Los Angeles: Six weeks here we come!

Alright, so, after San Fran, I'm off to L.A.  Okay, so I'm here now. =)  I'm here for 6 weeks total, so the whole holiday season.  We're not outta here until mid January.  I'm staying at the Omni hotel in downtown L.A. b/c we are performing at the Ahmanson Theater downtown.  The hotel is lovely, and I have a nice room with lovely views of L.A.  I love looking out my window at night and seeing all the lights.  On a clear -ish day I can see the mountains. 

Hotel room view in the evening

The Hollywood Sign!

So it's the end of the first week.  First weeks in a city are always busy because you have to load the show in and train all the local crew so they can do the show.  We had lots of our "creative team" in town, as in Directors/Designers/Producers etc., so it was a pretty busy week here in L.A.
   We had a lovely opening night party at a place called Kendalls Brasserie on Grand Street.  It was a nice time to eat some hor d'oeuvres and have a few drinks.  Other nights several of us went down to the lovely hotel bar in the Omni that serves a late night menu till 1 o'clock, which is fabulous for us theater people.
   I walked around Hollywood Blvd. looking at all the starts on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  We also passed by the famous, now called the TCL Chinese Theater.  Lots of shops and dining.  I plan to head back to my favorite hot dog joint, Skooby's during my time here.  Anyways, we were on are way the a breakfast/lunch place called, The Griddle, on sunset Blvd.  AMAZING pancakes.  They are huge!  Plus they serve their coffee in a French Press which is always fun.  I had the Barry Yellow, which is raspberries and lemon in the pancake.  They were delicious!  The Griddle Menu can be found here with information about the place.  If you come to L.A., you can't miss this place.  I plan to go back several times!

TCL Chinese Theater

Best Pancakes Ever!

I also managed to get a little Christmas tree for my hotel room.  I spent a time drinking cider, listening to Christmas carols as I decorated my little tree.  It definitely put me in the mood for the holidays. =)

My tree all lit up!

During my first week here I also hit Universal Studios Hollywood .  I had never to been to a Universal Studios.  I am a big Disney person, so if I have to choose, I choose Disney everytime.  This time, my friend, Train, and I went for the day.  It was a lot of fun.  It's rather small, and it very easy to get in everything you want to do.  We rode all the rides and saw all the shows.  Everyone had recommended WaterWorld the show, mostly for the spectacle.  It was a lot fun.  I enjoyed the Mummy Ride, transformers and the Simpsons Ride.  Shrek 4D was a lot of fun too.  Oh yeah, and you have to take the backlot tour.  It's about a 50 minute tram ride where they take you through their working tv/movie studios.  You get to see a lot of sets and props from various movies/TV including some of the stuff from JAWS!  Yay!
  After the day at the Studios we walked around City Walk for some shopping, and we almost got food, but I was still fool from the park snacks we had earlier.  I enjoyed visiting during the holidays because everything in the park and CityWalk were decorated for the season.

Giant Christmas Tree!

Oh you know, no better way to celebrate the

holidays then with these guys!

Waterworld Set

Other highlights of the week include going to the Redwood Bar & Grill on 2nd Avenue.  It's a pirate themed bar.  My kinda place!  A lot of our company went their on Sunday night.  There was a cover, I'm sure there always is at night since they have live bands at the back of the bar.  It was 5 bucks.  Service was a bit slow in the beginning, but she was little swamped.  Eventually all was well.  The bar looks like the deck of a ship with lots of nautical themed accessories all about.  It was a cool dive bar with descent prices for food and drink.

I'm enjoying my time here so far!