From March 17 through March 24, one of my best friends from back home came to visit. I've known Erica since high school, and we became very close during senior year. After graduation, she went off to Temple while I went to Penn State. Even though we went to separate colleges, we have remained close and always try to see each other when one of us is in Allentown. We decided back in December (when I was home for 2 weeks, and spent a good deal of time with her) that she absolutely MUST come visit me out here. At the end of February, I started looking up tickets and we found an excellent trip deal so she snatched it up. Erica had never been to the west coast before, so I planned tons of things for us to do and places to visit. I was off for the entire week because of my school's spring break.
I picked Erica up on Monday at LAX around dinnertime. I took her over to Santa Monica to see the beach and also to stay away from the rush hour of LA. Santa Monica was the first west coast beach I had ever visited as well.
On Tuesday, we hung around Bakersfield and I took Erica to my favorite park, which I've talked about on this blog before. It was beautiful out and we had a nice time just walking around and talking.
Wednesday, we drove down to Anaheim and spent the day in Disneyland. We had SO much fun!! We even bought ears!
If you buy a hat, you can take it to the "Mad Hatter" where they will sew your name on...FREE!
Towards the end of the day, we began looking for a ride called Space Mountain. It's an indoor coaster that's mostly dark except for little lights all around, giving the illusion you're flying through space. We asked an employee where to find it and he looks at us with a smile and says, "How would you like it if I took you ladies to the front of that line?" We looked confused and he continued, "Have you heard of Disney's new promotion 'Year of a Million Dreams'?" He went on to tell us that he was a "dream maker" and all day long, his job was to grant wishes - whether it was getting a thirsty mouth a bottle of water, a new shirt for someone who ruined their own, or a replacement popcorn for one that had spilled. I asked him what we had to do in return and he responded, "How about a hug?" I jumped on him before he could manage to say "Just kidding!!" and he led us to the front of the line saving us over an hour wait. It was a great end to our day!
We stayed the night in Anaheim, and drove over to Huntington Beach the following morning. Huntington is known as "Surf City" and we had a relaxing time watching the surfers and walking around the pier, boardwalk, and beach.
After the traditional dances, Cristina had an outfit change and performed a dance for the party with her friends. After those formalities, everyone else was allowed to dance. Lindsey and I aren't big on salsa dancing, so we observed the scene and played with some of Cristina's cousins. I even saw another one of my students there, who demanded we get a photo together. haha.
On Tuesday, we hung around Bakersfield and I took Erica to my favorite park, which I've talked about on this blog before. It was beautiful out and we had a nice time just walking around and talking.
Towards the end of the day, we began looking for a ride called Space Mountain. It's an indoor coaster that's mostly dark except for little lights all around, giving the illusion you're flying through space. We asked an employee where to find it and he looks at us with a smile and says, "How would you like it if I took you ladies to the front of that line?" We looked confused and he continued, "Have you heard of Disney's new promotion 'Year of a Million Dreams'?" He went on to tell us that he was a "dream maker" and all day long, his job was to grant wishes - whether it was getting a thirsty mouth a bottle of water, a new shirt for someone who ruined their own, or a replacement popcorn for one that had spilled. I asked him what we had to do in return and he responded, "How about a hug?" I jumped on him before he could manage to say "Just kidding!!" and he led us to the front of the line saving us over an hour wait. It was a great end to our day!
We stayed the night in Anaheim, and drove over to Huntington Beach the following morning. Huntington is known as "Surf City" and we had a relaxing time watching the surfers and walking around the pier, boardwalk, and beach.
In the afternoon, we began our drive back to Bakersfield and stopped in Hollywood to see the typical touristy things.
The following day, Friday, we drove east to Las Vegas. Erica was blown away by all the windmills (get the pun??).
We stayed for a couple days with my friend Colin who works for The Flamingo (one of the big hotels on the strip) and the day after we got back, I had to finally say goodbye to Erica. It was awesome for her to stay for so long and it was really the charge I needed to get me through the last couple months of school!