Good day my beautiful readers!
Hope you are all having an amazing week so far!!
*Yawns* Oh? You want to hear the second part of "Carlosfornia"? Well alright then... just a quick recap for those who don't want to read the entirety of part one, me and my 3 friends went on an impromptu trip to LA, where we have encountered, hostile airport security, tourist traps, a crazy black guy, and several women that Carlos has failed to woo... but before I get into Carlos' misadventures in Cali girls, let's pick this back up right where we left off; shall we...
Thursday August 2nd, 2012
So after the "comedic" evening from the previous day, we woke up a little earlier, because today was the day we do what Carlos wanted, and what he wanted was to go to the LA Zoo, this also happened to be on the hottest day of the entire trip so I'll bet you can imagine the fun we had! We took a special cab up to the zoo and it was barren, there were very few visitors, due to the heat no doubt, but we ventured in, for Carlos!! As we wandered through the animalistic heat wave (pun intended) we noticed that the animals were simply not having it, this heat was insufferable, here's a taste of what we saw.
 |
| The California Ninja Turtle branch was out of commission |
 |
| This warthog just didn't have enough shade |
 |
| This Seal was being cooked in his boiling pool so he preferred to be in the sun directly |
 |
| This ape is lounging in the shade before Mr. Sun inevitably reaches him. |
 |
| And this, this my friends was the majority of the zoo experience, most were closed... the heat was real!! |
Regardless of the lack of displays we continued to wander the zoo for adventure and potential Carlos girlfriends, alas to no avail, the entire morning had passed and we only found one thing in the zoo, that's right, heat-induced insanity!! We completely lost a sense of who we were in that zoo, it was an awful experience of heat and confusion, energy was depleted from our bones, but at the same time, we didn't stop, we kept going, like a thankless drug, stealing away our livelihood for only a small dream like experience in exchange...
This continued for about another hour before we waddled back to the Zoo entrance/Exit, we called the special cab service which took another hour to arrive, so by the time it did we were fatigued beyond belief; we stumbled into the black cab and were greeted by an odd, lanky, foreign gentleman who despite seeing our dead expressions insisted on conversing with us the entire way home. Now, I hear you there in the back, "Geez, maybe he was just trying to be nice, God!" and to that I say, fair enough, but it was suffocating, we all talked with him for a bit, but we were tired and hot, we didn't really have the energy for small talk; yet, despite telling him this politely he couldn't handle it. "You guys want to stop by and get some lunch together?", "You guys wanna go dancing?", "You guys sure you don't want to eat, I don't mind stopping??" and so on and so forth, dude maybe it's me, but a taxi driver inviting 4 guys to eat and go out dancing with isn't normal, it was creepy, and because of this we were all afraid to fall asleep on the cab, except for Carlos, he was knocked out lol. Anyhow, after an hour we got to the hotel and took a load off, the day however was still young, so we decided to actually explore the hotel as our room was literally the second one by the entrance.
After walking down further, we noticed a basketball court, so we went to go play a few. Yes, even though we were too exhausted to talk to creepy cab guy, we had enough energy to play some basketball... shush. Anyhow we played for a couple of hours before not having the energy to do anything more, so we walked off the court and took the parallel hall back to our room, and let me tell you, it was like something out of the Twilight Zone, the hall was dirtier, the noise levels were rowdier, and the atmosphere reeked of cannabis, it was hard to believe we were only a few feet away from our room, and it was this different!
