Jenni goes stateside: City of angels

Apart from the anomaly year that was 2020, every year Ollie and I spend New Years on holiday. It isn't just some kind of cute tradition we've come up with, but more of a strategic decision to not waste 3 whole days of annual leave, plus 3 bank holidays, sitting around at home eating chocolate and leftover pigs in blankets. So instead, once Christmas is over, we jet off to somewhere more exciting. First it was Berlin, last year was New York, and this year we headed stateside again to ring in 2023 in LA.

We landed on LA because with a fairly generous holiday window, we figured it would be a missed opportunity not to go long haul, and Virgin had pretty reasonably priced direct flights to LA (£900 each). I have been to LA before (you can read what I got up to last time here). But that was nearly 10 years ago now (wow I'm getting so old), and last time I only spent a day there essentially, so I was excited to go back and explore properly.

For once, I actually ended up excited about the journey too! We'd originally booked economy seats and the night before our flight, we were looking at selecting seats and saw that they'd dropped the price of a first class upgrade to £1,500 (down from approximately £10,000 when we first booked). So feeling excited (and over spontaneous after a few baileys'), we upgraded to first class! It's been on my bucket list for ages and I figured that an 11 hour direct flight was the one to splash it on. If anyone remembers, we actually had a fiasco with our New Year holiday last year as we missed our flight to New York due to bad traffic and bad planning. So this year we were determined to have a more relaxing time and so we allows for 3 hours at the airport and 3 hours to get to Heathrow. Plenty right? Well, the same thing only nearly went and happened again!! It took us over 5 hours to get down to Heathrow (super heavy traffic once again) and we were both experiencing a sense of impending deja vu. Reading up in the car, it said that check-in closes 60 minutes before flights for economy passengers, and 50 minutes before for first class passengers. WELL, by the time we'd parked the car and ran to the desk, it was 53 minutes before our flight. No joke. We were first told that the gate was closed then this more senior person thankfully overheard, said it was 50 minutes for first class passengers, took over the check-in process, and handed us our boarding passes at 16:01 - 49 minutes before our flight! If ever there was an example of serendipity then this was it - upgrading to first class ended up being the best decision in more ways than one.

I say "in more ways than one", because it truly was a great experience. The service was so nice, the food was nicer than in plenty of restaurants, the champagne was free-flowing and then full height bed was bliss, especially on such a long night flight. If you're ever in the position to be able to upgrade then I'd say definitely do it. The only downside was that I've probably ruined myself for economy class for the rest of my life.

It was late by the time we'd waited for our luggage, and made the journey from LAX to our hotel (especially since in our brains, it was 8 hours later). So we pretty much just unpacked and went to bed, but our hotel was really lovely! We'd chosen the tommie Hollywood, because it looked lovely and modern and we figured that Hollywood would be a good base to explore everywhere we wanted to. It's hard to get your head around how big and sprawling LA actually is! In hind sight, I would've probably chosen somewhere in West Hollywood or Beverly Hills, since we didn't actually do much of the touristy/Disney/Universal stuff that's near Hollywood, and the restaurant choices were better in the other areas. Also, our hotel was lovely and modern as promised but it wasn't particularly practical for a 5 night stay; there were no wardrobes, cupboards, drawers, nothing. So there was no option but to live out of the suitcase, which is not my fave. It would be the perfect place for a long weekend stay but for a longer trip, we could've done with something more logically designed.

And then it was time for the fun to start! LA supposedly has year-round sunshine but I'd been checking the weather for the month or so before we went and it was around 15-20 degrees so not like sunbathing weather. But, still much nicer than at home! So we made the most of the sun on day one by eating our breakfast al fresco. For the all the things that Americans have ruined, I have to admit that they do a very good breakfast. My favourite thing about America remains the free, iced, delicious, regularly-topped-up tap water that you get at every meal. When you go anywhere in Europe, you have to pay about €7 for a relatively decent sized bottle. The US is hydration central! It's also calorie central of course, and I started as I meant to go on with red velvet waffles.

