The husband and I just got back from Los Angeles. We drove over Thursday morning and drove home last night (and maybe we got home at 3 am...and maybe we slept until noon!).
Now, before you start thinking "Man, the Grier's are so much cooler than I could ever hope to be," our trip to L.A. was not a leisurely vacation...it was business.
This weekend we attended a Law Forum, which is this: over 100 different law schools show up, set up their little tables and put out all sorts of attractive looking flyers, and wait for hopeful pre-law students to show up and chit-chat about GPA's, LSAT scores, and all sorts of other law school things.
The Forum wasn't until Saturday, so you are probably wondering "Why did the Grier's need to go to L.A. on Thursday if the Forum isn't until Saturday?" That's a good question and I will give you a good answer: because we wanted to.
Thursday and Friday were busy days, full of pre-Forum prep.
Thursday night we met the husband's law school guru. That's right, a guru. This lady personally knows every single dean of admission from every single law school. This lady knows the application requirements for each school and when the deadlines are. This lady knows what numbers get accepted to each school and what numbers get laughed at by each school. Like I said, a guru.
We went with the guru and another law school hopeful (who was an Egyptian! How cool is that!) toBuca di Beppo. The husband and I love Buca, but it has been so long since we have been there...mainly because we ate their quite a bit while we dated so once we got married we were kinda burned out on the Buca. But it was still as delish as I remember.
Friday we ate Ethiopian food. I know, Ethiopian food doesn't sound awesome...that's because it isn't. What's that, you've never had Ethiopian food? Let me try to describe it for you: take a sourdough crepe (and by sour, I mean past the point of being rancid), plop some goop that looks like baby food on it, take a big bite, try not to gag. Yeah, not a fan of Ethiopian food.
After the Ethiopian food, we headed to Venice Beach. Who's we? Well, "we" has now become a fabulously random group of law school hopefuls. There is, of course, the husband and I, Dominic (who is half Jamaican, half Japanese), Jose (who thinks Salt Lake is a podunk town), JeanPaul(who is part French, part something else that is really cool but I can't remember...and wants so badly to go to Notre Dame), and Bobby (who is Jamaican/British/the most proper person EVER...like, so proper that he stands up when a girl leaves the table!)
So the group heads to Venice Beach where we have 1 hour to check out the beach and the strip of shops selling crazy stuff. First up...the beach. Bobby informs everyone that this is his first time seeing the Pacific Ocean (what!?) so we roll up our pants, take off our shoes, and put our toesies in the ocean (brrr!). Bobby then challenges Jose to a race down the beach. Who would you put your money on? The Jamaican or the soccer player (did I tell you that Jose played soccer through college? Well, he did). Most of us picked Jose to win, mainly because Bobby's English accent makes him seem much too proper. Alas, Bobby smoked Jose!
Speaking of things being smoked...after spending some time on the beach we took a walk by all the kooky stores. Lots of Bob Marley paraphernalia (which Bobby thought was funny), lots of sage being sold (apparently, people smoke sage leaves), lots of random street performers performing on the streets (like the girl who was dancing with a glass ball...'nuf said).
We ended Friday night at a yummy Thai restaurant (much better than the Ethiopian!) and chatted with the guru about what the Forum would be like. We asked her questions, she answered them, very productive meal.
Finally, Saturday...the day we had been waiting for. The Forum was at the Marriot, just down the street from our hotel. Oh, did I forget to tell you about our hotel? Silly me. Our hotel was pretty sweet, if you consider a 4 star hotel to be pretty sweet (which I totally do...and if you don't, you seem like kind of a snob). The husband has become the next Priceline negotiator and scored us this sweet hotel for just 60 bucks a night! You might think, $60...seems kind of pricey...but to prove how awesome our deal was, we called a Super 8 motel to inquire about prices and they were charging $69.50 plus tax per night. So you tell me, would you prefer a 4 star hotel or a Super 8? That's what I thought.
Anyway, back to Saturday. We head to the Marriot and register. The husband gets a name badge-y thing and a little bag to collect all his law school goodies in and I snag a guest badge (cause I'm just the arm candy helping the husband look good). We meet the guru, go over the floor plan, and get our game on. The guru leads us to all the schools we decided we wanted to meet, smiles and hugs and chit-chats with the dean of admission, then introduces the husband. The husband is charming and polite, firmly shakes the hand of all those we meet, and after spending hours talking and walking and smiling and shaking we are pooped. Who knew law school was so much work!
We leave the Marriot around 7:30 at night. We are happy with how our day went, but unhappy with the prospect of driving home in the middle of the night. The husband and I trade spots countless times to avoid falling asleep whilst driving, we seriously consider parking our car in front of Lindsey's house so we don't have to drive another hour to our little abode, we are excited when the 10 turns into the 60 and even more excited when we merge onto the 101 South...we are close to home! We crawl into our beds around 3 am. Our phone batteries are dead, but with the chargers all the way in the car we don't care. We fall asleep and are out in seconds. Fast forward to 9 hours later when we wake up, still feeling the effects of last nights exhaustion.
Overall, the weekend was wonderful. I neglected the huge stack of papers that needed to be graded, didn't check my email once, and forgot about the laundry that needed to be done. Spending time with the husband was my only priority this weekend. But now that I am home, the papers really do have to be graded, I really should check my email, and if I don't do laundry I will be looking like a bum all week long.
