Saturday, November 28, 2009

California Trip: Sunday and Monday

Sunday

Sunday kicked off with a blast - we headed to Mass. I've learned that I'm definitely NOT Catholic. All that water splashing, crossing and kneeling gets confusing! At one point, the priest started talking about health care reform and how we had a responsibility to make sure we were protecting the unborn. All I could think was that I don't really want the Catholic church to have a say in my health care and I certainly don't want a priest telling me what to do with my body. Luckily, I kept my mouth shut and avoided standing up and telling the priest exactly how I felt. I would've been given a dozen 'Hail Marys' for sure!

After church, Simon and I went to Cirque du Soleil at Santa Monica Pier with his sister, mom and grandmother.

I've seen a couple of Cirque shows - this was by far the best one! It was the Kooza show (not to be confused with Koosas of the Cabbage Patch Kid fame). There were times when I was so nervous for the performers I had to cover my eyes. Most of the time, these acrobats didn't even use harnesses! There was one guy who balanced on stacked chairs - he kept adding chairs to the pile. He didn't use a harness until he was about 15 chairs up - apparently, that's when it gets dangerous to fall! I would have needed a harness to balance on one chair.

The women were very bendy - they could do back bends and front bends, plus put their legs over their heads. I can't even touch my toes.

Monday: We're Going to Hollywood!

Since we were headed to Hollywood, we needed our strength! We
had homemade tamales for breakfast. I've never actually eaten a tamale before - the corn husks always scared me. (I didn't realize you were supposed to peel them.) I've been missing out for all these years. Tamales are absolutely amazing. They are my new favorite food. I had a pork tamale and a bean tamale. I even got the recipe from Simon's mom and will try to make them some time. (Maybe at Christmas if my mom is willing to help!) They are tons of work - but considering how delicious they are, they'll totally be worth the effort!

The crew (minus two nephews) headed down to Hollywood for a day of sightseeing. We purchased a 'hop on, hop off' bus tour that was supposed to take us to all the hot spots. Sadly, we had problems with actually catching a bus. One got in an accident. Another was stuck in traffic. Another had a broken windshield. We ended up trading in our bus tour for a celebrity homes tour.

Before we took that, we explored some of the close-by hot spots. I saw the Chinese Theater (where I was accosted by a faux Jack Sparrow), the Kodak Theater, the Walk of Fame and a bum fight. Apparently, there was a fight between two Batmans in front of the
Chinese Theater the week before, but we missed that. We had lunch at Johnny Rockets and then toured Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum.

On the tour of celebrity homes, we saw Bob Barker's house, Nicole
Richie's house, Jennifer Aniston's house, Tom Cruise's house, among others. We also saw where Michael Jackson died and drove along Rodeo Drive. I even saw the infamous Ivy! No actual celebrities were spotted, however. (Of course)

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