You can't very well stay in Hollywood and not do the Hollywood walk off fame can you? So that's exactly where we started and pretty much walked the length of it, seeing hot spots like the Dolby theatre and TCL Chinese theatre. I recognised a lot more names this time around than I remembered doing last time so either they've added more, or my pop culture knowledge has expanded over the last 8-9 years. Then once we'd had our fill of celebrity name spotting, we stopped for a cocktail or two. It was mainly just nice to be able to wander round and not feel cold! I'd gone with a springtime-esque wardrobe for LA, starting with a black midi dress, beige chunky trainers, cream leather jacket and gold jewellery.

Then we headed upwards to the Griffith observatory for amazing views and a shot of the Hollywood sign. We couldn't have gone on a more gorgeous day and as you'll read on, it was much cloudier for the rest of our trip so we really did time this one perfectly. The views of the hills and the city were so beautiful and the low sun was just the cherry on the cake.

The next stop on the itinerary was a right little gem! The Grove felt like we'd stepped onto a movie set or something; it was so cute and there were so many lovely shops including the original farmers market. We had a little wander around before stopping off for a late lunch, again making the most of the chance to sit outside!

The 'Urban Light' installation at the LACMA is somewhere I've wanted to go ever since I saw it featured in the film No strings attached, so it naturally went straight on the list when planning our LA trip. We managed to time it perfectly too! It was still light, but just dark enough to really make the lights pop.

The jet lag was catching up with us by that point so after a quick nap, we got ready to head out for the evening. After such a busy day, we didn't fancy going too far for dinner but we managed to find a lovely place called Beauty and Essex just round the corner from us. It was a very boujee kind of place and I learned a new term to describe these kind of places; "clubstaurant". Basically a restaurant that has nightclub vibes that invites dinner-and-drinks sort of people. So dark, stylish, cocktail-led and normally small plates. My kind of place summed up basically (although sometimes they go too far). This one was lovely, although the waiter did us dirty by recommending 5-6 dishes between us - they were all massive! And that's coming from a couple who regularly overorder and pig out. After such a feast, the only thing left to do was enjoy a couple of drinks on our hotel's rooftop bar to the backdrop of karaoke night!

The next day was much cloudier but that didn't stop us from making the most of the opportunity to sit outside for another monster breakfast feast. This one was at a very kitsch place called The breakfast club and I had the most amazing breakfast burrito.

We had tried to plan our itinerary to tackle one area at a time. Even this proved difficult because things in the same area are still miles from each other! But Thursday we were down to explore Beverly Hills, so we started with a little walk to the main sign, spotting city hall and some cool urban art installations along the way.

And then it was onto Rodeo drive! Which I have to say, was more fun in theory than in practise. Yes, I enjoyed admiring all the expensive pretty designer clothes (and Ollie enjoyed admiring all the expensive pretty designer cars). But it just instantly made you feel like you were wearing rags and like you were out of place. I'd even worn some more quality pieces for the day, knowing Shein crap wasn't going to cut it. And up until then, my outfit had felt expensive and lovely; satin wrap blouse, cream tailored trousers, black leather jacket, designer bag dupe. But then when you're very aware everyone else is wearing £1,000 coats, and seems to be judging you for not, it sucks the fun out fast! I've come to the conclusion that super rich fancy places are only fun if you're super rich and fancy.

Then it was time to revisit a favourite movie hotspot (the Beverly Wilshire), have a nosey at Beverly canon gardens and then stop for a cocktail at a cute little Mexican restaurant. That was one of my favourite things about LA actually; the concentration of Mexican restaurants was great.

This was one of my absolute highlights of the trip; a Blockbuster themed pop-up bar! It was so cool and the theme was in every little detail from the retro decor to the popcorn machine. All the cocktails were printed on video cases and you took it up to the bar to "to check it out" to order! We had such a fun time and although the cocktails were expensive (although only mildly more expensive than everywhere else in LA), they certainly weren't skimpy on the alcohol as we got pretty tipsy.

We continued on the cocktail wave back at our hotel rooftop's happy hour, where we got cheap frozen cocktails and even cheaper tacos!

