Time Flies

Hey guys, Andi here. me, laura, is here shortly after to add my 2cents and photos.

It has been brought to my attention that it has now been over 5 months since our last blog post. I'd like to apologize for our slackness, but we've been busy living life in the USA and making the most of our (apparently now very limited) time left here. So... Sorry, I'm not really sorry.
It really seems like it was a week ago that I wrote the last entry - but at the same time SO much has happened since then!!

Since our last update we've been to multiple concerts, parties and events, sited some exciting celebs and had a lot of fun, but the thing I'm happiest about is all the new friends we've made. WE HAVE FRIENDS YOU GUYS. ** see below The kind of friends that make the thought of having to leave in a few months really unpleasant and something I like to spend as little time thinking about as possible. So you can bet your bottom dollar that when it comes to thanksgiving time (under 2 weeks away now... a full update on our plans later in the post), friends will be at the top of my list of things I'm thankful for.

                             

That being said, I'm sure you all want to hear what we've been up to so here is a quick recap (in chronological order because I'm relying on instagram photos to remind me of what we've done):




Fourth of July: Hung out with a bunch of fellow kiwis and aussies at our friend Andy's house and had a few (more than a few) drinks, before heading out to watch a big fireworks display in Downtown LA.
Below: New Zealand (and Australian) Family photo with fellow IEPers

Esther visit: Our lovely friend Esther from NZ was in LA for rehearsals before jumping on a cruise ship to dance and live the dream all around the world so we managed to catch up for a perfect day of site-seeing, coffee drinking and cuddling.

Chicago at the Hollywood Bowl: We snagged tickets to see one of our fave musicals at the Hollywood Bowl starring Ashlee Simpson, Stephen Moyer, Lucy Lawless, Drew Carey and Samantha Barks, and directed by Brooke Shields. To call it fabulous would be an understatement!

Jan & Glen visit: My parentals, suffering from Empty Nest Syndrome after having been deserted by both their children, made a trip across the Pacific to visit their favourite child (they also visited Matt in London but we all know who they had more fun seeing). We hiked to the hollywood sign, visited the famous LA beaches, did lots of shopping, went on a day trip down the coast to San Diego and the OC and ate a lot of delicious food.

Bands: We've seen some of our fave artists live in concert incl Lorde, Nancy and Beth, The 1975 & City and Colour, with more shows coming up in the next few weeks!

We took a day trip into Downtown LA to visit the Natural History Museum (the exterior is used as the Jeffersonian Institute in Bones), the Rose Garden, the beautiful USC Campus and finally dropped into Echo Park on the way home to visit our friend Andy and check out the lake.

it was insanely hot on this particular day. we also missioned to chinatown which was a huge non-event and just hilarious and hot and sweaty.

**right - Natural History Museum (obv)
**below - USC Campus - why can't Vic have an epic fountain like this one?? This place was so beautiful we both considered studying again just to be there all the time.

Matt visit: My younger brother Matt visited on his way back to NZ from London and we had an action packed few days including a trip to Disneyland/California Adventure (aka paradise) and Universal Studios, as well as all the standard must-see spots in LA.

As we farewelled one couch-dweller, we picked up another as my friend Alana came to stay on her way back to NZ after working at a summer camp in Iowa. We hung out, caught up on old times, did the hike up to the Hollywood sign and did a spot of celeb stalking. We also spent a day out in Burbank visiting Warner Brothers studios and took the studio tour. It was the greatest two hours ever. Saw the car from Great Gatsby, Pretty Little Liars being filmed, walked onto the Two and a Half Men set and saw Portia de Rossi riding a bicycle around the lot right after we stopped outside Ellen's office. 

October marked Laura's last day at SoftScript so we went out for a celebratory lunch down the road at Brus Wiffle where we very happily lost our Chicken and Waffle virginity. I don't even know how to explain the deliciousness that is chicken and waffles, and can't fathom how someone thought to combine them but take a piece of fried chicken breast, throw it on top of a waffle and then douse it in Syrup, Hot Sauce and Ranch dressing and you won't be disappointed. (Laura quit softscript in favour of not sitting in front of a computer screen doing nothing every day and is now back working for 1iota doing audience coordination for The Voice and getting paid to watch talented people be talented and perve at Adam Levine for hours on end twice a week... Not a bad decision I'd say). - aka the best decision ever. While I may not be working full time, I have the greatest job 2 days a week and get free food. 

Chicken and waffles and a gigantic table of cupcakes to celebrate the beginning of the The Voice season 5 live shows - this is the only photo we are allowed to take on set. 

