Watch Out, World! - The Traveling Band Geek

Today is one of the worst school days ever. Just to get things clear, it's still first period. How can it be the worst? Because not two days ago was I chilling in Los Angeles with my new family friends. Then yesterday I was in Las Vegas for the night before driving the rest of the way home! Road trips are my favorite, because I'm not a plane person. That, and if you ride in a car you can bring back a ton of stuff that you didn't go out with because it's highly likely you still have some more room in your car for souvenirs and stuff like that. Let me start from the beginning. That would be six days ago. Or, more accurately, five and a half days ago. It was Tuesday and it was a pretty normal day at school (other than the fact that we got to wear our pajamas: don't ask why we just did). I had fun in my classes (sort of), I mean, Honors Math and AP Geography are not a walk in the park, or a piece of cake, or even fun in any way, sort, or form. No matter how you look at it. For me, at least.
I was picked up from school. But before my parents showed up (because they were running 5-10 minutes late) I was waiting patiently at the bus line. I didn't get on any of the busses, of course, but my friends were so I was talking to them while they were waiting.
There are two "rounds" of busses. Since they pick up kids from both the high school and junior high because we are so close to each other and we have the same schedules due to the junior high kids who are required to have some classes at the high school due to the lack of available tools for the classes such as percussion or food and nutrition. I am on the first round, meaning the bus comes to my school before going to the high school. My friends Emily, Whitney, and Nina are on the second round. I was talking with Emily at first because she and I had Honors Biology together 4th period and so we were already together and so I just followed her around. I was waiting for Whitney to come out, but eventually found that she wasn't going to because she had some thing to do. I wasn't going to see her again until Monday (today). I stayed with Emily until she got on her bus. Then I had no one to hang out with. I quickly realized that Nina might be riding her bus, and hurried down the line of busses to find the bus labeled 2, which is her bus. I found her, talking to some other person on the other side of the bus that I couldn't see because of the height of the window from the ground where I was standing. I rapped on the window, and she didn't do anything. It was a little hard because the window was pretty high of the floor and the busses were about to leave. The girl sitting in front of her saw me. I pointed to Nina, and she politely got my friend to look out the window at me.
Nina's face was priceless! She was so shocked that I was standing right there outside her window! She knows I have first round, and I guess she didn't realize I was being picked up from school to go to Las Vegas and ultimately Los Angeles. The bus pulled away, and she was staring crazily at me the whole time as I waved with my giant smile plastered to my face. I then whipped out my phone, which was in my hand because my parents and I were half communicating about what was going on, and texted her, telling her that her face was hilarious. I then explained that my parents were picking me up and that was more or less the end of our conversation.
My parents pull up and I get in the car. All is pretty normal for a six hour car drive, we play some I Spy and spend time on our electronics or reading or half sleeping on our pillows. We get to Las Vegas and I'm so tired I swear I could've just fallen over and hit the hay on the cement road.
The next day was the same. Games and boredom until we finally made it to Los Angeles.
It was pretty casual the rest of the day. We had to do a little bit of shopping and stuff for my sister and Dad so they could have their stuff to go scuba diving on Friday. Mom went to Whole Foods while we were there. They took forever. Mom finished before they did. So she and I went to shop at the other stores. We only ended up going to two: Tilly's and Joann Fabric. Tilly's was a new store for me, I'd never even heard of it until that day. Joann Fabric was all the same, my mom and I go down to the one we have in Salt Lake City sometimes.
I got a skirt and a pair of green and black patterned leggings. It was pretty cool. Then we went into Joann and looked at the tons and tons and tons of felt. Felt! They had so much of it! It was so ridiculous!
When we finally got back, we went out for dinner and so Emily (not my friend from school, Emily was the name of the daughter of our new family friends) and my sister and I had some very hilarious bonding time, or whatever you want to call it. She was so embarrassed when there were two people at the table practically right next to ours that she knew from Water Polo. She's on the girls team and they're on the boys team. Natasha, Emily and I were cracking up and talking about random things like The Hunger Games and stuff.
The next day is Thanksgiving. I sat in my bed (which was a sort of couch chair thing that kind of leans back to make more or less a bed and I liked that couch so I just slept there) pretty much all morning and then by midday people started arriving for the Thanksgiving party and we had a lot of food including (really good) turkey and bread rolls. They shouldn't have put out that stuff. My sister and I practically wolfed it all down in two minutes flat.
I also had Sprite for the first time in a long time. I don't drink soda much, but if I do, I try to get Dr. Pepper or Sprite. They're my two favorites.
More towards dinner, we didn't eat more food, except for desert. I liked it. Dinner for lunch and desert for dinner. I had a lot of pumpkin pie (for the first time in forever) and some other candy and my mom's famous Pavlova (a traditional New Zealand desert). A bunch of other stuff until I became so full I just collapsed on my couch bed and did nothing but read my terrible book for English and work on some writing stuff. I was eventually talked into playing a game I had never played before and I don't even remember what it's called now. It was a pretty good game.
I practically died when the people took forever to get out. I couldn't just fall asleep in the middle of the living room in my pajamas with people right on the other side of the fireplace yelling their heads off over some game I didn't feel lively enough to play. When they finally did leave, I pulled my blankets over me and was out like a light.
On Friday (aka Black Friday) my mom, Emily, and Melissa (Emily's mom) were kind enough to come shopping with me in Hollywood. Although I really only had my mom to thank because she promised before we even left. As soon as I found out that I was going to Los Angeles, my brain went off in a light bulb moment. I practically jumped around the house when I was promised a trip to that place.
Besides my favorite store, we went some other places, too. Like Forever 21 and the Disney Store. The Disney Store wasn't very fun because there was nothing there, although I got chocolate for who knows why. Some lady who worked there just handed me and my mom chocolate (although my mom gave me hers because she can't eat chocolate). At Forever 21, I got the pants I'm wearing right now while writing this post. They're a sort of light gray colored jeans. I like them. I also got a blue "ugly" Christmas sweater. I don't think it's ugly, but it's in that category of clothing. It's got little reindeer and stuff on it and I'm going to wear it tomorrow (the first of December) to get into the Christmas spirit.
On Saturday, my dad, Richard, Emily, and one of Emily's friends all went off to go to Universal Studios. I had so much fun! I got to ride all the rides (there were only, like, five and they were all terrible) and there was lots of other fun stuff, too! Mostly just the Studio Tour, Pet Show, WaterWorld show, and Harry Potter Store.
In the Studio Tour, I got to see where they filmed part of the Hunger Games. Did you know, when they were filming that movie, it was a bit of a surprise. The actors had to know where to go, but they didn't want to put "Hunger Games" on the signs or whatever. So, instead, they told all the actors to follow the signs saying "FF6". So any passerby would think that they were filming Fast & Furious 6, when, really, they were filming the Hunger Games.
We also passed through a plane wreckage. They bought a giant plane, and completely demolished it. For a two minute scene in a single movie. Hollywood is completely insane.
I also got to see the Hogwarts castle! As some of you might be aware, the Universal Studios in Hollywood is building Hogsmeade. I got a peek at the tops of the building and the gate entrance, but it's blocked off with an about eight foot tall wall, so we couldn't see any more than that. I was still in awe.
I went totally crazy over everything! They had working Sorting Hats in boxes (which made me sad because I couldn't be sorted without buying it to open the box). There were the wands of at least the following: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Luna, Snape, Dumbledore, Neville, Malfoy, Voldemort, and more. There were clocks of the different houses, as well as scarves, flags, ties, shirts, headbands, hats, and more. There was a snitch and broomsticks. Books and shirts. There was even a working Marauder's Map!

