Beverly Hills Safari!

What's up world? I just got done studying for an hour or so after getting back from ROTC. I'm getting used to the frequent studying. At first it depressed me a little bit. But now I'm caught up in it all and the whole situation makes a great story, especially if I succeed.

So I just watched a Youtube video about the symbolism behind a deck of cards. It wasn't that interesting. It was something about King Jesus and whatever and I'm like yeah but you could say that about anything. The interesting part was that there's 52 weeks in a year, 52 cards, 4 seasons, 4 suits; it's a calendar basically. So then I was like, I love decks of cards! I always travel with one! Then I realized I had already blogged about cards back in September. Yeah, so now I have nothing to blog about. I wonder if eventually I'll hit a point where I have literally blogged about every thought that has ever crossed my mind and I completely run out of material. I doubt that will happen. But for the time being I have nothing to write about. I know, I'll tell you a story. I love telling stories but my family and girlfriend hear so many they've stopped listening to them. So, what story should I tell? What memory from my exciting life should I immortalize on the internet? Hmmm I'm having trouble deciding, I'll look at my Facebook photos to dig up some material. Oh my God! Yes I got one! I will tell the story of my Beverly Hills Safari! Sit down and strap in because this is a good one.

So the time was Summer 2010. I spent that summer partying and manly at Bardstown road. But when I wasn't working as a lifeguard, or partying at BTR, I was traveling. Among several journeys that summer, was a two week trip to Southern California. This was my first time going to SoCal and seeing my good friend Alex face to face. So July 28th rolled around fairly quickly and I flew off to LA.

Ok pause. A big part of my enjoyment in traveling is NOT tourism. In fact I believe tourism and travel are completely different. Being a tourist to me is the worst way to spend any trip. Riding around in an open-roofed big red double-decker bus while being barked at by tour guides is miserable. Not only is it boring, not only are you getting laughed at by everyone, but you're just looking at all the fun. It's like going to a really nice restaurant but just sitting in the waiting room watching everyone else eat dinner, and someone's telling you all the history of the restaurant and other shit you don't care about. Why fly all the way over to LA, to sit on a tour bus and look at everyone have fun in Santa Monica? No fuck that! I wanna roam around my destination as I please and be free to play in the sand as much as I want!

But worst of all, when you're a tourist you are hated and ridiculed by the locals no matter where you are. When I travel, I want to experience the lifestyle of my destination. Whether that's the highlands of Honduras, South Beach, Beverly Hills, or Europe; every city has a certain mood and a lifestyle to accompany it. Being a tourist is just looking at it. Being a traveler is experiencing that lifestyle.

So when I travel, I act like I live there even if it's only a matter of days. I dress like I belong there, act like I know where I'm going and what I'm doing, and I don't do touristy shit. But unfortunately, my mother and father look like the biggest damn tourists in the city. My dad takes pictures of everything, my mom just looks lost all the time, and then I'm wearing aviator sunglasses with a polo and $100 watch 15 feet behind them. But whatever. Long story short, I want to experience the lifestyle, not the tourism; so I act like I live there. Resume.

Alex and I stayed away from much of the tourist stuff and focused on just broing it out in Los Angeles. The city is a giant playground, it'd be hard for us to ever be bored. I fit in wherever we went (we never looked like fucking tourists that's for sure), and by the time I was halfway through my trip I felt like I'd grown up in LA. I had the smug attitude, I was sending entrees back at restaurants because it wasn't exactly how I ordered it, I was making fun of Latinos, it was great!

So we had a free day on Wednesday and Alex's friend Daniel was telling us how it's a fun time to go to Beverly Hills and chill and check out girls and cars for the day. I thought it sounded like an absolutely fantastic idea, and so did Alex. The only problem is we'd have to work out the logistics. Ok, so if we go to Beverly Hills we HAVE to make a stop in Hollywood for a cigar, and parking plus traffic in Hollywood AND Beverly Hills would be a nightmare, so...fuck. Then Alex's mother came to the rescue with an idea!

She told us there's a pretty bus company that for just $20 you get a ticket for a bus that goes from Hollywood to Beverly Hills to West Hollywood and back to Hollywood all day and night, and parking is included. We could park in Hollywood, chill there for a while, hop on the bus to Beverly Hills, chill there for a while, then hop on and see West Hollywood real quick before going back home. Awesome! Perfect solution!

So Wednesday rolled around and Alex and I dressed like we were going shopping in Beverly Hills, got and the car and made the drive to Hollywood. When we got there we acquired our ticket and ran into a bit of a surprise. The buses that were taking us around LA were those big humiliating double-decker open-roofed buses. We had just spent $40 for a TOUR of Los Angeles! With our heads down we got on the bus, which was filled with Asians, families, old people with those white visors, and single men in their 40's. Oh well. When we get off on Rodeo Drive, we'll just dip into a store immediately and come back out so it looks like we're not tourists.

Sooner or later we did just that, and went to a cute little Panini Cafe on Rodeo Drive for lunch. There were agents talking on their phones, really really really rich housewives, the whole lot. This was THE place to eat lunch. While eating, I whipped out my iPhone a curious question that'd been on my mind for some time: the location of the Playboy Mansion. It was about five miles. I told Alex it was a little under two and convinced him to make the walk!

So there we were. Two high schoolers, wearing polo shirts, walking through the streets of Beverly Hills passing one celebrity house after the other to get to the Playboy Mansion....for five miles. After a bit of complaining from Alex ("Decker, there is no way this is under two miles."), we finally came up on a tiny alleyway called Charing Cross Road. You would have never noticed the Playboy Mansion was just a short walk down that road unless you knew where you were going. Take a left there, take a stroll down the hill and boom, you're at the Playboy Mansion.

Then we had to walk back. Was it worth it? Fuck yeah. Do you know how many people have been to the Playboy Mansion? Like no one. So that's my story. I hope you liked it. Until next time...