MARDI GRAS!!!

Happy Mardi Gras everybody, I am currently in LA visiting Carly for the break and figured since I have nothing to do from 8 am to 7 pm I might as well post some of the stuff we have done so far. I got here on Thursday and ended taking up a Shuttle Bus from the airport to the apartment. Yourprobably thinking how is this relevant and let me fill you in, not only was it a 9 person van but it was also filled with all different kind of foreigners, well as I told them driver what address I was going too, 3 of the Russian girls and 2 Chinese people started laughing hysterically, I didnt think anything of it and just kept telling the driver where I needed to go. As I sat back down I kept noticing they were still laughing and staring at me, well the guy next to me filled me in that they were laughing at my accent and for the rest of the ride I felt like I was at a zoo. Back to the weekend. Friday: Carly got off work around 6 and myself, Carly and Brooke all took a walk to Larchmont to go get pizza. (This is the famous walk where Carly saw the "wolf") Luckily no wolves showed up and we had a great Pesto pizza and an Artie Lange cupcake from Crumbs. (Right) The cupcake has a chocolate hard topping, next layer is marsh mellow, then a yellow cake on the bottom. Probably my favorite cupcake at Crumbs. We walked back home and got ready for Saturday. Of course Carly woke up at 7, so naturally that meant I had to get up, well she went to kickboxing and I stayed back and watched Shaun of the Dead. If you guys have never seen this movie it is hysterical, its a comedy/horror movie and one of my favorites. Anyways Carly got back a few hours later and we once again met up with Brooke to go down to Hermosa Beach. Once we got down there we ate at Martha's which is a brunch place right on the water.

I got the cakes and eggs and it was really good. From Marthas we just walked out onto the beach and picked a great spot to begin getting our base tan. The weather was great, 72 without a cloud in the sky!! But also there was a family of dolphins right in front of us who were riding the waves and jumping out of the water, I had never seen a dolphin so close so that was pretty cool.

Here are a few pictures from the day, where the waves are breaking is where the dolphins were playing. Also our friend here on the right stayed by the mouse all day.

After working up a pretty sweet base tan we packed up and did the most natural thing to do after a day at the beach, go eat cake of course!!

We went out to Susie Cakes and did some serious damage. The cake lasted all of 5 minutes and before we knew what to do with ourselves we decided to go to Chin Chin and eat dinner (In case you havent noticed the main theme of the weekend was eating). At the restaurant we had enough food for a small country and I wish I would of

taken a picture of it but I was too busy shoving my face, I did however get a good picture of the view we had from out seats. After a great meal we went home and got ready for Sunday.

We planned on going back to the beach on Sunday but the weather was less then cooperative so we started the day by walking to the store to get panini stuff, after eating a good sandwich we then decided to hike Runyon canyon. I had some of the best pictures I have ever taken from the hike but for some reason I accidentally deleted them, I did however manage to save a few and while not the best, Carly and I are gonna hike it again and I will take a ton more.

This is where we started the hike, you can see the top of the canyon .

Here is one of the views from the top of the canyon, unfortunately I only had my phone to take the picture but you can see where the Hollywood sign is. The other views show the city side of LA, I will make sure to take a few so you can see what I am talking about.

From the hike we met Erin Berlin at BJ's for dinner and ultimately the best thing ever created a Pizookie!!!

That was the week so far, on Friday Carly and I will be going to Universal Studios, I will take plenty of pictures and of course I will take pictures of every place we eat at.

I wish I had more pictures from the week before but the Berlins/Schenckers/Elbergers came down to New Orleans to see me and we had a great time. Here are a few that I remembered to send to myself.

These are the BBQ shrimp at Pascale Manales. There are no words to describe how good these are.

Aftermath of the BBQ Shrimp.

I don't make many recommendations on beer but if you haven't tried the Abita Strawberry Harvest do your self a favor and pick it up at the store. This is also the next beer I will be brewing when I get back to New Orleans.