Image from Muggle Net. Ultimately credited to J.K.Rowling (author of the Harry Potter series).

The Pet Show was cool, lots of cats and dogs. There was a pig, hawk, two owls, a couple rats, a raccoon, and two chickens. The WaterWorld show was cool. I got more wet by sitting in the Soak Zone chair then the tiny little sprinkle I got from the spray of a boat.
After we finished up at Universal Studios, it was time to start heading home. It was a depressing ride. I tried to sleep the whole time, and we didn't do anything as lively as on the way there. Although my sister and I ended up doing some random sitcom thing in the car with these hilarious voices! It was so fun. I also got a bit of the way through Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Other than that I kind of just slept and ate food.
Then I end up back in Park City, there's more snow than when we left, but not enough to really excite us. Arriving home was fun. Picking up my dog, Kami, and seeing my cats, RedRed and BlueBlue (make fun of their names and die).
It was nice to see my friends again and everything quickly fell back into the normal routine. Got a Christmas tree a few days later and I'll get to open my chocolate advent calendar today. So that's all for my amazing first trip to the wondrous Los Angeles.

How To Be A Band Geek:
Rule #14: Bring your clarinet all the way to the west coast only to end up playing it one time because you're so busy doing other fun stuff! Whoops! I'm sure I'll be fine... *randomly remembers rule #13*... Yeah...