My first visit to Los Angeles, California!

Thursday, November 5, 2015


I’m back! I had the most amazing time on my recent vacation and first ever trip to California!

I’ve been wanting to visit California ( Los Angeles specifically) for years now and I finally made my way there. Back in the summer, I noticed that Virgin America was having a flight sale and my friend Shelby and I were able to book our round trip flights for only $200! Here are a few highlights from my trip:

Saturday: We landed at LAX Halloween night and immediately headed to our AirBNB ( which was another first for us ) in Hollywood, so that we could hurry and get ready for a party in Downtown LA! The party was thrown by Diddy’s sons, Quincy and Justin Combs, with a celebrity performance by Travis Scott. We met some pretty cool/interesting people while waiting in line and while inside the party! We actually had SO much fun that I barely took any photos of my costume. ( I was a cave woman and Shelby was a lion! ) I’ll just have to look back at my saved Snapchat story to reminisce!


Sunday: The next day was dedicated to being tourists and seeing some popular landmarks. We spotted the Hollywood sign on the way to brunch at Kitchen 24 and after we were done eating, checked out the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It wasn’t as spectacular as I imagined but it was still cool to be able to check it off the list! We then checked out the stores on Melrose, Rodeo Drive and at The Grove. Of course there was a lot more window shopping going on than actual shopping ( I don't have Prada and Fendi money YET ) but we did enjoy a couple of the boutiques on Melrose! I was also super excited to stop at Wasteland (one of Kylie Jenner’s faves) and we were amazed by all of the awesome clothes people actually gave away and of course the huge wall of shoes. We met up with another friend who was visiting and ended the night with some margaritas and Pink Taco!


Monday: Monday was probably my favorite day of the trip! We started it off bright and early, waking up at 5:45 am...because we had priority tickets to be in the audience of The Real Daytime! The Real is definitely my favorite talk show and it was really cool to walk through Warner Bros Studios as well! I got so many texts and messages the next day from people who spotted me and my friends on TV hitting the quan in the audience..even though we looked more like a church choir! Check out the clip HERE :) After The Real filming, we had lunch at Jack in the Box and dessert at MILK..the red velvet macaroon ice cream sandwich was delicious! It was then time to do some serious shopping…and what better place to do this as a thrifty girl than the Fashion District and Santee Alley? I got some awesome sunglasses for $5 each, clothes, makeup, shoes…I nearly lost my mind. After that we checked out the American Apparel Flea Market, which was HUGE….mind blown there as well! I actually got my long coveted Easy Jeans for only $20 (originally $78)! After a long day of shopping I finally got to try In N’ Out. I’m not a big burger person, so I tried the grilled cheese and animal style fries..honestly I wasn't super impressed. We then ended the night hanging out at a fellow Hampton alumni's apartment!


Tuesday: On our last full day in LA, we got up pretty early once again and headed to our nail appointment at Nail Dega in Inglewood! I’ve been following the creator of the brand/nail artist on Instagram for a while, so I was excited to finally meet her in person and have some of her awesome designs on my nails. They turned out great! After getting our nails done, we headed to Venice Beach and had great plans to bike ride on the board walk. Unfortunately, those plans got interrupted by some seriously windy weather followed by pouring rain! Ehhh. After having some more margaritas and Mexican food, we headed back to our AirBNB for a nap before ending the trip with a bang with…tattoos!

I had such an amazing time in LA! It’s definitely a place that I’d love to one day visit regularly. Our AirBNB experience was a breeze, not only was our host a super hospitable guy, but the location was perfect. We ended up spending a lot of money on Ubers but we were able to get a couple rides from friends here and there as well. Vacations always seem to go by way too fast and we had so much that we wanted to do in what felt like so little time. I’m just so happy that I’ve finally experienced LA and I'm already looking forward to my next visit! 

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