October also signified the end of summer and the beginning of fall... A season we are still yet to experience as LA is still gifting us with temperatures in the high 20s/low 30s Celcius... for any Americans reading this:
a) know that celcius is superior to Farenheit in every way. Accept it and embrace it.
b) this is 70/80 F
Nevertheless, we try to embrace the fall festivities by drinking things like Pumpkin Vodka with Hot apple cider, and baking Pumpkin Spice or Gingerbread Cupcakes

At the end of October I popped back to NZ for a very flying visit to surprise Mum for her birthday/my parents 25th Wedding Anniversary. It was a hectic 4 days and I didn't get to see nearly enough people for my liking, but it was soooo good to see those that I did! Sidenote, when I was living in NZ I never understood why people go on about how 'green' it is. I mean, yeah there's trees and it's pretty but I didn't get what the big fuss was. Flying back into NZ from LA really opened my eyes to this and made me realise how much we take our country for granted. That shiz is beautiful you guys!

While Andi was visiting the motherland, I went up the coast a little and camped out on the beach in Ventura. NZ may be green, but this was incredible.

I returned to LA just in time for Halloween, which is probably a bigger deal here than Easter. Our friends Alyssa and Vinnie had a Halloween Party and we had a tonne of fun. You know how everyone says we look like sisters/twins... Well this year we played on that and went as the Grady Twins from The Shining. We were super creepy.

"Come and play with us Danny... for ever and ever and ever and ever"

oh yea, and the morning of the halloween party I ran in the Hard Rock Cafe Hollywood 5k at 6am. 

it was fun.

And now here we are, half way through November and wondering where all the time has gone. 

We have a lot to look forward to over the coming months and we're counting down the days til Thanksgiving. Alyssa and her family were kind enough to invite us to Mexico with them for a 4 day weekend and we could not be more excited!

Somehow, and I'm really not sure how, Andi forgot to mention that the day we return from Mexico we will be dropping our bags at home and racing straight out to Burbank to see The Ellen Degeneres Show...WE HAVE TICKETS! My life will be complete.

Another perk about my part time job is I have plenty of time to spend with family! Emma had a new baby boy on Monday and he is the cutest little button. - Add one more pro to the LA list. 

I will try my best to get back on here more regularly and keep you guys in the loop with all of our adventures, but don't hold it against me if life gets in the way!

xx

peace kids. speak to you again soon.

6 months

Woah! Can you believe we have been away for 6 months!! while it seems like just yesterday that we were struggling to fit everything into our bulging suitcases, we have done so much in the last 6 months that it seems like so so long ago since we were in NZ!

Just in case you were wondering, we are still alive. Just. I say this with $1.26 in my bank account, minimal food in the cupboard, a few stray beers in the fridge and a box of instant pancakes on the shelf.

Here in America, the land of the free, and supposedly the greatest nation on earth (highly debatable) you get paid by check. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!? Coming from the country who first implemented EFTPOS systems, this is a big deal - and something that we are finding one of the strangest customs to adjust to. At home, things would sometimes get a little grim coming close to payday, but over here, payday isn’t actually payday – for a number of reasons. 1) it’s a Christmas miracle if the necessary information gets to paychex by deadline in order for us to receive our checks in reasonable time. 2) Once the checks arrive, the get passed around the office like a special edition of pass the parcel a la you’re 7^th birthday party. And this is before I even get to see one. It’s more like a 5 year olds birthday where the first few rounds are random and the music stops on a few lucky ones, then as the game continues the music ‘randomly’ stops on everyone in the circle. And if it’s you’re party, it stops on you last because you have already eaten your fair share of sugar and opened a plethora of gifts. 3) Once you finally get that exciting envelope in your hand (and like pass the parcel you unwrap it and it’s really a lot less exciting than what you were expecting – every. Time.) You have to deposit it! Now, depending on which bank you are with, the amount of time before you actually see the available funds is variable. Bank of America have this nifty little function on their app (which I find ironic seen as they can’t seem to fathom the practice of automatic payments) where you can photograph the front and back of your check and it will deposit it for you instantly. Aka Overnight.

So yea, theres that.

This update comes after a long time forgetting about the blog – to you all at home (or wherever) we are on this amazing travel adventure, but to us the travel has ceased, and we are fully immersed in the life of somewhat fabulous LA.

You’ve heard about the abode – briefly. Not a lot more to expand on here, its starting to look a bit more ‘us’ with photos from home and our travels making their way to the walls of the living room. A few issues with bathrooms and the kitchen sinks; and a forgotten key on a rather hungover Sunday, and it’s just like flatting in Wellington really. Maintenance fixed the plumbing issues (sort of) and an overly nosey neighbor helped us break in when with a ladder and an open window – thankfully we are on the first floor. The bills are crazy different however, our gas bill for a month totaling at a whopping $7! And water and power for 50 days coming to a total of $15 ish each. Bargain!

