From the 17 – 24th I had a friend visiting from out of town. So basically we spent the week playing tourist in LA.<\/p>\n
After picking my friend up at the airport, we headed straight to the beach (Manhattan Beach). Spent a little time there and then headed back to my neighborhood. My friend was craving mexican food, so we walked over to the taqueria that is near my house. After that we just kind of chilled out for the rest of the evening.<\/p>\n
The next day we did some more exploring around the neighborhood. We walked down Melrose, to about halfway between Fairfax and La Cienega. The plan was to check out some of the stores (even though neither of us had money to spend). However, we left a little early in the morning, and a majority of the stores weren’t open. In the end, we got some coffee and did about 7 miles of urban hiking getting there and back. Needless to say, after that much walking in pretty warm sun, we didn’t do much else the rest of the day.<\/p>\n
Thursday, we got day passes for the Metro and did some exploring public transit style. We had an early lunch in Little Ethiopia, went to the La Brea tar pits, and in the evening went a saw a sneak preview of the movie Finding Amanda in Beverly Hills.<\/p>\n
Friday, we got up early and headed downtown to check out the LA Flower District<\/a>. They claim its the largest flower market in the world. It’s basically 2 big warehouses full of venders selling flowers (and other accessories). It’s mainly geared towards the wholesale market, but they have public hours each day as well (though some of the vendors shut down by then). After that we went up to Griffith Park and walked around the Observatory for a bit. I’m pretty sure we went to the beach at some point as well.<\/p>\n Saturday, my friend wanted to visit another friend in San Diego. So we headed down south to do that. I dropped my friend off at her friends and headed over to one of my friends place to hang out with her and her husband. They decided to take me to Coranado Beach to check out that area. We first went to Mr. P’s Irish Pub for lunch. Mr. P’s is a big Navy hangout (my friend’s husband is in the Navy. I had a pretty good corned beef sandwhich. Then we walked over to the beach and hung out there for a few hours. My friends husband and I spent a significant amount of time body surfing. It was pretty much a great time (and I managed not to get sunburned). Later I met back up with my visiting friend and her friend for some dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. After dinner, we started our journey back to Los Angeles. But on the way, stopped at Stone Brewing Co.<\/a> in Escondido. We got two beers to split between the two of us, a 2006 Double Bastard and a Cali-Belgique IPA. Both were good, the cali-belgique was a really interesting hybrid beer.<\/p>\n Sunday, we went to church and then to the beach all afternoon. I think we got there a little before noon and didn’t leave until after 6pm. It was great (and again…no sunburn).<\/p>\n Monday we got up late, had some breakfast and had a somewhat lazy day. We went and saw the new Incredible Hulk movie at the Arclight.<\/p>\n Tuesday, we went to Doughboy’s for breakfast and then it was time to drop my friend back off at the airport.<\/p>\n It was a great week…and fun being a tourist in my own town.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the 17 – 24th I had a friend visiting from out of town. So basically we spent the week playing tourist in LA. After picking my friend up at the airport, we headed straight to the beach (Manhattan Beach). Spent a little time there and then headed back to my neighborhood. My friend was … <\/p>\n