TRAVEL | My first time to Los Angeles

The year 2013 has definitely started out with a bang.

On January 3rd, I got a phone call from a California number, answered with a confused 'hello?' and was told that I'd been selected to be a part of a special on-stage audience at this year's People's Choice Awards. In LA. Was this a joke?

I had applied a couple weeks prior to the phone call after seeing a tweet from Gotham Casting - I always apply for things, it's like a reflex. Anyways, so that happened and I obviously said yes to the opportunity. But this meant basically putting everything else on hold for the time being...which I was okay with, since school wasn't going to be starting up again for another week - talk about perfect timing.

So this is going to be a two-part blog post - this first one being about my trip to LA as a whole, featuring the food, places we explored and all that touristy stuff. THEN I'll get to the excitement of the PCAs in part 2.

My Cali adventure began on Sunday, January 6th and I brought my friend Brittney along. We flew into the airport in Orange County (yes, The OC theme song may have been playing on my Ipod as we flew in....) and then made our way to our hotel in downtown LA. We chose a hotel that was close to The Nokia Theatre, since that was the main area we had to be in for the awards show; little did we know that other than L.A. Live, there really wasn't much in the downtown area. But we did get an awesome deal on it, so we were okay with it.

We didn't have time to do much when we first arrived, but our first meal of the trip was at Wolfang Puck and was delicious, take a look:

The next day we had the morning/early afternoon to explore downtown LA before a PCA rehearsal. This is what we found:

Grand Park - cute pink furniture!

Bottega Louis (above & below) - Such a cute restaurant and bakery!!!

Then at the PCA rehearsal, we met some locals who recommended we check out The Standard hotel so we did that night and it was so cool!

Funny face menus and yummy desserts!

Gorgeous rooftop and view of the city!

The next day we had a whole day to roam around so we did checked out The Grove and Venice Beach.

 Got to be in the audience of an Extra taping - Sighhhhh, why can't they just hire me already?!

Venice Beach - so nice!

 Stunning.

I loved getting to escape the cold Toronto weather for a bit and to set foot on a beach in January!!

I know I've overwhelmed you all with tons of photos, so that's enough for now. Up next is part 2, featuring my experience on the People's Choice Awards stage.

- Christina

Follow my adventures on Twitter: @christinaaa28

All photos taken by me | Please contact for use