a big tourist attraction. Venice was the subject of most of my LA pictures, both the actual beach itself and the shops. After getting ice cream in Venice we made another In-n-Out trip (there were only 3 stops over the 6 day trip I promise!). We then proceeded to drive up the Pacific Coast Highway for a little while, getting up into Malibu before turning around and making periodic stops on the way down to take pictures (as you do).

Sign outside Hamilton

Finally making it to the actual best part of the day, going back to the hotel to change clothes and drive to the Hollywood Pantages theatre to see Hamilton!! In case I wasn’t already obsessed with the musical, to begin with, I fell even more in love, as well as learning 2 things.

1. Act I actually ends after “Non-Stop” not after “Yorktown” which I guess makes a lot more sense and I don’t know why I thought that’s where it ended but now I know!

2. I still cry during the entirety of Act II, and that will probably never change. *shrug*

Monday morning, back at it again at 7:30 going to see only the biggest and best thing that I’ve been dreaming about since 6th grade, we had the University of California Los Angeles tour scheduled at 10:15! It was even more amazing than I imagined! The tour began with a presentation, as many college tours do, including much of the information I’ve heard 100 times already but putting a lot of emphasis at the opportunities available for undergrad research, which is apparently a super big and awesome deal! They have 42,000 undergraduate students which is really big but the campus is also huge to match!

On the same note of how awesome UCLA is, we learned that the internet was actually started at the school when they set a message to Stanford, and then the Ronald Reagan hospital which is on campus is only the best hospital west of the Mississippi river, and basically they do everything better than anyone else, there’s no room for mediocre and I love it, it’s just hardcore, 110% ALL the time, ugh, so good!

Art on buildings along Venice beach

Except for this past weekend’s USC game but they weren’t talking about that of course. Outside of psychology and research stuff, I also got really excited at all their dance classes that you can take outside of your major, and they just sounded super interesting and fun! After the actual tour, we bought too many UCLA merchandise things and got lunch and smoothies on campus, then proceeded to get thoroughly lost trying to find the car!

After eventually finding the car and getting gas we drove down to Long Beach for the night and got dinner in an Irish bar thing that we found along the beach, literally the most random thing ever.

More cheesy pictures

Bringing us to Tuesday where I only almost broke my mom. We hit both the University of Southern California and the University of California Irvine in the same day. So first USC, a way less confusing campus than UCLA was, at least parking wise, but equally as big and beautiful. Their tour presentation thingy also talked about undergraduate research and how conveniently close it is to downtown Los Angeles. I also learned that they have a bunch of random classes you can take, like surfing which takes place in Santa Monica, or a film class where there’s a lecture for an hour of class then you spend 2 hours watching a movie not yet in theatres and discussing it. Both UCLA and USC offer similar things of being able to start research as early as freshman year and be close to the city where I hope to settle after school, but as rival schools, don’t tell them I said that!

Lastly, UC Irvine is about an hour south of USC and again a beautiful campus, Irvine felt more stereotypical Cali than any of the other schools, in part because it was 85 degrees and mid-afternoon and all of their trees are superrrrrrrr tall. It’s for sure secondary to UCLA still, but out of all the schools, I didn’t see one that I wouldn’t be extremely happy at and that wouldn’t give me amazing opportunities for when I leave school. They’re all amazing in their own ways and I feel lucky that I don’t have to choose between all 5, I only have to pick between the ones that actually accept me, but still, that’s a senior year problem.

Sunset in Santa Monica

Prior to this week, I had spent a grand total of 27 hours in Los Angeles and no time in San Francisco, but after this week I have fallen in love with both cities, their beliefs and values are so similar yet their vibes are so different. I couldn’t choose one that I love more over the other because just like the schools, the two individually offer so many different things. But as this is my LA post, I have mostly fallen in love with the constant buzz of the city, it doesn’t matter if you’re down near USC or along the coast or in Hollywood, there’s always someone doing something they’re passionate about and that’s crazy inspiring and you’re completely surrounded in creativity and productivity all the time.