Monday Blues

After having a really fantastic July 4th weekend, it really sucks when I start thinking about getting up at 5:30 am tomorrow for work. It seems more like a case of Mondays. When I was in grad school, I used to finish all my non-productive weeks on Friday evening, vowing that I will return rejuvenated on monday morning and utilise every minute productively. The vow was never fulfilled. Away from school, and after first week of work, I am echoing the same sentiments - just replace tuesday by monday for this particular week.

The long weekend, and presence of some old friends, gave me ample time and company to explore my new home - Los Angeles. On Saturday, we trekked upon Griffith Park mountains and came real close to the "H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D" signs atop the mountains - so often potrayed in movies and on television. Infact we trekked up the steep slopes with the aim of replacing "H" by "B", but we fell a little short of our goal. The hike was succeeded by a walk down the "Hall of Fame" strip, where we saw Kodak theatre, Ripley's believe it or not and probably brushed shoulders with thousands of fans, and probably some to be stars...also had a sighting of a Ferrari on the road.

We then drove down Sunset Blvd through Beverly hills, which is easily the poshest neighbourhood I have seen in US. Most of the houses here were the size of a castle and the porch was jammed with Porsche, Lexus and Mercedes. Venice Beach was our next stop, but the cold weather and fog prevented us from viewing the sights we came to see. The night was capped by a drive through 5th street in downtown LA (actually a few blocks away).....and the sights that I saw were one which I wouldn't like to put in my blog.

The entire sunday was reserved for Universal studio, and we came home patting ourselves for our planning. Our eyes were feasted to a plethora of 3D and 4D animations, some real life dangerous stunts and loads of film sets. However our haphazard planning for 4th July cost us the day, as we spent wandering aimlessly in Long Beach and Santa Monica Beach. There are a lots of tourist attractions in LA, to keep you busy for a week. But if you ask my opinion, the best attraction is driving - the abundance of 7 laned freeways with the entire traffic doing 70 mph, the convertibles and those luxury cars, all these make the ride really exciting.

When I went to bed on Saturday night it was those images from the 5th street, on Sunday night it was that blonde we saw in gas station (me and Susu swear that she is probably the hottest person we have ever seen on earth, more than any film star), as I bid good night I wonder what would be the last image on my mind on the this day of American Independence......