Eat Well; Travel Often: Day 34

Day 34: 6/20/15 (Los Angeles)

84 miles

This morning we were excited to get out and explore the lands of fame and fortune. Before we headed out for the cities, we walked down to a farmer’s market that was going on close by. We ended up leaving with a few white peaches and some California cherries. Finally, we were on the road to Beverly Hills to walk around and to see Rodeo Drive (the expensive store street). Our first stop was to find sweets. We went to Sprinkles which is a long-standing bakery, and is famed for its cupcake ATM. Yes, you can order cupcakes from the street via an electronic machine – weird, but cool. We actually went inside and purchased our triple cinnamon cupcake from a human being though (Chelsea feel free to tell Josh that Jillian ate cinnamon). Just a block down from the cupcake shop was a Gelato place and we couldn’t resist. We ordered chocolate, raspberry, and coconut and enjoyed it while sitting outside. The rest of our time in Beverly Hills was spent walking up and down Rodeo Drive. We passed all the big names in fashion – Prada, Gucci, Armani, etc. It’s kind of ridiculous to think that there are people that shop at these places regularly.

Once we had our dose of the rich life, we headed down Sunset Boulevard over to Hollywood Boulevard into downtown Hollywood. Downtown was full of tourists, but we were lucky to find some free parking down a side street. We had texted Kristen for a suggestion on good sushi and she told us of a place on Hollywood Blvd just a few blocks from where we parked. As we walked to the sushi place we were staring at the ground trying to read all of the names on the stars. We saw a lot of stars that we knew, and a lot that we didn’t. When we finally reached the sushi place, we learned that they don’t open until 5pm so we just skipped sushi and headed back towards downtown. We stopped in to at the Hard Rock Café to pick up some drum sticks and then continued to the Chinese Theater where a select few have left their mark (handprints/footprints) in the cement outside the theater. It was a really cool area and we spent a good amount of time walking around the small area. Some of our favorites were the three Harry Potter stars, Meryl Streep, Bruce Willis, and Robin Williams. We lost track of time and realized we going to be late to the baseball game so we walked back to the car to drive down to the stadium. This morning we decided to go to a baseball game and we got top deck tickets that were behind home plate.

We ended up parking about a mile away so we could head to a 100+ year-old sandwich shop known for their French dip sandwiches called Philippe’s. We ordered some drinks knowing that the beers at the stadium would be expensive and then we got a turkey sandwich and a roast beef sandwich. We ate our sandwiches on the way to the stadium because we were about 30 minutes away and pretty late at this point. We finally completed the uphill battle and found our seats in time for the bottom of the 6^th – a little later than we wanted to get to the game, but we enjoyed the time that we were there. The LA Dodgers ended up losing to the San Francisco Giants, and there weren't too many base hits after we arrived, but we still had a good evening in the ball park. After the game they were showing the Lego Movie, but we didn't stick around to watch since we had a long walk back to the car.

From there we headed a bit east to Culver City to Tito’s Tacos which was suggested by Jillian’s cousin Amanda. The line was super long, but we stuck around to try out some tacos and enchiladas and everything was delicious! The last item on our list was to drive on Mulholland Drive and try to get some good night photos of the city. Unfortunately, the best views are in a little park area that gets locked up a night. We tried to walk as close as we could, but it was a bit too obstructed to take a good photo. We were considering going along the rest of the drive, but we figured we’d only be driving farther and farther from the city and there wouldn’t be any better views so we drove back to Marina Del Rey. When we got back, Kristen and Dan were playing Donkey Kong on the Wii. We have a feeling it might become our new addiction when we get back home. We didn’t stay up much longer since the day was so exhausting.