My parents and Rachel flew from Atlanta into LAX which is about ten miles away from my home in Los Angeles. They would then be going to Long Beach to spend the night at the Marriott Residence Inn before the cruise. When I lived in South Carolina, I would describe distance in time – “Oh, it’s just a two hour drive.” “About 40 minutes away.” This doesn’t work in LA because ten miles could take 15 minutes or an hour and a half depending on time of day and traffic. Since their plane was scheduled to land at 3:30, that would put them in LA right before rush hour, so ten miles would mean about an hour.

I don’t think my dad initially realized how complicated it was going to be for me to meet up with them. He was contemplating two scenarios – one in which I take an Uber from my house to their hotel in Long Beach. In the other, I go to the airport and pick them up and take them to my house… but because of all of their luggage, I wouldn’t be able to take them all in my sedan in one trip, so it would be two trips to and from the airport. In rush hour.

Then, the day before the cruise, he texted me to bring two cases of water. And I lost it. I was NOT going to take two cases of water, along with my two suitcases and backpack, in an Uber. Had he ever even taken an Uber before?? Did he understand that it was just normal people driving their cars which may or may not have room for all of my crap? And that first I would have to haul it all out onto a curb by myself to wait for the Uber? And that I’m a tiny person, and this is a lot of stuff for me to keep up with by myself??? No. No. No!

So I stopped responding to his text messages until he told me to forget the water, and I thought of a third scenario in which I meet them at the airport and ride with them to Long Beach. My best friend gave me a ride to LAX, so I avoided awkwardly cramming a bunch of luggage into an Uber, as well as the surge rush hour fees, with the added benefit of familiarity and great conversation. And I even brought one case of water.

We roll up to Southwest baggage claim and there is Mom, Dad, and Rachel with about eight suitcases. “The next time someone asks us if we’re moving, just say yes!”

Dad had arranged for a limo service to pick us up from the airport (but I think limos might be out of fashion because everyone rolls around in black Suburbans in LA nowadays). We timed it perfectly to hit rush hour. The drive to the hotel took over an hour, and it was rather miserable. The windows on the ‘burb were heavily tinted, so I couldn’t really see out of them and felt completely disoriented as we sat in stop-and-go traffic the entire way.

We were quite excited to finally arrive at the Marriott Residence Inn, and we were hungry. It was food truck night, so we were able to get tacos without even leaving the hotel. And they were serving complementary beer and wine in the lobby. So we really lucked out.



Our room at the Residence Inn was spacious and nicely furnished.

I didn’t go home over Christmas break. After missing my flight and almost my Christmas cruise last year, my family decided to fly to me, instead. We embarked in San Pedro and spent 17 (!!!) days on the charming Pacific Princess, sailing through the Panama Canal, and disembarking in Fort Lauderdale.

After we sailed the Panama Canal Partial Transit on the Island Princess back in 2012, the full transit was added to our bucket list. And it turned out that this Christmas was the perfect time to take our dream cruise. For starters, my dad was required to take off 30 days from work (the man loves to work – he was not happy about this). My winter break at UCLA aligned almost perfectly with Rachel’s break from Clemson. Also, this is Rachel’s last year at Clemson, so it’s probably the last time we’ll be able to take such a long vacation. Our options for Panama Canal cruises over Christmas were limited to a 14-day itinerary on the Island Princess or a 17-day itinerary on the Pacific Princess. Honestly, 17 days on a ship seemed like an awful long time, and I had seen the Pacific Princess in port a few times before, so I knew how small she was. My vote was for the Island Princess…. But the Island Princess returned to port a day later than the Pacific Princess, which would mean that I wouldn’t get back in time for the first day of winter quarter. So the Pacific Princess it was.



