Hey guys! I am sitting in a coffee shop near Burbank, CA and I figured I would write a blog entry while I can get free wifi (which I also have in my hotel but this is more social :-) )...
Day 1
Yesterday was a strange day - almost the entire day I was lethargic, feeling congested, and just overall BLAH. After breakfast (from the last blog entry), I went up to my hotel room and crashed for about 4 hours. In retrospect, I think I needed yesterday to decompress from all the hecticness of my life back in Orlando, leading up to (and including preparation for) this trip. To be honest, over the last few months, I don’t feel like I've really been myself - I've had lots of issues physically (pain, stiff joints, digestion problems, etc.) and emotionally (frustration, annoyances, sadness, etc.) For the first time in a while I actually had nothing to do - so my body just shut down and slept. When I woke up I basically didn't move from the couch in the room - I stared out over the 101 Freeway (where my hotel is), where I can see the backside of the Hollywood Hills, watching the traffic go whizzing by from 19 floors up in the sky…
It’s really beautiful out here, scenery wise and weather wise, and one of the reasons I love Los Angeles (as I’m sure many do). The fog in the morning is really cool, seeing how it literally sits in between the hills. Coming in Thursday night, I took the 405 north towards the San Fernando valley, and as I made my way to the 101 Freeway I saw all the sparkling lights down in the valley below - it was beautiful! And during the day it gets to mid 70's, low humidity, not a cloud in the sky today, and you can see the mountains in the sky's background. I wish I lived in an area with Mountains - and water, the combination of the 2 would be ideal...
Anyway, after I got myself together yesterday, I realized I need to eat something. So I did a search on my phone for vegetarian / vegan restaurants (since they're so easy to find out here, practically a dime-a-dozen), and found this amazing place 5 minutes from my hotel. It's called the Sun Cafe and most of their food is vegan or raw. I had a Kale salad, paired with a cup of Potatoe Dill soup, and perhaps the most amazing shake I've ever had! It was called the Strawberry Superfood Shake, and consisted of blended Strawberries, Goji fruit, Cashews, and agave. Man was that good! I posted a picture of it on Facebook...
After lunch, I headed to the nearest Trader Joe's supermarket to pick up a few things like water, snacks, etc. For those not in the know, Trader Joe's is like a cheaper version of Whole Foods - lots of organic options for food and products. They are building a few stores in Orlando / Winter Park, and I am super excited!
One thing you learn very quickly when driving in LA - there is traffic everywhere, and with all those cars comes a serious shortage of parking (or, parking that is charged - like everywhere you go in Hollywood, or central LA, you have to pay for parking!! Other parts of the metro are easier though). The plaza housing this Trader Joe's in Studio City was no exception - everyone is piled on top of one another, aggressively stalking each other for the empty space. When one person waits for a prior occupant to relinquish the space, all the other cars behind it are stuck waiting as well, which leads to even more cars waiting, and then being backed into the road. It's crazy how it all works - but I guess if you live here you get used to it. Orlando has its traffic problems too, but definitely not like LA...
Later, I called up my friends Louis and Karie (who live in Burbank) to go out to dinner. It's been kind of a tradition - started the first time I came to LA for work, and every time since we've met up for dinner. It's been either a sushi restaurant or a Japanese Ramen Noodle Restaurant, just across from that sushi place. Both are in a mall called the Burbank Town Center, a newer-looking shopping plaza and mall, movie theater, etc. Love me some Noodle soup! I can get it in Orlando, but somehow it's different out here - more variety, more options. Anyway we decided later that night to meet at our Ramen place (Orochon Ramen Burbank), but I got there a bit early so I just walked around the mall and the outdoors part of the connected plaza. Once we met up, we spent about 2 hours just chatting, laughing, catching up since the last time we saw each other. I knew Louis back in Elementary School (and Middle School), so we've known each other a long time, and it's really cool that we have kept in touch all this time...
After dinner I drove back to the hotel and just crashed. I slept pretty hard again - I guess my body is still adjusting to the time change and overall feeling of ickiness...
Day 2
This morning, however, I felt much better. I did a full and complete Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga practice in my hotel room (I didn't yesterday, though it might have helped me feel better). Man oh man, that was one of the best practices I've had in a long time. It was magic! For my yoga friends (especially those who know me well), they know my backbends are always a challenge for me and have been since day 1 of my practice. This is contrary to what I actually hear from other teachers and/or students who observe my practice - they say my backbends are really open and graceful - I assure you the look is very VERY different from the feel! Somehow, though, this morning I had an insight - I could visualize my psoas muscle working to open my hips and control my decent backwards. It somehow worked, and I just glided down and up, down and up. I literally came out of the backbends going WOW!!
Then it got better - before final 3 poses just prior to savasana, final resting pose, I turned off the lights of the room, but sunlight still beamed through the small opening of the curtains to my room (which were, otherwise, closed). The sunlight actually shined on my head and my body - it was like a movie, sort of like I was emitting the light myself, and helped me feel connected to everything. It was so amazing...
Then I showered, called my friend Monica (it's her birthday today!), and got ready to go out for some breakfast. I decided to checkout a local bagel place - found a place called Western Bagel, and had a strawberry bagel with butter accompanied with a hot chocolate with soy. That place didn't have wifi though, so I made my way to Priscilla's Coffee - a neat little local coffee shop, where I sit now and blog, having some passion fruit herbal tea :-)
So what to do now? I don't know, I don't have a specific plan - and it's weird, I feel a bit uneasy, but I think this is what I need to experience right now. I need to learn to let go of attachment to a plan, to a schedule, to make sure that something is completed, a box is checked. I live so much of that in my life back home, that taking a few days off to let life lead me where it does is not a bad thing...
That's all for now - sending <3 :-)
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