All Over LA

Tomorrow will be a true eating fest. We will start at about 3 or 4 pm and there will be so much food that we won't be able to move afterwards. So how should I go about food today? Perhaps eat extra healthy food? Or maybe eat a little less and make sure I eat lots of good nutrients? Well, maybe I SHOULD have, but I sure as hell didn't.

Wow, could it be so?! Is that really the finger of God? It's sure big enough...

The day started with a "quick" getting ready session which took no less than one and a half hours. Me and my friend showered (SEPARATELY!!!), ate, and went out for coffee and shop-browsing. Rachel declared she was taking me out for horrible American coffee, but I have to admit that the hazelnut latte was REALLY good!

I would have taken the picture from up there, but I was too busy holding on to the railing.

We took the metro, which is basically an underground train, and during the day, we rode 5 different buses and walked A LOT. We were out from 10:30 in the morning to 6:30 in the evening and saw a lot of Los Angeles.

My socks got wet within half an hour after leaving the apartment.

We started with the Grove. I had never heard of it. Well it's a market sort of shopping center kind of thing. That should describe it. And it's Christmasy! There are many stores there - from indoors glimmering stuff stores and a huge bookstore to outdoors fruit stands and open air restaurants. One thing that the Grove is known for is fake snow. Since it never really snows in LA and people are constantly taught that it's not real Christmas if there's no snow, the Grove is actually spending money each year to get fake snow there. People from different parts of LA visit the Grove to play with fake snow.

Christmas Wonderland Grove.

They didn't have fake snow out yet because it's still November! But the Christmas decorations are out and the entire thing looks like Christmas Wonderland. But they actually sold fake snow there and they also had a demonstration. Some guy poured a little white powder on my had and then poured water on it and it turned almost 10 times bigger and really weird soft white brittle stuff. It was light and felt really nice against the skin. However, it was nothing like real snow. Real snow is cold and nasty and usually sticks together. But that's why we love it. It's so temptingly tasty white looking, but it feels sharply cold against the skin. This warm white thing just fell apart. It was almost like the white plastic stuff they put into boxes when they pack something really delicate, only the "flakes" were really about 1 mm diameter and really light. It would be really disappointing if LA kids actually thought that snow really is like that. They probably do.

Fake snow - soft and light. Feels much nicer than the real stuff.

Then we went to the Russian quarter to get some "kohupiim", which, as it turns out, is called "farmer's cheese" here. We are going to make farmer's cheese-apple-cinnamon cake tomorrow. We visited this weird store that looked exactly like the worst stereotypical village stores in Estonia. It was crowded and people were speaking a lot of Russian. They sold Russian caviar, Latvian and Lithuanian chocolate and desserts and nothing from Estonia. A bit disappointing. But the atmosphere felt really horrible there. I just felt so suffocated. My friend didn't seem to mind, but after 20 minutes in the Russian quarter I really needed to get back into the real world.

A store in the Russian quarter - doesn't look like USA at all.

We walked down Melrose and visited many stores. We would have eaten at Pinks but we felt too full from fatty Mexican food and a cappuccino. Pinks is a famous Hot Dog place here. Usually the lines are about 1 hour long. And then finally we also stopped by at Target's store in West Hollywood. People toldd me that Target is like Wallmart, except it is a bit more expensive and the stuff is nicer. It looked very cheerful and there was a lot of space there. Me likey! Gonna have to visit it before I come back to Estonia. They had really cool stuff there.

Look what I saw!

Finally it was getting late and my friend was going to a concert. She had bought the ticket before I even knew I was coming here on Tuesday already. It gave me a chance to do some work on my computer, which was very convenient for me. However we didn't cook, so ate some more fast food. Altogether, I ate as much as an athletic woman should eat. I hope the pregnancy and the hours of walking make up for it, because tomorrow I have to be as starved as I can be!