The next day, we were straight back on the drinks as we were off to bottomless brunch! After a quick google, it was apparent that Americans don't do bottomless brunch the way we Brits do - it's a lot more tame. In the UK, everywhere that offers bottomless brunch includes 90-120 minutes of prosecco, beer, and cocktails. In LA, everywhere just seemed to do bottomless mimosas. Which ar first, I thought was a negative as it might get boring. But it actually worked out perfectly, because everyone in the place is on the same drink, so they just bring big carafes of it round and top you up endlessly. None of these rules about needing to be finished with a drink before ordering another one or anything. We went to a place called Eat this cafe and it was a great choice; my crab cakes benedict was amazing.

Up until this point we'd been getting ubers everywhere, which obviously isn't a very economic way to travel. Knowing we were going further this time, we decided to get the bus down to Santa Monica instead of a taxi. And essentially, that ended up being half of our activity for the day because it took so long!! It wasn't the worst though as it gave us chance to sober up from our generous bottomless brunch. When we did finally make it to Santa Monica pier, it was lovely! Very nostalgic seaside vibes. The sun had even come out for us!

Dinner this day was a recommendation and one that I've been meaning to try for a while; Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. It didn't disappoint at all; we got a ginormous sharer steak between us and it was amazing. We pretty much went in a food coma after this!

Just like that, it was new year's eve, and our last chance to make some 2022 memories. Luckily, we had an exciting day planned to do just that. Unluckily, the weather was awful! But that didn't stop us from exploring Downtown LA in the rain, ticking off the Walt Disney opera house, The Broad, and then Grand Central Market for the most amazing fried chicken sandwich.

I've always wanted to go to a live sports game in America, hoping it would be just like in the movies. So when we booked LA, the first thing we looked at was what live sports events were happening. A number of sports were either out-of-season or only had away games on during the time we were there, but the stars aligned and there was an ice hockey game on for the LA Kings. And it was exactly like the movies. The camera picking out audience members for dance-offs and competitions, a crazy atmosphere, a dress-up mascot and even come celebrities in the crowd (Will Ferrell and Steve-O were both there). Honestly it was so much fun and I'd highly recommend it.

Last New Year, we planned a lovely meal out in the evening followed by a rooftop party. But we found we were so full from the dinner, that we couldn't enjoy the open bar to the max! So this year, we made a strategic decision to have an early dinner tagged onto our daytime plans, instead of tagging it onto our evening. It was another case of serendipity too, as we decided to find somewhere near our hotel instead of wandering around downtown. But the place we got the uber to had a note stuck on the door saying due to an electrical fire, they'd had to shut. So we re-googled and I found that LA had a Pizzereia Da Michele; my latest obsession. I mean, the serendipity wasn't great for the poor restaurant that had to shut for new years, but it worked out okay for us. Pizzeria Da Michele is the best OG pizza place in Naples, even as told to me by multiple people from Naples. I first tried their pizza at the branch in Manchester and it was amazing so I had high hopes for it in LA too. It didn't disappoint - it was just as incredible as I'd remembered.

Then it was party time! 8 hours later than everyone back home, we rang in the new year in style, at a rooftop party in Beverly Hills. Rooftop parties for new years are kind of our thing. It was in a lovely fancy hotel this time and they had the main room and then a lovely semi-outside part lined with fairy lights. What a beautiful place to welcome in 2023 right?

We were heading home on New Year's Day but not until like 5pm, so we decided we had time to squeeze in one last activity before heading to the airport and waving goodbye. And that activity ended up being amazing! I'd seen bottomless champagne brunch cruises on my search of LA activities but it seemed like they weren't going to doing one over the festive period. But lo and behold, they had just named it specifically for new years, and so we booked tickets from Marina del Ray for Sunday morning. The weather was beautiful again by then, so we enjoyed a couple of hours of meandering around the marina (it wasn't a particularly sightseeing-led cruise), drinking free-flowing champagne and eating some truly amazing food (see also: the most random plate of food you've ever seen in your life). It was a fabulous way to end the trip, and an even more fabulous way to start the brand new year. What a trip it was in the city of angels with my favourite angel.