At any rate, we made it back to our room without a problem and collapsed on our beds, but before we could get too cozy, hunger struck, and it struck hard!! Having barely eaten all day, we pooled our cash for the day together and ordered 2 large pizzas, bread sticks, and hot wings, which basically murdered all the exercise we had done that day, but I would be lying if I didn't think it was the definition of "hit the spot"! The evening followed with lounging, watching movies on the TV, and joking around, it was a chill way to end the day, before calling it a night however, a sketchy infomercial came on for what we understood to be phone sex, the TV glowed a pinkish red, after some scantily clad women had finished posing, and the number "1 800 200 HOTT" flashed on the screen; could this be Carlos' chance? Alas, when we called it never properly connected, so the night had to end anticlimactically. :(
End of the day of wild heat
The morn of our second to last day was upon us, and we weren't going to waste it; we headed off to Rodeo drive and Beverly Hills to spend our day in style! We started our day at the legendary Johnny Cupcakes, where we all bought shirts, and Carlos and I stupidly bought women's shirts (mine of which I eventually gave as a gift to a good friend), after which we went to eat brunch at Hooters where we met the beautiful Lorena, she was your typical fit, sexy, but incredibly ditzy type. Anyhow, she came to our table hula hooping for a bigger tip no doubt and asked for our orders. Ale asked for boneless wings with curly fries, she giggled and then asked me what I wanted, coincidentally I wanted the same thing, she laugh and said that we are funny in how alike we are, then came Patrick's turn, who coincidentally wanted the same thing, Lorena found this to be a hoot (pun intended) then we all got into a conversation of how similar our tastes were and how we have been friends for an incredibly long time. The conversation went on for a few minutes and Lorena was loving it, that is until someone broke the flow of it all... "UHHH-- CAN I GET A PEPSI PLEASE!" grumbled Carlos, the mood was killed, and Lorena lost interest; can I get a "c-c-c-c-combo breaker" please? Anyways after bringing us our meals Lorena dedicated her attention to the table of gents next to ours, Carlos continuously calling her over for more Pepsi refills, the rest of us drank root beer in case anyone was curious; we finished our meals and took the receipt, where Lorena had drawn a bunch of hearts, which was customary, regardless we jotted down Carlos' phone number and labelled it as "The Hunk with the Pepsi" he never did get a callback :P |
| The heat drove Carlos into thinking he was the Alphamingo (he had a lot of trouble standing on one foot though lolol) |
 |
| Ale and I became angry monkey children. |
 |
| Patrick however, started YOLO-ing left and right with this heat-based rebelliousness |
This continued for about another hour before we waddled back to the Zoo entrance/Exit, we called the special cab service which took another hour to arrive, so by the time it did we were fatigued beyond belief; we stumbled into the black cab and were greeted by an odd, lanky, foreign gentleman who despite seeing our dead expressions insisted on conversing with us the entire way home. Now, I hear you there in the back, "Geez, maybe he was just trying to be nice, God!" and to that I say, fair enough, but it was suffocating, we all talked with him for a bit, but we were tired and hot, we didn't really have the energy for small talk; yet, despite telling him this politely he couldn't handle it. "You guys want to stop by and get some lunch together?", "You guys wanna go dancing?", "You guys sure you don't want to eat, I don't mind stopping??" and so on and so forth, dude maybe it's me, but a taxi driver inviting 4 guys to eat and go out dancing with isn't normal, it was creepy, and because of this we were all afraid to fall asleep on the cab, except for Carlos, he was knocked out lol. Anyhow, after an hour we got to the hotel and took a load off, the day however was still young, so we decided to actually explore the hotel as our room was literally the second one by the entrance.
After walking down further, we noticed a basketball court, so we went to go play a few. Yes, even though we were too exhausted to talk to creepy cab guy, we had enough energy to play some basketball... shush. Anyhow we played for a couple of hours before not having the energy to do anything more, so we walked off the court and took the parallel hall back to our room, and let me tell you, it was like something out of the Twilight Zone, the hall was dirtier, the noise levels were rowdier, and the atmosphere reeked of cannabis, it was hard to believe we were only a few feet away from our room, and it was this different!
