Choose another map, showing:

• USA (west)
• Mexico
• North America
• The World

Other entries in Los Angeles

Sun, friends, & In-'N-Out

With all the remodeling shows on cable these days, how is it that LAX's Terminal 3 still evokes Mid-century Bus Station? Paging "Trading Spaces - Airport Edition"...

We rolled on out of there in our rented PT Cruiser and headed straight for Venice Beach. Growing up with relatives in the San Gabriel Valley, I visited the LA area a lot as a kid, but those visits were mostly confined to Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, and the homes of said relatives - my parents having had their fill of LA's beaches and tourist traps when they were kids. So I can't say I was deprived exactly, but, I had never been to Venice and neither had Kristen.

And sure enough, it's a nice beach... can't argue with a sunny, 72 degree walk along the Pacific, having left the sauna of DC that morning. And _so_ many goofy dogs. But the boardwalk... eh. From a traveler's perspective, t-shirt shops and street vendors hawking henna tattoos just aren't edgy anymore. (There was one guy pumping iron in a leopard-print Speedo = slightly edgy. And a crew filming scenes for what appeared to be a cop movie, starring no one you know = very LA.) We got a call from my college friend Tina that she was off work early, so we picked up some beer and drove out through LA rush hour.

Tina, an OB-GYN resident at the women's hospital branch of LA County General, and her boyfriend Charlie, a special effects software engineer in Hollywood, recently bought a condo just out the 110 freeway from downtown. They had graciously offered their new guest bedroom for whenever we were next in LA... little did they know it would only be about a month later! Mwah-ha-ha... Anyway, Charlie cooked up a great dinner of chicken burritos with homemade guacamole, and we spent the evening catching up and watching The Amazing Race. Thanks again, guys!

Wednesday morning, we got ahold of Eileen, a friend of ours from law school, whose firm thoughtfully decided to put its LA office right between Tina's condo and LAX in Century City. Unfortunately, traffic and billable hours being what they are, we couldn't linger over our lattes at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf for too long, but we all had a good time.

Now, if you had the choice between comfortably making your international flight and relaxing in the airline VIP lounge, or going slightly out of your way in LA traffic for a pilgrimage to California's burger paradise of In-'N-Out and cutting the plane a bit close, what would you choose? Yeah, we would too. Detouring to the big new location in Westwood, I had a Double-Double animal style, Kristen had her usual cheeseburger with ketchup and onions only, and we split a large Dr Pepper. And then I drove like a madman down the 405 - we hit the check-in desk with an hour and fifteen minutes until departure, and just enough time to literally sit down in the lounge before boarding was called.

To Buenos Aires...

-Evan

Add to del.icio.us Add to reddit