One Month Already

 

I realized it has already been a month since I travelled to the States. I still don't feel like this whole thing is real. Everything is so surreal and I kind of experience it all through a filter.

I have been down to Westwood Village a little. It is a pretty odd place. Seems very small-town. Living at UCLA is very much a bubble experience.

After seeing this year's Golden Globes, I finally pulled myself together and saw Mr. Robot. It was of course brilliant. I also found out about My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend in all its' musical glory.

 

 My flatmates and I went to Santa Monica to stop by a few bars. The Bungalow had such a nice atmosphere with inside trees and lanterns, but it was packed. Also, this pink car is probably the most stylish thing I've ever seen. And all the places closed at 2! Such a difference from back home. So we went back to the flat and watched Footloose. Lovely.

Sunday Kimya and I went to watch The Revenant at Landmark. They had a bunch of costumes on display! Pretty fun.

 And an Anamolisa set on display! It was fun to see the scale of the puppets.

After the film, Lexi came to pick us up and we drove to Beverly Hills for a late-night snack. We got sundaes at Sprinkles, which is basically a cupcake split in two with an ice cream cone in the middle. Most American thing I think I have eaten as of now.

  

There was a campuswide High School Musical reunion hype last week. It was really fun to follow. And we watched the film as well. 

And I had rehearsals for my first production weekend last week! There will be a good handful of kids on this one. 

I have spent time in the stop motion lab as well. It is pretty fun coming up with new ideas for all these different projects I am doing for my classes every week. But the work load is challenging too. Four creative classes is a bit of a stretch. At least I am still having fun with all of them.

 I pass this statue on my way to class every day. I cannot help but wonder...

And Valentine's frenzy has already begun. It is... big here.

Today in Costume Design we had Danny Glicker come by and talk about his work. It was very rewarding and he was a good speaker.

Firsts and Lasts at Disneyland

I am a member of this Disneyland carpool group on Facebook and one girl wrote to ask if someone would join her in going to see the last shows of Fantasmic and Aladdin January 10th. And then we kind of figured something out... I went to meet with her the day before and it was good to get to know each other before Disney.

And my flatmates became convinced that it was necessary for them to join as well so we ended up being a party of four!

The show started. Naturally I could not help comparing it to the full-lenght musical that I have seen in Denmark, but the 45-minute musical spectacular was pretty darn great.

They had all the key scenes, really great costumes that had much higher accuracy than the Danish musical ones and the jokes were brilliant!

The carpet was actually almost my favourite character. The girl playing it was so energetic and gave her best in every scene.

In both "Prince Ali" and "A Whole New World" they had actors outside the stage. Ali came in on a giant elephant amongst the audience and they had a flying carpet fly over our heads. So that was really great! I just never know where to look when stuff is happening in more than one place!

Jokes were brilliant. Genie even made a "Jafar, Ja-near" joke...

And then it was over. And people in the theatre actually cried. It makes sense - it's been a part of their lives for the past 13 years. But still, crying in Disneyland is the worst feeling.

I Disneybounded Jasmine.

 

I recorded throughout the day as well! Fantasmic's boasts were amaziiiing!

We ate Disneyland churros (which is apparently something you kind of have to try while there) and I met with Oswald. I kind of think he is cuter than Mickey...

The park was so big! And yet a lot of the attractions were not very tall, because they are the original versions. You can't even see the castle in that 2nd photo and we were standing right in front of it! Tiny castle is tiny. Still pretty though!

When darkness fell the number of visitors fell and we actually got to do something else than wait in queues all the time. We did get stuck in Pirates for a while, but I got to try the Christmas versions of Haunted Mansion and Jungle Cruise. It was a big surprise to me that they were still up and I was very lucky - because they would be taken down the very next day. No more Nightmare Before Christmas until Halloween!

We had the BEST experience in the Tiki Room as well. The presenter we had, Maynard, is apparently super famous. Because we were laughing so much he cranked up the humour a bit and I was in tears by the end of his routine. So great!

And then we saw the last Fantasmic, then fireworks and the parade. And then Hannah's parents were so sweet and drove us home! 1st Visit was a great success!