Winter Break 2008! the first 4 days: Ventura, LA, Simi Valley

Hey Just thought I would make a blog so I won't forget what I have done on my Winter Break 2008.
Here is the trip plan:

December 17-23
Visit LA area: Stay in Ventura county and visit Patagonia the first couple of days .then move into LA to visit my friends Sydney and Brandon.

December 23-26
Fly into ottawa hang out with family and see grandma. Bringing all the ski gear with and hoping that weather permits.

Dec 26-29:
Go to pennsylvania to visit uncle richard and aunt maria for the last couple nights of channuka and hopefully go skiing.

December 30- January 3
Go to new york city and hang out with sister and some friends from NC state for new years.



So here is a pretty decent account of the main things I have done the first couple of days.

Day 1: December 17
Andrew drove me to the airport in raleigh from our house on Chamberlain street. Plane left at 5:30AM so we left the house after about 2 hours of sleep at 4:00AM. Then I did the whole plane flight thing, I first went to Atlanta then to LAX, I arrived at 11:00 pacific time. From the airport I took the shuttle straight from the airport to ventura county and checked into my hotel the country inn. The country inn was a cool little spot right between downtown ventura and the beach front. I have a couple of pictures from the beach front that I will post later. Ventura is a really clean and nice city. It kind of reminded me of oak island except the streets were a bit more busy and a bigger population. Ryan Thompson, my connection at Patagonia picked me up that night and took me out to a Patagonia staff christmas party. The people that I met there were really laid back and interesting. Most of them did some sort of cool sport like hiking, surfing, skiing, snowboarding, ice climbing, rock climbing. They were all decked out fully in Patagonia gear. In addition to all the small talk at the party I was able to talk to some of them a bit about their jobs and what they did at Patagonia.

Day 2
Woke up early this morning and got ready for my visit to Patagonia. I brought my suit to wear during the tour and interviews but decided against wearing it because Patagonia's laid back culture. Instead I wore my khakies, collared shirt and a jacket. I was still the most overdressed by far in the whole administrative building. Some people werent even wearing shoes. When I walked in the door the receptionist sounded like the biggest surfer dude ever, apparently he works there during the winter to answer the phone and greet people when they come in, and during the summer he works as a surf instructor. That day I had a couple of appointments with people around Patagonia. First I talked to the wetsuit product developer who had a lot of really cool things to say about the wetsuit technology and how they develop it. It seemed like he had a really cool job making sure that the factories worked well with them and finding improvements in technology and features to add to the patagonia wetsuit. I also met with the ski/ snowboard gear/jacket developer. After most of the day hanging out there, Ryan brought me to the outlet store there and hooked me up with his corporate discount. I bought a really nice ski jacket there for half price. I am pretty excited about getting to try it out in Canada in a couple days.

Day 3
Woke up early and arranged for my departure to Ventura to LA to visit my really good friend from when I was growing up. We went to school together from preschool through the first two years of college and back home we both hung out all the time because she lived on my street. That morning I bought a ticket for the amtrak that departs at 2:50 and then set off to wander around Ventura. I walked around downtown for a couple hours and did some Channukah shopping and saw some cool museums.. Then I was off to LA. After I met up with Sydney in LA we went to some of her friends plays. Her and a bunch of these friends are some of the many aspiring actresses and actors in LA. After the play we went to a bar near sydney's apartment with a bunch of her friends till about 2AM. After that we all went to one of her friends house's in Burbanks, which is a suburb in the northern part of LA. We had a good time just partying it up and jammin on the guitar till about 6:00. LA is such a huge populated city!!! 16 lanes of traffic constantly everywhere you go no matter the time of night or morning!

Day 4
After sleeping in until about 2:00 sydney, her friend, and I went out in Burbanks to get some lunch/dinner. we ate at a cool little pizza spot then walked around the town for a bit and saw some really cool shops. There are so many people in LA that there is pretty much every sort of store and shop you can think of packed down every single street.
After this I went back with sydney to her place said my goodbyes and got a ride out to Simi Valley to hang out with Brandon. I spent the first semester my sophomore year doing a National Student Exchange in Hawaii, and Brandon was one of my best buddies there. We both lived in the same apartment building and hung out with all the same people. A couple hours and a broken down car later I was hanging out in Simi Valley with Brandon.
That night his next door neighbor was having their annual christmas party at their place so we went over and partied with them. The area that Brandon lives in is super nice! Their neighbors had a huge place looked like something out of that tv show cribs. It had it's own home theater with sound proof walls, built into the wall surround sound speakers, and a huge projection screen with a couple rows of the huge leather chairs. The party was pretty fun, a lot of families were there but also a bunch of people our age who were friends of one of the neighbors who was 20 years old. It had a really good time hanging out and meeting some new people and soaking up the simi valley life.


Well today is Day 5 and Ill just say that so far it has been an amazing first night of Channukah. BUt... I am tired of typing right now so I will do the entry for today tomorrow or on the plane to ottawa on tuesday.

Daniel

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