Ok I have a lot of catching up to do, other than last months MMH, I've been procrastinating writing up my recent adventures... so lets start with last month, on the 25th. It was our one year anniversary, we had saved up a little money all year to be able to do something, albeit not much since we had a few emergency's that needed the money, but we tried our hardest.
We ended up going to Universal Studio's Hollywood Theme Park in for the day, and since there was a discount for southern cali locals, we ended up getting year round passes... so other than a handful of black out dates, we can go whenever we want, and all we have to pay for is food and any extras we get... gotta admit its pretty spiffy :p
As long as we use it of course, its about an hour and a half away so gas would be a bit much, but hey for like a date night once every month or so, thats not bad :p
The only thing I wasn't too keen on is that they had more shows than rides, I had been to adventure island that's connected to Universal Theme Park over in Orlando and it was like all rides and they were awesome and this wasn't like that at all. Yea it was cool, and fun to explore... but I was still disappointed in the ride department, let me take you on a little tour with pictures.
All the main stuff and shows were on the upper deck, and outside is City Walk, which you don't need tickets to get in and most the parking takes you right to, which I gotta say was one of the coolest parts, they had restaurant's of every kind, one was Bubba-gump shrimp, which the only place I've ever seen that was when I was in Chicago years ago, and they had stores like I'd never seen, one's that I had only ever seen in the magazine and didn't even know there was actual stores, and other cool store's I'd never been too, like one was just for socks (picture later on) But Michael had never been to the Hard Rock Cafe, so we ate there.
Food wasn't that great, but hey, that's the Hard Rock Cafe for you, more of an experience then a great place to eat at and I figured he had to try it once to at least say he has been :p
Then we found this awesome candy shop... with some of the coolest things there, we agreed to come back and raid the store at some point, lol we just couldn't do much of city walk since we had a full day ahead of us at Universal, so NEXT TIME! woot.
Since we couldn't waste our whole day in City Walk, after the candy shop we headed over to the theme park to get things started, got through pretty quick and I gotta say even though its lacking in rides the place is still pretty amazing. Movies sets everywhere, with shops, and shows, which we weren't able to see any that day unless we wanted to forgo a ride, and we wanted to try them all at least once. When we got done with all of them it was too late, so thats another thing for next time. As I was saying, that place was pretty decked out, I think the rides were more like effect experiences than roller coasters because it was a theme park more then an amusement park and so they focused on a lot of things that their studio was good at, so the whole place is more of a huge movie experience.
so after we explored a bit of the upper deck (not all of it because it's huge) we headed down to the lower deck, which I'm pretty sure is actually Universal Studios. Because there was a lot of stage buildings that were not used but the theme park, and you could take tours. but anyways the way to get down there was pretty cool, you actually took a bunch of escalators, as pictured below
First ride we went on was the Jurassic Park ride, which was a huge mistake because we got soaked...should have done that one last :p oh well...anyways the ride wasn't my favorite, you kinda went up a hill to float around a river a bit with robotic dinosaurs around us and a narrator who talked about how we had to escape, then you go in a blacked out building with sirens, you halt to a abrupt stop...and a TRex thrusts his head up right in front of us, scaring the shit out of everyone (did I mention we were in the front row) and then you go over the edge super fast and I swear it was like 90 degree angle... and then you get soaked by the splash you make coming down... but I didn't like it much, I mean I'm glad I did it, just to say I did it, but I'm not a fan of the ones that build way to much anticipation while you wait to go over a scary edge, not my thing.
After we went on right to the next ride. The Mummy ride...now both lines said they were like hour waits and I think we got in a lot quicker, I think the Jurassic park line was only a half an hour and mummy maybe 45 mins...so it wasn't too bad, I was really hoping this ride wasn't like the last, I mean I didn't expect to get wet or anything but I was hoping it was more of a roller coaster, which it actually was. Now it was inside a building so there is only so much you can do, but this one was more of a speed thing, whipping you around a bit and going fast with cool effects popping out at you. I gotta say it was my favorite, it was throughly enjoyable, a little short, I wish it lasted a bit longer, but I do wish to go back on in next time for sure! maybe even a couple times through.
after I really needed a drink, so we got waters, and headed over to the newest Transformers ride, which the estimated line time is said was an hour and a half, and we figured since the others were pretty quick it shouldn't be too bad... well we were very much mistaken, for we spent over 3 hours in line, and we would have left sooner but once you got inside you really didn't know how long the line was, there was sooooooo many rooms the line weaved through, that we were hoping with the 2 couples behind us the around the next bend would be the ride... but it seemed it would never end.
Now normally people just get really tired of standing for that long, but it was really bad for my 1/4th of the way through because I have bad Circulation in my feet so I was in sooo much pain.
the ride itself was cool, it was an amazing 3D simulation... that was really impressive, and I'm glad I have done it at least once, but I'm not sure it was worth the wait... it really didn't help that we went on a Saturday :p but hey at least now we know how long the line actually is once inside the building... because you would never expect it considering how long you actually wait on the outside.
Once we finally got out, we headed to one of the little museums before heading out, which had some costumes from universal movies through the ages, and a large Paranorman exhibit, and a little Coraline exhibit as well.
After we thought we might have enough time to head over to Hollywood Blvd, check out the stars and get a picture with the hollywood sign behind us, so we headed out, not before getting matching anniversary leather engraved bracelets that said "One Year Strong" as souvenirs, and heading back through City Walk. We were surprised at just how busy it was, really it was just as bustling as earlier in the day, except totally different crowd, men in suits and ties, women in stilettos and tight dresses, I mean there was still tourists lingering, but it was definitely Date/party town, and once we got further in there was also a concert going on, the whole court yard was filled with people, it was pretty amazing.
it was definitely a cool place to come to and we would have stayed and had dinner, but we wanted to catch the hollywood sign before it got too dark...so we left...(big mistake)
After we left we headed to hollywood blvd, and about 2 blocks away in a dark neighborhood our car broke down. Pretty much left me devastated, because one, we couldn't afford to fix the car again or get it towed, and 2 we were SO CLOSE to everything.
Basically the rest of the night we spent at a Burger King until 12 waiting for my mother to come pick us up after a helpful young woman helped us figure out what was wrong and get us to burger king.
and then we didn't get home until around 2am.
it was a long stressful evening, the Burger King wasn't in a nice part of town and a couple suspicious people came in the throughout the night, one including a homeless man who had come in asking people for money then got in a fight with I think the manager, telling him to leave or he would call the police, and to my surprise the homeless man didn't leave, he just sat there and cussed out the Burger King employee.
I admit, with everything going on, and knowing we couldn't afford to get the car fixed, I stressed out and cried, I was tired and sore as well...and for a while we didn't know if mom was going to pick us up, and we didn't have money to be able to stay at a motel, so it was scary for a while.
We finally made it home, got the car brought back a few days later by the help of a friend's friend, and it turned out to be nothing major so we got it fixed for now. Oh and it took me around 4 days for my feet to recover :p
So what a strange long trip our one year anniversary was.
