Travel Diaries: LA x Santa Monica

I'm happy to announce that my stagette trip was an astounding success. Not only did I get make some crazy memories before I get married in about two months, I had an amazing time spending every moment with some close girlfriends. Our trip of four days and three nights was chock-full of laughter, quirky behaviour, and awesome music. I felt like I was constantly holding my breath for something bad to befall us, like a major flight delay, car crash, or a bad girl fight. Luckily, none of that happened and we only encountered only minor obstacles.

While I didn't take a million photos because I had already visited most of the places before, you can bet that my girls and I took a million snapchats (we constantly had about 200 secs going on our stories)! These photos were taken while walking around Santa Monica beach after a long day of shopping at the Fashion District and Third Promenade. While we may not have gotten to do everything on our bucket list, we made the most out of everything and every place that we visited!

Top // Forever 21

Sunglasses // Nasty Gal

Necklace // Aldo

 Shorts // Zara

Shoes // Topshop

Bag // Michael Kors

Because it's hard to describe the whole trip without writing a huge essay, I'll just make a list of my top twenty memories (in no particular order):

1. Dance parties at all times of the day in the car and in our hotel rooms with my girls-- courtesy of my handy JBL pill speaker and an AUX cable.
2. My MOH (maid of honour) complaining about a million things to the hotel concierge and getting us free parking, wifi, water, breakfast for three days, and room service (saving us about $300). I love you!
3. Can't Feel My Face by The Weeknd playing fifty million times on the radio-- nevertheless, it became the unanimous theme song of the trip.
4. Randomly wandering through the city with some of the girls looking for a Starbucks when the nearest one had closed. Also making hilarious snapchat videos and taking city photos while we were at it. 
5. Hearing the outrageous pick-up lines from the very aggressive men of the area. My favourite was when we were walking through the Fashion District and some guy called out: "You make me want to bite you!"
6. Having a very entertaining and alcohol-filled night at a bar at Hermosa Beach-- until I threw up very badly on the car backseat (don't mix your drinks kids).
7. Driving through a sketchy part of town where we came across three men who had passed out cold on the street. As we drove past them carefully, a man came out of nowhere and began dragging the men out of our way. What a place!
8. Walking through the Fashion District and feeling like we were in Mexico-- major culture shock. Let's just say that the public washrooms were not pleasant. On the other hand, the snacks were delicious, the people friendly, and we got some amazing deals on accessories and the like.
9. Making fun of one of my girls who was obsessed with buying Crocs. She was not happy until she had purchased a pair of black Crocs.
10. Watching some very drunk girls dancing on the countertop at the Baha Sharkeez bar. One even began spanking her friend and grinding on her afterwards: #classy. 
11. Laughing like madwomen on the plane when we engaged in various pranks on each other and other unsuspecting plane passengers.
12. Taking some photos (while very intoxicated) with some LAPD officers at Hermosa Beach.
13. Smoking hookah on Hollywood Boulevard on our first night and realizing that Chris Brown was about to visit the club right beside the hookah lounge. The BET Awards were happening that weekend and many celebrities were currently in town to perform at the show.
14. Partying a classy rooftop club called Elevate Club in Downtown L.A. and getting hit on by some very handsome Latino men.  
15. Making some very fun purchases, such as Nasty Gal and Versace sunglasses. Also, buying clothing from stores that don't yet exist in Canada or Vancouver, such as COS, Uniqlo, and Madewell. 
16. Eating dinner on our last night at the very trendy and pretty SUR Lounge in West Hollywood.
17. Snapchatting pictures and videos of just about everything we did on our trip, as well as enjoying the cool filters that were available everywhere (Downtown L.A., Glendale, Santa Monica, etc.).
18. My MOH hitting on the poor boy working the drive-thru at McDonald's while I ordered the 50 chicken nuggets for $10 deal. I ended up giving 20 nuggets to the nice parking valets who had helped us when I was puking in the parking lot. Waste not, want not!
19. Walking around beautiful Santa Monica and eating some deliciously unhealthy peanut butter cookie custard-- mmmmmm. 
20. Visiting Rodeo Drive on our last day and getting sucked into the amazing COS store where I wanted to buy everything! Edit: Thank you Karen Lo for introducing me to this incredible store!

Well, until my next little vacation at the end of July, it's back to reality for me. I can't wait to travel with these wonderful girls again soon! We have already begun thinking of our next trip-- should we go to Hawaii or New York?