Like I said, the Panama Canal was a “bucket list” cruise, which meant we spent a bit more on it (in time and money) than we typically do our quickly-planned Caribbean cruises. 17 days on a cruise ship isn’t inexpensive, but where the cost can really add up is in the one-way flights to get to the port of embarkation and to get back home. My family traveled from Atlanta to Los Angeles and took one-way flights on Southwest (2 free bags each!). They also had to book one-way flights on Southwest from Fort Lauderdale back to Atlanta. Since I live in Los Angeles, I only needed a return flight home, a one-way on Spirit (no free bags, paid checked bags, upcharge for everything).

When you think of L.A., I'm sure that the first images that come to mind are of tall buildings, movie stars, and traffic.  However, one doesn't have to leave the City of Los Angeles to enjoy a little green space.

Echo Park Lake offers grassy picnic areas, a playground, and recreation... all with a beautiful view of Downtown Los Angeles.



On a warm Saturday afternoon in October, I managed to pull myself away from my weekend ritual of watching college football to go outside and enjoy the sunshine (but only after the Clemson game, of course). As per usual in Los Angeles, the first issue I had getting to Echo Park was traffic, and the second, much greater issue was parking. After circling Echo Park Lake a few times, I managed to find a vacant spot next to the curb just big enough to squeeze my compact car into.

I grew up an American Girl.  And by American Girl, I mean the doll brand founded by the Pleasant Company in 1986.  It wasn't just because of my Bitty Baby (Rosie), Girl of Today (Paige), and Historical doll (Josefina).  The real reason that I define myself as an American Girl is because of the literature.  The historical fiction novels sparked my interest about the lives of girls in the past.  American Girl Magazine (to which I have been a loyal subscriber since August 1998) connected me with girls across the country and sparked my creativity.  And through the collection of advice books, American Girl helped me conquer tricky preteen situations with confidence.


When we were kids, my mother used to dream about a girls' trip to Chicago on which she'd take Rachel and I to the (original) American Girl Place and we'd see Oprah.  That trip never happened.

I'll be honest... one deciding factor for whether or not I could picture myself at a grad school depended on whether or not the college had a decent football team (and I honestly considered applying to Oregon solely for that reason).

While they aren't the Clemson Tigers, the UCLA Bruins are a cheer-worthy team (who were ranked highly at the beginning of the 2014 season...), and they play in the Rose Bowl Stadium - how cool is that?



I recruited some of my new classmates to go to the game with me.  The game started at 12:30, so the plan was to leave Westwood at 8:30 and hopefully arrive at the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena around 9:30-10 for tailgating... well, we didn't leave Westwood until after 10.  (I think they were all a bit concerned about our planned early departure time.)

I love skylines.  The most familiar to me throughout my childhood was the Atlanta skyline.  As a kid riding in the backseat on long road trips to our family in Mississippi or vacation home in Florida, I would look forward to the 20 minutes we spent driving through Atlanta.  I didn't even mind sitting in the traffic.  Whenever we would detour for some reason and go around the city, rather than through it, my heart would sink a little in disappointment.  To this day, whenever I drive through Atlanta, my eyes divert from all electronics (if I'm driving, it's a little hard for me to keep them on the road) and stare happily out the window for the fifteen or twenty minutes it takes to cross the city.

While the skyline during the day is beautiful, there is something about seeing a city illuminated at night that just makes my heart sing.  So in Los Angeles, my heart sings quite often.  And on the overpass, I have to constantly remind myself to keep my eyes on the road.

The overpass is incredibly tempting to me.  I want to just pull over on the side and stare out at the city... and take out my camera and tripod for long exposures of the beautiful Los Angeles skyline illuminated at night.  But I fight the temptation because that's incredibly dangerous and also, I believe, illegal.  So I went to the internet for suggestions of parking garages that I could access for nighttime views of the skyline.



Someone on a photography forum suggested the parking garage at The Grove, an upscale outdoor mall in West Hollywood.  Shopping and photography?  Sounded like the perfect combination to me!

