Hey guys!

How are you doing today? I am going to be spending the Easter break traveling and that reminded me how lousy I've been with my USA Series. It has been over a year and it completely slipped my mind. But guess what? The USA series is back, peeps! Hope you had fun reading all about my Vegas adventure. Here's a link to refresh your memory - Viva Las Vegas. Anyway, in continuation with the Vegas post, here I am with what we did at the next destination. I hopped on a plane to LAX with a dream and a cardigan. Hahaha! I am quoting Miley Cyrus if you didn't realize. But my point is, after missing our flight from Vegas to LA (errrrmm, Vegas tends to do that to you!), we were super lucky to get seats in the one twenty minutes later. We reached LA at 6 ish in the evening and took a cab to Long Beach where we booked an Airbnb. It was pretty late by the time we got home, but we wanted to walk around the neighborhood and realized that it was a Spanish-Christian dominated area. We ate some random junk food and went to bed because we had massive plans for the following day!

Well, when in LA, you just HAVE TO go to Hollywood! As a kid, Disneyland and Hollywood always seemed like a distant dream, so distant that I thought it would require me to make millions of bucks to be able to afford a plane ticket to the US and never in my entire life did I imagine that I'd end up in Hollywood in my 20s! While Disneyland would probably have to wait, Universal Studios has been ticked off my bucket list. My colleague and I woke up super early, took the metro from Long Beach and got there at 11 ish in the morning. We purchased the tickets online and I think it costs around 100-120 USD if my memory serves me correctly. We are both major movie buffs and this whole experience was extra magical for us! As we entered the theme park, the Universal Studios theme song started playing and boy, we literally had goosebumps! From getting photographed with Gru and his minions, Spongebob SquarePants and the Simpsons, enjoying every damn amusement ride the park had to offer and ending the day with a stunt show, there was absolutely no part we did not enjoy!


 
 Now I'm not an amusement park person. I can't even manage to sit on a Giant Wheel without feeling sick. But over here every ride is based on a movie or some famous TV series and because they're all 4D, they're super fun. They are not like one of those mundane, pointless Tora Tora or Columbus rides we have here in our Indian melas. It is visually quite appealing and engaging and since it's theme based, that makes it even more interesting. I would love to talk about each of the rides in detail, but it's definitely something you need to experience on your own.


However, I highly recommend this ride called Harry Potter and the Forbidden Forest. If you're a Potterhead like I am, then you can't skip this. It is basically a 4D ride where get the feeling of flying on a broom, playing Quidditch and getting smacked by the Whomping Willow. Another ride worth the thrill was the Mummy ride which is kind of a roller coaster that could even go backwards. I also loved the 4D effects in the Simpsons ride where you feel like you're being tossed around, thrown off here and there and spat at. Just before the theme park closed, we also attended this kickass stunt show with real stuntmen from famous movies. It was like watching an action movie in real life! Overall, it was a phenomenal world with so many cool things to do.



Hunger pangs set in and we ended up eating some Biryani in Hollywood! We then walked along the Walk Of Fame, chilled a bit in Hollywood and returned to Long Beach later at night. I must have lost at least 5 pounds that day considering the amount of walking we did and the lack of food. But it was totally worth it! I mean, come on, I visited Hollywood! 

The following day we decided to just explore Long Beach. We went to the beach, dipped our feet in ice cold water and watched the seagulls fly around gloriously. We were meant to take a bus to our next destination the same night and so we had some time to kill, so we decided to check out LA Live, which is basically as entertainment complex, but since we went there super late, we just saw a bunch of restaurants and some buildings lit up. We later boarded our bus and had to bid adieu to the city of dreams.

Sadly it was a super short trip made exclusively for Universal Studios and that definitely was the highlight of my entire US trip. It has been over a year, but my memory of the entire experience is still as fresh as ever.

Love,
Hand On The Hip