A Very LA Weekend
By Kelly Kinas ‘16
The absolutely wonderful thing about living in Los Angeles and going to USC is how close you are to Downtown LA and the opportunities are really endless. A couple weekends ago (January 28-30th), I decided to get out of the USC bubble and go around and see what’s new in the outside world, which I would encourage everyone to do.
Disclaimer: I am 21 and went to bars in this story but I will add in other places for those a little younger.
To me this is just about as LA as I could get and, while it’s not possible to do every week because I’m not a Rockefeller, it’s good to go out and about and see the world around you. Let’s go!
FRIDAY:
My Friday started by going to Viztango near USC with some friends and just catching up about the past week. It’s right next to Spudnuts and Bella Pita, in case you were wondering. The pizza’s good; I would recommend to any college student trying to save money and tired of Jack In The Box. After that, I drove to UCLA. I know. I might get a lot of heat for this but one of my best friends from high school goes to UCLA and was turning 21. I put my loyalties aside for a night and went to UCLA to celebrate.
We had dinner at Blue Plate Taco in Santa Monica, which was delicious. I would recommend that to anyone who has a special occasion coming up because it wasn’t cheap but it was fun and really delicious. After that, all those over 21 went bar hopping in Santa Monica, uber-ed back to UCLA, and I spent the night at my friend’s place.
Why this is important:
Everyone should stay in touch with high school friends, especially if they live in the same city. Additionally, exploring places a little farther from USC is okay if you have a car like I do. LA is building a LiteRail that will apparently connect to Santa Monica and it should be opening soon. If you don’t have a car, I would look for that when it opens to look around Santa Monica.
SATURDAY:
Saturday morning, I drove back from UCLA, took a shower, and got dressed in as much USC gear as I could. At noon, it was the USC vs. Washington Basketball game at the Galen Center. Of course, USC won because we’re awesome this year (We beat UCLA last week and are #23 in the nation right now!!). Next was pretty boring: I did some homework. But the reason Saturday was so fun was the comedy festival in Downtown LA that weekend.
My friend, Austin, and I went to see one of the shows, “Adams Ruins Everything LIVE” which had a TV show like segment for the first 30 minutes and stand up comedy from the writers for the next hour. It was really funny and we were both really glad we had randomly found out about this festival from Facebook. After the show, it was 8:30ish and so we decided to walk around Downtown to see what we wanted to eat. We happened upon 464 and these hamburgers were AMAZING. I got a German Burger and it has sauerkraut and bratwurst on it. I’m telling you, it was amazing.
As we were sitting at dinner, a guy in the restaurant came up to us and asked if we knew about the festival going on tonight. The comedy festival? NOPE. A Night on Broadway, a festival that shut down the entire street of Broadway downtown with shows, food trucks, art, and so much more. He gave us free wristbands so guess where we went next? We walked down to the street to Broadway and saw what was going on there.
It was really cool. We got there around 10:30 so it was slowing down but just walking down a street in LA with families all around and enough food trucks to live on, it was just one of those really funny random things that we didn’t know about and ended up being super super cool.
After that, we went to a bar frequented by many USC student called Seven Grand and then called it a night.
Why this is important:
Knowing what’s going on Downtown is super important for USC students because we’re so close. It’s a $5 uber or a $2.50 train ride away and a lot of time, we have no idea what going on just a few blocks away. Do some research and see what’s coming up. Get a group from your residential hall together and go downtown. There’s a great dessert place called Syrup, the Last Bookstore, and so many other cool places to visit. Take a chance and go see what’s going on!
SUNDAY:
Sunday was a crazy day. My friend, Jenny, texted me asking if I wanted to go to the taping of Grease Live! and, of course, I said yes. It was waking up at 8:30am, just dressed slightly like a greaser, driving to Burbank, signing release forms, sitting and standing in the rain waiting, and then at 4pm the magic started!
We were on Mario Lopez’s instagram, the Grease Live Facebook page, just smiling and waving and acting like idiots. It was so much fun!! After that, we were moved to the gym for the rest of the show. Screenshots of the show for proof:
^^ DAT’S ME!
It was a long day but being in the studio really gave the whole production a great energy. We stopped for In-N-Out on the way home and then did all the homework we neglected during the day.
Why this is important:
This was free. All you had to do was sign up for an email and Grease sent out an email when tickets were live. We live in LA for 4 years, you might as well take advantage of it. Go to a Conan taping or any other TV show. This is a uniquely LA and New York experience. You might not be able to do this again!!
This is not my average weekend (can you imagine if it was??) but it’s weekends like this that remind me why I wanted to go to school in LA and why I wanted to go to USC. You get such an unique experience here and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Fight on!
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