LA Reminds Me That I DO (did?) Have A Social Life!

This weekend I was reunited with (almost) all of my favorite people from UCLA. My weekend- from start to finish- will be detailed in complete grammatical-incorrectness below:

10pm airport pickups/sneakily driving through the airport to avoid the crowded parts. Sailor Jerry shots to MALAGA...and BORJA! Fake fighting over bartenders. Real punching fake boxers. Late night stumbling. Early morning car moving (oh westwood two-hour parking). BJ's lunching. Traffic-sitting. Lateness. Rosebowl tailgating/fall weather grass sitting. UCLA WINNING! House of Pi visiting. Corner bakery eating. Presidential discussions. Future-questioning... Amazingness.

The weekend was honestly too much to put in to words, but I had a wonderful time. In catching up with all my friends I only realized how much I miss them when we are not together, which made me appreciate our time together that much more. I didn't take too many pictures but I've posted a few, plus some I stole from facebook.

Boring Weekends, Visits From Friends, and Upcoming Adventures

Sadly this past weekend did not consist of any traveling, in fact I hardly left my house at all. Instead, I caught up on sleep, finished reading The Perks of Being A Wallflower (which I have mixed feelings about... though you can certainly pull some amazing quotes from it), and spent a good amount of my Sunday cleaning/organizing my room- side note I have an amazing ability to make a room dirty without even trying.

Despite my boring weekend, I did have a wonderful visit from one of my best friends from UCLA last week! Sadly, Brittany and I didn't take any pictures, but we did stuff some fun times in Fresno in to about eight hours. We started off with dinner at Dai Bai Dang, a delicious Asian restaurant only found here in Fresno. I ordered the Crispy Beef, which was actually quite spicy- pretty sure the staff had to fill my water glass at least 3 or 4 times. After a quick stop at Yogurtland, we spent some time walking around the River Park area and did a little bit of shopping. Then we headed out to a bar called Groggs (I am still discovering Fresno's "nightlife/bar scene") to hang out with some friends. Brittany was hilariously harassed by one of our friends who took it upon himself to create the "joke of the night." An episode of Man Men to finish off the night, and it was off to bed because I still had work the next day =(

I was so happy to be able to show a little bit of my home life to one of my college friends. Brittany even admitted that she doesn't know why Fresno has such a bad reputation.

This weekend I am off on another adventure... This time I am headed to the Bay Area to see my bruins take on the (number 6 ranked...) Stanford Cardinal and to be reunited with lots and lots of my UCLA people! I can't wait! We will have to see if Brehaut succeeds in bringing hope this weekend. Go Bruins!

Trip to Sactown and My Return To My Blog

I'm back, or at least I'm going to try to be... My goal is one post a week rn, we are starting small =)

This past weekend I traveled up to sacramento to hang out with my former roommate and one of my best friends, Jo Burtner. Jo and I lived together in the president’s room during fall of senior year, then moved in to good old room 6 (my room at the HOP from sophomore year) with Katie Schaller, another one of my best friends (though a newer friend than Jo) for the remaining winter and spring quarters. Anyway, Jo will be attending graduate school at UCLA for public health beginning next week, so we decided to have one last summer get together in NorCal before she moved back down south. The weekend was so much better than I could have expected! I took the train up after work on Friday and Jo picked me up from the station around midnight (way past both of our usual bedtimes these days). Despite being off our normal sleep rythems and the strong desire to sleep, our excitement over our reunion kept us up and talking for a good couple hours before we realized that we should sleep because we had an action packed weekend ahead of us.

Ikea kitchen

Saturday began with donuts and coffee, followed by a shopping trip that included my new favorite store, Ikea. Seriously, I was in heaven. I took a crapload of useless pictures on my phone of all the cool rooms that I will no doubt use to inspire the decoration of my first apartment when I am lucky enough to find a job that requires me to move. I CAN NOT WAIT TO DECORATE!

Jo going from Ikea to Narnia

 We then hit up the mall where I bought some grown up girl cardigans and a cool (completely fake) leather jacket from Forever 21. No joke I’m getting excited for cooler weather to wear my new purchases, unfortunately it is still summer in Fresno. Actually I take that back, I love summer and I’m so sad that it is starting to get dark earlier, and cool down. As much as I wanna rock my new jacket, I’m not ready for summer to go!

Jo's dog basking in the summer sun

Following our shopping adventure we went to a the Vietnamese restaurant, Pho King (yep pretty much pronounced Fu-cking) that Jo’s family goes to every Saturday. I had some bomb ass pork and rice. Seriously I don’t know how they cooked it but it was some damn good meat. At the restaurant I was the only one who was brought a menu because everyone at the place knows Jo’s fam and knows they don’t need a menu to order, awesome.

After lunch, the football marathon began. First Cal vs Colorado, then Fresno State vs Nebraska, and finally off to a local sactown sports bar, Bisla’s, to watch the UCLA/San Jose St game. After a brief argument with the jerk of a bouncer in a Giants jersey regarding turning one tvs that was playing the giants game to the UCLA game, and some confusion requiring the bar to order the channel that the ucla game was on for us… we finally got to the game a few minutes in to the first quarter and began drinking our large beers (1L?) while watching UCLA give a pretty decent performance against the opposing Spartans. A birthday party celebrating at the bar got the place hoppin, but we were too in to our game to worry about the party bus going sacramentonians (uhhh whats a person from sacramento called?). Even a visit from a very strange 30+ year old, former band member, could not kill our excitement over watching the Bruins win it.

Large New Moon please =)

Back at the Burtner residence it was a couple of episodes of ridiculousness (Rob Dyrdek is hilarious) and then off to bed. Sunday began by hitting up the awesome pumpkin bread Jo’s mom made (seriously I need the recipe, it was amazing) and more coffee, before heading off to target for another quick shopping trip. It is honestly impossible for me to go to Target and not buy something, so another cardigan, new shirt, and the movie No Strings attached met me at the checkout counter. Then it was off to watch the Sacramento Rivercats take on the Reno Aces in their final playoff game of the series. The Rivercats won it, taking the series and sending them on in the playoffs. I love me a good minor league baseball game, although this one was a bit of a slaughter, I believe the final score ended up being 12-2. 

9/11 Tribute

Lastly, we stopped in old town sacramento for a chocolate covered frozen banana for me and some kind of crazy pancake-cone ice cream Sunday for Jo. A quick ride to the train station and I had to say goodbye in order to catch my train. During the train ride home I watched the move The Graduate on Netflix on my phone (3G internet worked all the way through the valley). And around 8pm I was back home in fresno and exhausted from one of the best weekends I’ve had in quite awhile.