At any rate, we made it back to our room without a problem and collapsed on our beds, but before we could get too cozy, hunger struck, and it struck hard!! Having barely eaten all day, we pooled our cash for the day together and ordered 2 large pizzas, bread sticks, and hot wings, which basically murdered all the exercise we had done that day, but I would be lying if I didn't think it was the definition of "hit the spot"! The evening followed with lounging, watching movies on the TV, and joking around, it was a chill way to end the day, before calling it a night however, a sketchy infomercial came on for what we understood to be phone sex, the TV glowed a pinkish red, after some scantily clad women had finished posing, and the number "1 800 200 HOTT" flashed on the screen; could this be Carlos' chance? Alas, when we called it never properly connected, so the night had to end anticlimactically. :(
End of the day of wild heat
Friday August 3rd, 2012
The air is hot, snoring permeates the atmosphere, that is until it is broken by a loud Weinerschnitzel commercial, it's late, and our food-coma caused by the feast from the night before had caused us to get up much later than we had planned. You see, Friday was our day to tour Warner Brother Studios, however, unlike Universal, Warner's tours are appointment only so we had to get there before the last tour at 4, we still had good time but we had to hurry to get on the metro, to reach the corresponding bus stop, to make it to the tour on time. We showered and hurried out the door, took the metro, and made it to the bus stop with 2 hours to spare, but we knew it couldn't be that easy, the bus took over an hour to arrive!!! We took another 20 or so minutes to get to the stop and the tour was going to start in 15 or so minutes and we still had to walk there, we all begin to exit the bus as quickly as we can, alas, as I was jumping out, someone behind me was stepping on the back of my sandals which caused me to fall into the concrete, I got up and kept running regardless, adrenaline pulsing through us, we literally make it just as the final tour is about to start, and that's when I feel it, an extremely sharp pain..! The flesh from my right knee cap was cleared right off, and a stinging, bleeding red square of pain took its place, my big toe was also completely bloody and hurting, it was a windy day and that wasn't helping the pain. The tour guide got me some band aids and we continued the tour... This was easily my favorite part of the trip, I mean don't get me wrong, Universal's tour was extravagant and full of cinematic wonder, but the Warner Brothers' tour was something else, it was more grounded, it was like its own living breathing city, something real if that makes sense. Parts of the city were cut off since they were recording an episode of the "Mentalist" at the time, we also got to sit in the live studio audience section for "The Big Bang Theory", and got a chance to see the props for season 5 before it aired (no photography allowed), we got to see classic series vehicles and sets, got to put on the sorting hat from "Harry Potter", I'm Ravenclaw apparently... meh, and we eventually got to visit the Central Perk, which is completely preserved from the final episode of "Friends" and even got to sit on the couch, however they charge an ungodly amount for that photo so just take my word for it.
The tour continued for a good chunk of the late afternoon and as we walked out of the studios, Patrick's girlfriend, Andrea had arrived on the scene with her uncle, I didn't get to meet her as I was limping from my surprisingly painful leg scrape. Anyhow, Ale, Carlos and I waddled out and started exploring the area, and we couldn't find any place to eat, and then we saw it, the vision that woke us up, "Weinerschnitzel"! None of us had ever eaten there but we decided to give it a try, now I'm not a huge hotdog guy, and I'm not sure if it was my hunger and pain clouding my judgment, but the hotdogs there were amazingly good, we met this funny little old lady who recommended the hotdogs we ate and then talked to us over lunch,she was too old for Carlos though lol, after a lovely lunch, we went back to the hotel to rest up, we joked around and then hunger struck, with Patrick still gone we decided to go to north Hollywood again to shop and get dinner, I bought myself some softer shoes to cover up my foot without feeling the pain, the store clerk saw my battle scars as it were and actually patched me up with clean gauze and disinfectant spray, very good gentleman and service, after which we headed to a simple dinner at Johnny Rockets, where we were served by a lovely Ukrainian waitress, and she obviously had a thing for our man Carlos. Don't believe me? Well check it, as she took our orders she merely glanced at us, but she stared and smiled at him, when the time to deliver our food came she served us our burgers, she splatted ketchup into mine and Ale's plates, but she made Carlos' ketchup into a smiley face, our eyes widened, her smile grew, Carlos however, being the clueless dork that he is, got mad, because we got more ketchup than he did, to which he proceeded to destroy the smiley sauce by violently piling on more, the waitress was visibly crushed and never smiled at us again. Despite our reprimand, Carlos didn't understand that she was being flirty with him and told us to shut up. We later got back that night to the hotel at the same time as Patrick did, we talked about our respective evenings and had a slow night. That is to say, we were having a slow night until we whipped out our laptops and started messing with the infamous chatroulette!!!
The night started slow, Me, Ale, and Patrick on one webcam, Carlos on another, all of us looking for people to mess with as well as a girlfriend for Carlos. Us three found a nice looking young lady, but the moment Patrick left she said, "The cute one is gone" hahaha wow, there's a confidence booster am I right? Meanwhile Carlos was fighting through the countless dicks associated with the site, and all non-dicks were skipping him, so Patrick and I decided to dance in the background, which kept people interested and talking to Carlos, he even struck a conversation with a woman, however, the moment he started dancing too, she freaked out and skipped him, lol poor Carlos. The night grew late and we were all chilling, except for Carlos who seemed extremely concentrated, we went to see what was up and he was having a conversation, a lengthy one at that, with this cute blonde girl, they were really hitting it off!! Alas, California is a cruel place and a storm cut off the wifi for a few moments cutting their conversation before either could get contact information... tough break kid.