The Venice Fishing Pier is a 700-foot public pier located on the south end of Venice Beach.  It's utilized by fisherman of all ages and skill levels, and no fishing permit is required.  Of course, when I first spotted the fishing pier, I planned to take advantage of the viewpoints for photography.  What I didn't expect walking out on the pier was getting a front row seat to watch an incredible sport...



I wandered over to the fishing pier after strolling along the Venice Boardwalk on a Friday evening. One thing I noticed is that several people rode their bikes down the pier. Also, the trash cans smelled terrible... perhaps people had been discarding their bait in them.

The Venice Beach Boardwalk is (according to Venice Beach's website) the number one visitor attraction in Southern California, known for its quirky street performers and vendors.  The boardwalk, also known as Ocean Front Walk, is one and a half miles along the beach of shopping, food, houses, and eccentric people.

I took a stroll down the boardwalk after spending the afternoon at Venice Beach so that I could check out the culture of the "World Famous Venice Beach Boardwalk" myself.



I'll be honest... one of my main incentives to visit Venice Beach was to see the iconic sign.

On an incredibly warm Friday, I decided it would be a great time for me to explore one of Los Angeles's famous beaches.  After doing a bit of internet searching, I was eager to check out the colorful Venice Beach.

Venice Beach is considered a global tourist destination and has been labeled "a cultural hub known for its eccentricities."  The beach receives millions of visitors a year.

Before going, I tried my best to locate parking.  However, everything I found online was very vague.  The price listed on the Venice Beach website was Winter $4.00 to $9.00; Summer $5.00 to $15.00.  Umm.... that's a huge range!  I found an address for a parking lot, but that turned out to be a garage a ways from the beach, so I kept driving until I found myself on a one-way street.  I was really confused and didn't know how to turn around, so I parked at the first place available, which of course was priced at the highest end of the parking fee spectrum.  $15.00 valet parking in a secure lot for the day.  Sure... why not?

As soon as I left the valet lot, I walked right by a larger public parking area which was listed at $9.00.  Of course, this would happen to me.  Oh, well... at least the valet lot felt really safe.

The beach was a short walk away, but the width of it was huge.  Walking from the boardwalk up to the water was quite a hike.  But it was so large that even though it was well-populated, everyone could really spread out.

La Brea Tar Pits are a really unique natural wonder in the middle of urban Los Angeles.  The name "tar pits" is a bit of a misnomer.  Rather than tar, this area is actually filled with natural asphalt which has seeped up through the ground for tens of thousands of years.

What's so cool about natural asphalt?  It's preserved the fossils of extinct animals and is the locate ion of the world's only ongoing urban Ice Age excavations.

I visited the Page Museum at La Brea Tar Pits to learn more.  I purchased my admission online in advance, opting for the Tar Pits Passport which included museum admission, the Excavator Tour, and Ice Age Encounters ($15 adult, $12 senior and student, $8 child).  I was most annoyed that parking was a $9 flat rate.  However, after considering nearby parking garages and street parking, I decided that $9 all day was actually a pretty good deal for the area.



In typical Victoria fashion, I had a difficult time finding the place.  I kept circling the LACMA and could not for the life of me locate the Page Museum.  Tar pits in the middle of L.A. - how difficult could that be to find?  I considered parking at the LACMA and walking over to the Page Museum, but LACMA parking is $12 and I was already bitter enough about $9.  So if you plan on doing both museums in one day, definitely park at the Page Museum and do that first, then walk over to LACMA for the better parking deal.

The Santa Monica Pier was actually the first attraction I visited when my Dad and I traveled to Los Angeles back in March.  At the time, I might have been a little too hungry, jet-lagged, and sick to really absorb the atmosphere.  But I remembered with fondness the ferris wheel on the pier and wanted to capture it in action.

The blue hour, or twilight, is the period of time after the sun sets but the sky remains bright. The light is beautiful, and it's the perfect time to photograph the evening lights while there is still blue in the sky.



