Walking in LA

I try to fly my mom out to visit wherever I live at least once a year, usually the month of my birthday. This year was no exception. Since I had unfortunately already planned my vacation for the rest of the year, I made sure to make the long weekend worth our time! I already told you about our trip to Sequoia National Forest - again, can we say amazing? But what I didn't tell you about yet were our trips to Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.

My brother lives here, but (like me) he has a difficult time finding time off. Luckily, we all were able to find one day off together so that we could show my mom some of our favorite things to do in LA. We had originally planned a pretty full day, but factoring in traffic and our own exhaustion, we opted for an abbreviated tour. My mom loves Hollywood, so I thought it was only fitting to give her a bit of Hollywood flavor in our day in LA.

A lot of people complain about Los Angeles, but I actually love it. There is just so much to do! First, we hit up downtown to show mom Angel's Flight and the area where we stumbled upon the Batman (Dark Knight Rises) set. We also took a tour through the FIDM Museum. FIDM became famous when Lauren Conrad attended there on The Hills, but it has actually been around since 1969. FIDM's main campus is surrounded by beautiful Grand Hope Park on the southwest corner of Grand and 9th. The museum is open to the public, hosting terrific free exhibits dedicated to the art and history of fashion. The exhibit during our visit was the 6th Annual Art of Television Costume Design. It featured costumery from shows like Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, Pan Am, Once Upon A Time, and many more. Sadly, you are not permitted to take pictures so we took one outside instead :)

After we exhausted downtown, we headed west towards Beverly Hills to show my mom the Television Out of the Box exhibit at the Paley Center. I posted a little bit about this in a blog earlier this year (see here), but it was totally worth a second visit. The Television Out of the Box exhibit includes props, costumes, and video from many of Warner Brothers' most popular television shows including Friends, Seinfield, Gossip Girl, Fringe, True Blood, Big Bang Theory, Wonder Woman, and many, many more. It's only $10, parking is free in the garage across the street (up to 2 hrs), and your ticket gets you BOGO cupcakes at Crumb around the corner. I mean, how can you afford not to go?

I am such a cheesball...

Mom and brother dining at Monk's (from Seinfield)

We're not friends, but we play them on TV (well, props from TV)

No trip to Beverly Hills is complete without a trip to the Cupcake ATM!

Our last stop on our mini tour d' Los Angeles was my new favorite viewpoint - the Blair Drive view of Universal Studios in Studio City. Fellow blogger Lindsay introduced me to this secret this summer, and it's now on my "must show" list for when I have visitors from out of state. From Blair Drive, you can actually see the War of the Worlds set, along with peeks at the Grinch set, the Psycho set, and Falls Lake. It is so cool!

Not the greatest pic of me, but you get the idea...

Really cool - smoke even rises when the tram passes by!

As the sun started to set, we meandered through Burbank back home, stopping at Porto's on the way. Porto's is an A-MAZING bakery located in the heart of Burbank. They have a huge assortment of treats and breads to fit any carb-loving heart's desire. It's very affordable too - we came home with cupcakes, fresh bread, and a couple of croissants for less than $10. All in all, it was a fantastic day in LA. Even my brother couldn't complain! Ha! I'll be posting about our day in Santa Barbara eventually, so stay tuned.

Until next time...

--- Becks