Visiting Pageant Friends for 30 Hours in Los Angeles

I spent 10 hours flying and 30 productive hours in California. But out of all the times I’ve been to Los Angeles, this has been my favorite trip. It was very spontaneous and last minute fun vacation. I bit my tongue at the price of the flight, but I’m so glad I did it.

This week I’ve been the most chill I’ve been in a very long time. I’m usually always in a rush, and planning things minute by minute. I’ve had extra time now with spring break from UF and post pageant to walk to the grocery store, clean up my room, and take some time to relax. Going into this trip I didn’t know if I’d actually go, and even paid extra in case I would cancel it and have a refund.

There is no reason to stress over something you are trying to do for fun, and fully for yourself. While you can’t please everyone around you, you CAN take control of how you want your outlook to be in life. So I had no solid schedule, just a rough idea of where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. So here was my unstructured schedule!

Saturday

• 4 AM Wake up, prep, head to airport
• 7 AM Plane flies to LA. I loved the views from above! Also this is super weird, but I love putting makeup on a plane, solid natural light and all the time in the world with nothing better to do but them brows. It’s only hard to glue lashes when the other hand is on the mirror. I did some journaling then, and watched A Star is Born and Moulin Rouge.
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• 10 AM Hopped off a plane in LAX
• 11 AM Met my international pageant bestie Frida Fornander for a fun day in LA!
• 12:30 PM Ate a ton at Urth Cafe, a healthy breakfast cafe and took some photos in Melrose where they had cute wall art similar to Wynwood! I wait for the day Instagram tourism is a thing.
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• 3 PM (I think?) Headed up to the Hollywood sign. This was the one thing I really wanted to do while I was in LA, I’ve only seen it teeny tiny from afar, but it was gorgeous! One day I would love to hike there. It’s not just the sign, but the view from below of LA is beautiful. Honestly blew me away.
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• 4 PM (I also think?) Met with my amazing pageant sister queen Vivian Nweze. She was the IJM Florida Teen when I was the Florida Junior Teen and she has been MAKING MOVES in LA. We caught up after 9 years of not seeing eachother, and she gave incredible advice and words on her experience and hustle.
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• 6 PM ? Changed into warmer clothes because it got COLD once the sun left. We took some photos at Urban Lights and ate at Veggie Grill (vegetarian chipotle!)
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• 8:30 PM Tia picked me up to get to her new place. She was having a baby shower the following day, and we picked up her baked goods and treats for the party.

Sunday:

• Spent the day putting together a balloon arch, helping here and there make the party look pretty, and of course enjoy the incredible baby shower. Tia’s mom did an amazing job with the flowers on the chair. It was supposed to rain and incredibly there was no rain the whole day. They even had a baby alpaca at the event and it was so cool! The place was beautiful. California has such lovely mountains and I think after a week of rain the place has been more green.
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• I left the party early to catch my Uber to LAX. The traffic getting there was bad, but it took only 15 minutes to get through security and for the FIRST TIME EVER the gate was right in front of me! Absolute miracle!
• Will be back 5 AM to take a baby nap then get back on the work grind!

California observations:

• Almost everyone in LA is not from LA. They move here to a pursue a career in entertainment. It’s like the microcosm of immigrants overall that move to the US to pursue the American Dream.
• The palm trees are taller and skinnier than the ones in Florida and they are gorgeous, especially when you look from a mountain view in the sunset.
• The mountains are beautiful further off from main LA. Houses on these mountains are also lovely to see.
• LA is the big city focused on entertainment in all aspects
• Ralph’s is the Publix of California, and they actually have Chick fil A!
• Health conscious food is very popular much like South Beach.
• Everyone I met in LA I interviewed on Lady Code because I found them to be so cool in their accomplishments, goals, and aspirations. They came here on their own to become models, journalists, and influencers of all sorts.

This post originally is from misselizabethtran.wordpress.com and transferred over to Lashes and Sashes