The Santa Monica Pier opened as the Municipal Pier and was actually constructed in 1909 to hold a pipe which flushed sewage out into the ocean (that disgusting practice ended in the 1920s)!  It was the first concrete pier to be built on the west coast and became a popular fishing location.  The amusement park was added in 1916 to compete with neighboring Ocean Park and Venice Pier.

I rather dislike zoos.  I am still refining my viewpoint on animals in captivity, but a zoo is currently at the top of my do-not-patronize list.  When I was a kid, I looked forward to field trips to the zoo because I enjoyed seeing and learning about the animals, but ever since I was an older child, I've had particularly negative feelings towards zoos because I disliked seeing animals behind bars, spending all day in cages and being pointed at by spectators.

But an abandoned zoo without any animals... that sounds like a zoo worth exploring!



I first learned about this abandoned attraction after watching a Tom Explore's Los Angeles's video of the Old L.A. Zoo (Tom Explores Los Angeles is a great resource for tourists and Angelenos who want to learn a bit of history and discover cool sites in L.A.).  The Griffith Park Zoo opened in 1912 with fifteen animals.  In 1966, Griffith Park Zoo closed, and the animals were transferred to the new Los Angeles Zoo (which is also located in Griffith Park).  The old animal enclosures were left as ruins in what is now a hiking and picnic area.

I've heard that you can't leave Los Angeles until you've seen someone famous.  So I guess that means I am now allowed to go home.

In my second week alone in Los Angeles, I was perusing the internet, looking for things to do in the city.  That's when I came across television tapings.  Now, I remember my mom telling me, "Ooh!  You have to see if you can watch Ellen!" but I think I shrugged it off as something that was expensive and incredibly difficult to get.  Not the case.  Television tapings are absolutely free and available to the general public.  How to obtain tickets varies depending on the show and studio.  There are websites, such as tvtickets.com, tvtix.com, and 1iota.com, that distribute television taping tickets.  However, some shows (like Ellen) are only available via request directly through the show or studio.

Getting TV Taping Tickets

As I was browsing the available television tapings, I looked for a show that was interesting to me and would be enjoyable to watch.  This is more challenging than one might think because I actually don't watch much television, and the TV series that I do keep up with (really just The Walking Dead, and as of recently, Orange is the New Black) either don't film in front of live audiences or weren't filming at this time.  As I read the filming schedule, there actually weren't any shows that I recognized.... except Dr. Phil.

Dr. Phil is a pretty neat guy.  My mother watches his show (or leaves the TV on and Dr. Phil eventually plays), so over the summer, I listened to it from the loft over our living room.... and sometimes it caught my attention enough that I'd lean over the railing so that I could watch.  But what was especially appealing about attending a Dr. Phil taping is that they show the studio audience on television.... I could be on TV!

There's nothing I love more than a great view.  The higher up, the better.  Looking down on the city makes me want to throw my hands in the air and scream, "I'm on top of the world!"  (I'm sure my family and friends are thankful that I have never actually done that.... but one day it will happen.  You've been warned.)

So one of the first things I did after settling into my apartment in Los Angeles was begin searching for the best view of the city.  And Griffith Observatory was a popular destination among acromaniacs like myself.

The entire month of October will be dedicated to exploring my new home, Los Angeles, and I want you to tell me where to go!


When I first learned of Myquillyn Smith (The Nester)'s #Write31Days challenge, I was a little intimidated.  31 Days is an online writing challenge in which bloggers choose one topic and post about that topic every day in October.  Since it started with one blogger in 2009, it has grown to over 1200 participants.

After I got over my fear about posting every single day, I realized that this would be a great opportunity to really expand the content available on a topic.  And what a great way to force myself to get out and explore my new hometown (which also happens to be a popular tourist location), Los Angeles!

