Well – I made it! My boyfriend, Cody, and I arrive this past Monday to the sunny city of Los Angeles. We ran around getting luggage and trying to figure out where to pick up our rental car. By the time we figured that all out, we headed to meet up with my good friend Will! You might remember him from my first two weeks in China? He was over there with me until he ET’d shortly after we arrived. But we had already instantly bonded.
Reunited at last!
We had dinner and a few drinks and crashed at his place out in La Palma. On Tuesday, we woke up, and it was raining! Cody and I had a rainy, but delicious breakfast together. We were supposed to go the beach this day, but the weather wasn’t cooperating, so we went to the Griffith Observatory. Which also happens to have a pretty great view of the Hollywood sign.
Welcome to Hollywood!
We saw two shows in the planetarium that were pretty cool. Then we went to check in at our hostel on Venice Beach. After getting settled in, I was still kind of disgruntled about not being able to have a beach day. So Cody and I went and bought a six-pack and sat on the beach anyway. Miraculously, the sun came out and we watched the sunset.
❤
Later that night, we made friends with some of the other people staying at the hostel, played beer pong, and just generally had a good time. But we were up early on Wednesday because that was when I moved into my apartment! It wasn’t quite as nice as the pictures they had on their website, but still pretty good. We spent most of Wednesday running around buying stuff for my apartment – I thought it would be furnished with linens and pots and pans and hangers, but it definitely wasn’t. So I had to buy ALL of that stuff. I forgot how fast those little things all add up. While I was unpacking, Cody went to district managers here in LA to see about possibly transferring out here! I think it’ll mostly be luck, though.
Kitchen
Bathroom
Sink area (separate from bathroom, kind of weird)
So much closet space!
Bedroom
Bedroom
Living Room
So I got all moved in and there was still no sign of any roommates! I found out that I would only have ONE other person in the FOUR bedroom apartment! I was so stoked! That means I’ll have my room all to myself. At least until Fall, anyway. I met my roommate on Friday night. Her name is Nila and she seems pretty cool. She’s getting her Master of Finance – so it’s a similar one year program. She was originally from Iran, but her parents live in Irvine and she said the commute was just too far.
Wednesday night, Will, Cody, and I went to “The Basement” – a live escape room experience. Basically, the concept is that you pay them to lock you in a room and you have a certain amount of time to solve puzzles to “escape”. I had never done one before, but the concept seemed really interesting to me. So it was three of us, and the room was TINY! We got stuck on the second puzzle and were basically screwed from there. We all left feeling just really frustrated, but it was still pretty fun in any case. I think my friend Will and I are going to go back and try again.
Thursday morning was Will’s birthday, so we went down to the Original Pantry – breakfast was FANTASTIC! Then Cody and I went to the Grove and went shopping. We stopped by his old place of employment, a butcher shop, and the owner offered him his job back right away. Sometimes things just work in mysterious ways. And then we went to….
MURDER HOUSE
MURDER HOUSE! From American Horror Story! It was all roped off and besides the front entrance, didn’t look like the house on the show at all! Like over to the left in this picture, there is a full glass living room that definitely wasn’t in the show. And then a long garage to the right. The magic of cinema, I suppose.
We also headed over to the Walk of Fame!
Her hands were tiny!
At lastttt…
Look who I ran into!!!
I almost got sucked into Scientology while we were there too. But we had to go meet up with Cody’s friends Tommy and Liz. They were really cool people and cooked dinner for us. We had a great time.
Then, Friday morning, Cody left to go back to LA! And I went to the Welcome Luncheon. It was a little awkward and weird – I’m not good at small talk and mingling with strangers, but I made one friend. And would you believe it – she’s Chinese. Not only is she Chinese, but she is from Chengdu!!! How crazy is that?! Her name is CaiLinJun, but she goes by Caitlin here in the US. She has a little British accent, she is super sweet (but not like hello kitty sweet or anything), AND she got me our first week’s textbook for free as a .pdf file!!! I think she was sent to me to change my mind about China and the Chinese people. So far it’s working.
This weekend, I mostly just unpacked and settled in.Yesterday, I explored the campus a little bit. It is really beautiful.
Fight On? I guess that’s their slogan.
It reminds me a lot of Simpson College campus – the red and gold colors, the green grass, quiet brick pathways. I think I’m really going to like it there.
Today, I spent TWELVE HOURS reading the first FIVE chapters of our Intermediate Accounting textbook. That is 284 pages. Poor Caitlin only got through 20. I don’t know how the international students are going to be able to keep up at that pace. Hell, I don’t even know if I’LL be able to keep up! Our assignment for tomorrow night is two more chapters (~100+ pages) and a homework assignment. Plus we’re supposed to be refining our resumes for some sort of resume file that will be used for recruiting.
It all makes me a bit nervous, but I’m just going to take it a day at a time and hope everything falls into place as it should.
Taylor in Transit 