Headed out about 2:30, got to L.A. at 7:30 (gaining an hour with the time zone change) and took another 1:15 or so to get to Santa Monica. Those L.A. traffic jokes are neither funny nor untrue; place is a mess. Elaine (Beck's senior year roomie from Rice, btw) and Jamie (Elaine's fiancee who, though we didn't know him then, was a classmate of ours at Rice who lived at Jones) live in a SCHWANK apartment right off the beach in Santa Monica, not even half a mile from the Santa Monica Pier and what on Saturday would become the Lei Out Beach Ultimate Tournament "fields." Seriously; here's the view from their balcony:
Not bad, not bad at all. We hung out with them for a bit Friday night but fairly early collapsed onto their inflatable mattress for the night. Woke up early and hit up a nice coffee place called Urth. Beck had bubble tea and bread pudding, and I had a chocolate croissant before I walking down the beach to play some Ultimate. Beck put in a couple of spectating appearances but understandably did not spend her entire first trip to LA watching bad beach Ultimate (more on that in another post). She toured Malibu on Saturday, nabbed a tasty fish lunch and then indulged on what has to be the crack of the yogurt world at a place called Pinkberry. Frozen plain yogurt with fresh fruit toppings has apparently conquered Los Angeles, and Beck was quick to fall victim to its hipness. Seriously. You have no idea. Beck couldn't stop talking about the yogurt for the next 72 hours. I'm pretty sure I saw her exhibiting withdrawal symptoms later, too. And kiwi-laced track marks. Here's the monstrosity of a yogurt / toppings combo in which Beck indulged (I'm not sure whether this is actually from Pinkberry or from another yogurt place which, as you have undoubtedly correctly deduced, means that Beck got her yogurt-fix TWICE this weekend):
Mmmmmgoodness. In non-yogurt related foody-goodness, Jamie, Elaine, Beck and I went to a Farmer's Market on Sunday morning and got delicious California-Mex food. The others got wraps of various kinds, and I got a 3 pound - no kidding - burrito with beans, eggs, rice and cheese. So good! And everything about the meal was biodegradable, up to and including the forks. This ALMOST made up for the slave ponies whose sad walking around a pole with infants on their backs seemed to provide the electricity for the entire thing.
Beck also hit up the Getty (on Sunday, I believe) and got some nice views of not just art, but also LA AND all of its many colleges:
After frisbee on Sunday, beck and I walked back up the beach to E/J's place and saw the legendary "Muscle Beach" which features all kinds of crazy jugglers, acrobats and buffed up dudes. We didn't see the following in particular, but it gives you an idea of the kinds of things people were doing:
We were also treated to quite the sunset:
That night, Elaine, beck and I (Jamie had sadly left for business because of an allegedly "racist boss") (i.e., he didn't get MLKJr. Day off) went to Barney's, a gourmet burger place, and afterwards hit up sushi for dessert. Wow. How we managed to avoid going to Pinkberry again is decidedly beyond me. (We almost ended up diverting our route Monday to hit a store on the way out of town. WOW. Someone has stumbled upon something there).
A great, great time in LA with our refound friends. Thanks to E/J, we will soon be getting a Roomba, getting electric squid plugs, opening a frozen plain yogurt Pinkberry knock-off chain in Phoenix and possibly going to Vegas to watch March Madness for Jamie's bachelor party. Crazy. Big thanks to them for hosting us! And now, on to the Ultimate related content...
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