City of Angels, The Big Orange, La-La Land, Tinseltown!  Los Angeles is the most populous city in California, and the second-most populous in the United States (after New York City).  It has a population of 3,792,621 (based on the 2010 US Census) and a land area of 469 square miles.

Every day in October, I'll be sharing new information and photos of Los Angeles!  You can bookmark this page, as it will serve as the index for 31 Days of Los Angeles, and I will continue to update it with links of new posts as they are published.

[Day 1] Getting High at Griffith Observatory
[Day 2] Dr. Phil Studio Audience (Second Row!)
[Day 3] Hike to the Hollywood Sign
[Day 4] Old Los Angeles Zoo
[Day 5] The Santa Monica Pier at Twilight
[Day 6] La Brea Tar Pits
[Day 7] Mickey's Halloween Party at Disneyland
[Day 8] Venice Beach
[Day 9] Venice Beach Boardwalk
[Day 10] Surfers of Venice Fishing Pier
[Day 11] Rule-Breaking Skyline Photography at the Grove
[Day 12] Downtown Disney at Disneyland
[Day 13] UCLA v Oregon at Rose Bowl Stadium
[Day 14] American Girl Place, Los Angeles
[Day 15] Echo Park Lake, Urban Oasis

I want your help deciding where to go and what to write about!  Do you have suggestions on where I should visit?  Maybe you've been someplace in LA that you know I'll love.  Or maybe there is an attraction that you're considering seeing on your visit and think I should check out...

Where in Los Angeles should I go?  Let me know in the comments below!

I debated on whether or not to go with a cheesy title and determined that now is a perfectly appropriate time to bust out one of the many California song lyrics.

On Thursday, I made the big move from South Carolina to Southern California.


My dad came with me to help me get moved in and settled.  He is the one who made our schedule for the weekend.  Thursday - Fly to Los Angeles.  Friday - Move into apartment.  Saturday - Buy a car.  Sunday - Finish moving and maybe have time for sightseeing.  Monday - Dad flies back home.

So this weekend with Dad was really fun.  It was almost like we were on a vacation, except a weird vacation which involves shopping for apartment furnishings and a car.  It didn't hit me until Sunday that when he went home, I might get lonely.

I recently read an article on the "Top Ten Most Overrated Travel Destinations," and Hollywood Boulevard was near the top of the list (Walt Disney World also made an appearance on the list.....).  Perhaps it is a very cliche destination.  I recall one of the points made in the article (and I'm not crediting it because I don't think it's worthy) was that only tourists go to Hollywood.  And that might be true.  But I'm a tourist, so it's okay.  I needed to re-do my Hollywood Boulevard experience.



Grauman's Chinese Theatre was what I was most interested in seeing. It's an iconic landmark - a piece of history! Not to mention, it is the only Hollywood icon to be replicated at full scale in Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World.

For the first time in almost ten years, I visited Southern California.  I had been only once before in 2005 for the Disneyland's 50th Anniversary celebration and only ventured outside of Anaheim for one night when we decided to drive to Hollywood.  I remember being frightened and holding onto my father's hand as Spiderman and other creepy, knock-off characters jumped out at me, attempting to get money for pictures.

However, despite my only experience in Los Angeles being a terrible childhood memory, I for some reason narrowed down my graduate school options down to the Los Angeles area.  I liked two architecture schools in LA, and after studying abroad in Genoa and conquering city life in NYC, I thought that LA might be worth another try.  More importantly, the weather is moderate year round, it's close to the beach, has a cruise terminal.... and is less than an hour away from Disneyland!!!  So at the end of March, my father and I flew to LA to see if this city could be in my future.

We had no plans except to visit UCLA's open house and tour SCI-Arc.  So we found ourselves the first evening having not eaten anything except McDonald's breakfast that morning and a $7.99 cheese platter on the plane and unsure of what to do.  Luckily, Dad was a bit more familiar with the area than I was and sought out the Santa Monica Pier which we decided would be just fine for dinner.