End of Warnerschnitzel toursThe tour continued for a good chunk of the late afternoon and as we walked out of the studios, Patrick's girlfriend, Andrea had arrived on the scene with her uncle, I didn't get to meet her as I was limping from my surprisingly painful leg scrape. Anyhow, Ale, Carlos and I waddled out and started exploring the area, and we couldn't find any place to eat, and then we saw it, the vision that woke us up, "Weinerschnitzel"! None of us had ever eaten there but we decided to give it a try, now I'm not a huge hotdog guy, and I'm not sure if it was my hunger and pain clouding my judgment, but the hotdogs there were amazingly good, we met this funny little old lady who recommended the hotdogs we ate and then talked to us over lunch,she was too old for Carlos though lol, after a lovely lunch, we went back to the hotel to rest up, we joked around and then hunger struck, with Patrick still gone we decided to go to north Hollywood again to shop and get dinner, I bought myself some softer shoes to cover up my foot without feeling the pain, the store clerk saw my battle scars as it were and actually patched me up with clean gauze and disinfectant spray, very good gentleman and service, after which we headed to a simple dinner at Johnny Rockets, where we were served by a lovely Ukrainian waitress, and she obviously had a thing for our man Carlos. Don't believe me? Well check it, as she took our orders she merely glanced at us, but she stared and smiled at him, when the time to deliver our food came she served us our burgers, she splatted ketchup into mine and Ale's plates, but she made Carlos' ketchup into a smiley face, our eyes widened, her smile grew, Carlos however, being the clueless dork that he is, got mad, because we got more ketchup than he did, to which he proceeded to destroy the smiley sauce by violently piling on more, the waitress was visibly crushed and never smiled at us again. Despite our reprimand, Carlos didn't understand that she was being flirty with him and told us to shut up. We later got back that night to the hotel at the same time as Patrick did, we talked about our respective evenings and had a slow night. That is to say, we were having a slow night until we whipped out our laptops and started messing with the infamous chatroulette!!!
The night started slow, Me, Ale, and Patrick on one webcam, Carlos on another, all of us looking for people to mess with as well as a girlfriend for Carlos. Us three found a nice looking young lady, but the moment Patrick left she said, "The cute one is gone" hahaha wow, there's a confidence booster am I right? Meanwhile Carlos was fighting through the countless dicks associated with the site, and all non-dicks were skipping him, so Patrick and I decided to dance in the background, which kept people interested and talking to Carlos, he even struck a conversation with a woman, however, the moment he started dancing too, she freaked out and skipped him, lol poor Carlos. The night grew late and we were all chilling, except for Carlos who seemed extremely concentrated, we went to see what was up and he was having a conversation, a lengthy one at that, with this cute blonde girl, they were really hitting it off!! Alas, California is a cruel place and a storm cut off the wifi for a few moments cutting their conversation before either could get contact information... tough break kid.
Saturday August 4th, 2012
After brunch we walked around the staples center, by this time my leg was killing me from the scrapes so I had trouble keeping up, which caused the absolutely most annoying running joke ever from Carlos, which is every time we went up or down stairs, or if I ever slowed down, Carlos would gleefully yell "LOL Watch your step Luis!" This got annoying REAL fast, regardless the joke started dying down and we made it to Beverly Hills, where the cars were rich, the people well dressed, and the stores ridiculously over priced, we entered a mall and explored every inch of it, and yes, my leg was killing me throughout it all. Anyhow at one point we got on this one escalator (yes, Carlos told me to watch my step) which led inside the store Forever 21, but there was no down escalator, it was a trap haha and it was awful, we eventually stumbled to a back exit and got an early dinner in the mall food court. We stumbled around and eventually settled on Chinese (Panda Express YUM!), as we began eating, we all began irritating Carlos with our retelling of all the girls he could have dated, all the girls that actually showed interest, and how clueless or dumb he was, which he couldn't stand any longer, he stood up and raised his voice in annoyment "YOU NIGGAS NEED TO CHILL THE F*CK OUT! YOU GUYS HAVEN'T STOPPED MESSING WITH ME SINCE WE GOT HERE, AND I AM SICK OF IT, YOU GUYS ARE THE WORST FRIENDS EVER!!!" we were silent, he sat back down and opened up his fortune cookie, he then got angry again, as if it were a scene from a movie, the perfection of the fortune cookie read as follows, "Do not stress, and listen to those close to you, as their words are full of wisdom and opportunity" lol so according to ancient fortune cookie factory worker's wisdom, we were right and he is the one in need of chilling! :D