Still no car, but have managed to decrease the amount of time we spend on public transport by making friends with people who have vehicles.

Jobs. Success! Kind of. I found happiness at a part time job doing audience work for studio shows, but like a promo company with a huge book, they couldn’t guarantee me the hours that I needed. Andi managed to land an interview with a company in Santa Monica (who we shall call 280 for the purpose of this blog). She scored the position of Receptionist/ HR assistant at 280 within five minutes of the interview, coz the CEO is a bit of a nutter. He loved the kiwi accent and when he learnt that she was here with a friend on their OE together, he told her to bring her friend in for an interview the very next day – if she had the same accent.

WINNING!

I rocked up for the interview with no idea what to expect, other than a little bit of craziness. The CEO joined in the interview (for the second time in his career) and started asking me what I was doing there because my resume advertised my interest in Media, not the industry that 280 is involved in. I looked at him point blank and told him I was there because I was asked to come in, and that I really just needed a job to pay rent.

And that it does.

I walked out with a job in a position that was going to be created for me – an office floater – Administrative Assistant, technically.

So we now have this job that pays us the bare minimal – CEO is very clever; but in the same verse, we do very little. Aka nothing. Andi answers the phones when they ring  occasionally, and has documents open to appear busy when anyone walks passed, while I have been put out of sight, out of mind, in a cubicle on the other side of the office with the HR team and tech support where I spend my hours googling, reading and listening to music, with the odd document minimized to pop up when someone of importance walks by.

So that’s good. Boring, but pays rent.

We have made a few friends, which is also good! Last weekend we partied at LeAnn Rimes’ old house in the Hidden Hills. How Hollywood of us.

We went to a Dodgers game over Memorial Weekend which was fun times!

And we finally made it to the LACMA museum and the La Brea Tar Pits.

June Gloom is in full effect, with temperatures being a lot cooler than what we experienced in May, and clouds not dissipating until around 2pm.Suits us fine however as we’re dreading the desert heat that will attack us come proper summertime.

With the multitude of concerts and events coming up and our already low income, we try to not live incredibly lavish LA lives so that hopefully one day we could possibly afford to go out somewhere cool!!

Apologies for the lack of blogginess, we will try to be more proactive now that we spend 8 hours of the day in front of computers doing very little!

Peace.

New Dwellings

This entry comes to you from the comfort of our (slightly uncomfortable) futon couch in our very own lounge! We have officially moved into our new digs, 2 bedroom 2 bathroom OUR VERY OWN BEDS apartment.

Its pretty neat, very good location and cheap rent - which is good, because we are still unemployed.

Currently it is looking a little barren, as we don't have a lot of furniture. We inherited a hideous dining table from the previous tenants and a sub-average coffee table which we have turned into a side board (looks much better than in the middle of the room as a coffee table) and have a couch. thats it.

SO. Photos will not be posted until it is sufficiently cute-a-fied.

But in the mean time, here is a snap of our kitchen, complete with the prettiest kettle you will ever see in your life; and a shot of our bedrooms - but be warned, they are rather empty.

Andi's Room

Laura's Room

One of our neighbours is learning to play the electric guitar and so we have free music to listen to this afternoon. He's not too bad really.

Big News!

finishing off the mammoth update session with exciting news!! we may still be unemployed, but we have an apartment!! Moving in at the end of the month, we can post a link to a calendar so you can all start booking time on our couch. aka COME VISIT!! :)

Excursion 4: Long Beach

Andi had a job interview, Emma had a meeting; we had a car, a 2 year old, and Laura's dad telling us all about the Queen Mary down at long beach. So off we went on a wee mini road trip with Casper!

Excursion 3: Venice Beach

WE FOUND FRIENDS! Bec and Blake were on our contiki bus and have been in LA for a few weeks. They rented a sick as Mustang and we went for an adventure with the top down and the wind in our hair. literally. we had to tie it up in the end.

While there we went to a freakshow, cause when in Venice...

we had mahi mahi tacos at James' Beach for lunch - straight outta "I love you man" expensive. but AMAZING yumyum.

street performers were everywhere!

and abs on show at muscle beach!

We did a quick google search and found Hank Moody's loft from Californication!!!

And found the spot on the Venice Boardwalk where the Sexy & I Know it video clip was filmed

Heaps of really cute little homes along the Venice Canals

RYDELL HIGH!!! (aka Venice Beach High School)

then we had Pinks for dinner. quite the LA legend. biggest (and tastiest) hotdogs ever. it was very hard choosing one tho, the menu was huge!!