Dance The Night Away In Los Angeles
By: Xindi Liu
When my roommate and I started planning our potential summer trip, a year had already passed since we left high school and separated from other friends. Luckily, this voyage to Los Angeles gave us the opportunity to reminisce about the old days and to make up for our never-happened high school graduation trip. Los Angeles was a trip of finding childhood memories, finding friends together, and finding our true selves.
The afternoon we arrived was beautiful and warm, typical weather for California. We immediately set out on the road to not waste any time we had with the city. Even though we were stuck in traffic for quite a long time before getting to the top of the hill for the Griffith Observatory, the view was definitely worth it. By the time we jumped out of the Uber, the sun had begun to settle down, leaving a well-mixed brush of orange, yellow, and gray across the sky. We ran to the edge of the platform — the Hollywood sign was there calling. Just like all the movies we had seen, everyone was waiting for it. In the next few hours, we witnessed the entire process of the moon taking over the job of the sun. We saw the city skyline gradually blurring to a shade of barbie pink, and the crowd’s movements seemed to be put into slow motion. They were now little birds resting on tree branches in clutches, longing for the far end where the Hollywood sign was.
Eventually, the night came. We could still hear some laughters, some chatters, and some twitters, but those were coming from invisible creatures hidden by the darkness. We walked down the hill, amazed by the myriad twinkling lights of the city and of how much potential was hidden by them. As soon as we got back to the hotel, we flung ourselves to bed, letting dreams of countless stars take over our minds, and imagining about the new adventure we would find tomorrow.
On our second day we went to Beverly Hills and saw the life of luxury and wealth, but what we were able to experience on the third day was what everyone was actually looking forward to! The Warner Bros. Studio, just as the name signified, was a place full of innocence and dreams. We made ourselves into the “best” wizards of the magic world by participating in duels, making potions, and learning to recognize different fantastic beasts. In addition, we jumped into the world of Friends, Jurassic Park, and the Big Bang Theory. We went through actual sites where all these shows were filmed and pretended we were the actual actors. We also learnt about the numerous histories and stories behind script writing and film production. We realized in this manmade world of witchcraft, fiction, and tales how much the hard work was behind creating them.
When we returned to reality, we decided it was time to immerse ourselves into the Los Angeles summer. It was the perfect time to go to Santa Monica beach. The sun was quite shy that day, hiding itself behind the thick layer of clouds. But the sand and the ocean were always there; the tide ebbed and flowed, just like how it did many years ago and how it will many years after. We stepped onto the off-white beach and felt it soft and cool, without the sun directly burning it to a degree where people would have to do a tap dance when stepping on it. The cold and salty seawater brushed against our insteps. It all started very childish, probably because we were affected by our younger selves back from the studio, so one of the boys who traveled with us first took off his T-shirt and decided to jump into the water. The other boy soon followed, leaving the three of us standing on shore speechless, since we were the ones who didn’t bring our swimsuits after waking up in the morning just to realize it was quite freezing. In the end, I curled up my pants and decided to not waste the precious time we had in this beautiful west coast city. At the end of the day, when we were leaning on the handrail and overlooking the beach from a distance, the wind blowing the hair off our faces, we looked at one another and smiled. Youth meant to let the sea water soak your entire curled-up trousers, and eventually having to go buy a new pair of shorts (of course this wasn’t me, but my two other friends); it meant to play frisbee on the beach, and bury one of yours up as tall as possible with the sand; it also meant to sit back to back calming down after going wild for a few hours, thinking about having a great seafood dinner later. In general, it just meant to treasure the time we were together.
On the last day before leaving, the big thing came eventually — we went to Universal. Of course, a morning at Warner Bros. Studio wouldn’t be enough. We needed to traverse to the actual worlds. The crowds didn’t stop us from traversing from one world to another. We started with Kung Fu Panda, going on an adventure with him to protect a treasure and safely get it into the good men’s hands. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was next. Its guardian beasts were there looking over us, trying to eliminate all evilness. Buckbeak sat in its nest mocking us when we screamed on the roller coaster. The brave and battlewise wizards from Durmstrong Institute showed us their fighting skills with sticks, along with the elegant and flexible witches from Beauxbatons Academy of Magic who performed with silk ribbons. Harry Potter and Ron Weasley led us through huge spiders, dementors, and even a Quidditch match on brooms. My eyes were half-closed during the entire trip of flying. We left the wizarding world with great reluctance through Diagon Alley, where the wands, robes, and butterbeer were sold. A few more worlds awaited us — an exciting sprint in the boat escaping Jurassic World, a terrifying chase with the Pharaoh in the pyramid, and a warm greeting with Mario in the castle. We left Universal reluctantly but also with great satisfaction from having a great time. It wasn’t my first time at Universal, but every time there was always something more for me to dig deeper.
We left Los Angeles, knowing the real great time had passed, since we all had summer work and other tasks waiting for us to accomplish. But we would always remember the time we danced the night away in the streets of Los Angeles and the magical time we all spent together.
Xindi Liu is a sophomore double-majoring in Biometry & Statistics and Environmental Engineering. Her favorite place to travel is London, the United Kingdom, because of all the shows and movies she has seen, this place has a special attraction to her culturally.