Anyhow, we went back to the hotel with our purchases, and Ale remembered that his dad had a friend in LA who ran a cab service, so we called him up and went to explore different areas at night, we told the cab driver of Carlos' failures at love and he recommended San Francisco, saying the gay community is so over powered that any girl would dance with him and maybe more just for being straight, everyone but Carlos laughed, we were dropped off at this night market and that's when Carlos lost it, he started charging at us so all 3 of us darted ahead, and out ran him (Yes, my leg was dying from this, and YES, I did watch my step lol) we slowed down and waited for him, but he was even angrier than before, saying that we ditched him, and how could it be that we ditched him in a place he doesn't know, and that we are all jerks, but none of us know the place, none of us left eye sight, yet Carlos was furious about the whole ordeal and remained silent throughout our tour in the night market. Throughout the evening we bought reading material for the plane flight home tomorrow and it's how I got introduced to The Walking Dead comic ♥, anyhow as we finished shopping, Carlos, felt bad and apologized for over reacting, and we told him that it was cool he just needed to stop being a "Sensitive Sally", Patrick reiterated by calling him a "Negative Ned", Ale went vulgar and told him to stop being a "Cock up the ass Carlos", to which I finished whimsically and told him to stop being such an "Ungrateful Umberta". He told us to shut up and that he got the point; we got back to the hotel and just chilled, reading comics and the like.
End of Carlos' Breakdown
Sunday August 5th, 2012
The Sunday sun peered into the room, slicing through the blinds and warming us slightly as the last morning in LA began. We awoke, and gathered our things, we went out to N. Hollywood for one final breakfast, and whilst at the metro, waiting for the morning train we had grown accustomed to . As we waited we created a quick recap of all of Carlos' failed attempts to get a girlfriend during our trip, at this point he exploded saying, that he didn't because he had eyes for another, he showed us the pic and swore that they would be together officially in 2 months after he got back and saw her again on the 10th. I jokingly followed up with and if you fail, you have to change your name to Ungrateful Umberta, we all laughed, but Carlos had a serious demeanor, he stuck out his hand as if to signal the making of a serious bet, with Ale and Patrick as witnesses I shook his hand, the bet was solidified by the LA code of bet-titude (that's a thing). We then breakfasted, checked out and flew back to Washington, we then said our goodbyes and I went back to Patrick's and we told his mom the entire story as I am doing to you now, she laughed and told us that even though all of my friends couldn't go as planned, the ones who did go, where the ones who had to go to make the trip memorable, she was right! Few hours later, Pat took me to the bookstore so as to buy more volumes of The Walking Dead and then to the airport, we said our farewells and I returned to Costa Rica.
And that dear readers were the highlights of our impromptu trip to Cali, the trip that will forever be known as Carlosfornia!! Huh? What's that? You want to know if Carlos won the bet? Well, not exactly... After getting back we caught up our other friends, Jafar, Miguel, and Rhys of the bet that Carlos had initiated and the countdown officially began!
Here's a quick recollection of how the reminders went on Facebook;
So, as you can see, I did as any good friend would, and I helped him keep his word til the very end, and we will be celebrating "Umbertaversary" for the 3rd time this year on October 10th, uplfiting umbertaversary in advance all!! :D And yes, there are official Umbertaversary T-shirts, we aren't savages:
http://www.customink.com/designs/umberta/qdr0-0012-q35g/retrieve
(Carlos has a weird affection for Spider Man, perhaps one day I'll talk about why Umbertaversary has the characters it does in a future post)
And that dear readers were the highlights of our impromptu trip to Cali, the trip that will forever be known as Carlosfornia!! Huh? What's that? You want to know if Carlos won the bet? Well, not exactly... After getting back we caught up our other friends, Jafar, Miguel, and Rhys of the bet that Carlos had initiated and the countdown officially began!
Here's a quick recollection of how the reminders went on Facebook;
http://www.customink.com/designs/umberta/qdr0-0012-q35g/retrieve
(Carlos has a weird affection for Spider Man, perhaps one day I'll talk about why Umbertaversary has the characters it does in a future post)
Anyhow, alls well that ends well! Thanks so much for sticking around til the end of this story, if you liked these travel stories let me know and I may do some others in the future. As for now I wish you all a super special awesome day!!
Much Love,
Wachi
