This is just a wrap-up of all the things I have learnt during my 8 week stay interning and living in LA. This is purely for my benefit, for the things I want to remember – and all the kindred spirits I never want to forget (you know who you are).

• Apparently my accent is a real language barrier in America
• Things people don’t understand when I speak: ‘ceebs/cbf/cbb/can’t be bothered’, ‘munt’, ‘boot’, ‘trolley’
• When people imitate me – for some reason, they put on a British accent
• Public transport in LA is a (first world) struggle, but I would never want to drive here
• So much money spent on Ubers and Lyfts
• My roommates being afraid of me in the mornings because I am not a morning person
• Going in to work on the first day and realising that ‘Business Casual’ actually just really means ‘Casual without looking like a bum’
• Celebrating a 27th and a 21st birthday
• College bars with cheap beer – yes.
• Nightlife tip from LA locals: weekdays > weekends
• Everybody knows somebody
• Most of the people that live here, aren’t actually from LA
• The weather is always beautiful (except that one time at the Beyonce/Jay Z concert)
• You see celebrities so often that it is no longer a big deal
• Dogs in the office everyday = the best place to work
• People wearing red, white and blue on July 4 is a real thing – GOD BLESS AMERICA
• ‘bae’ = ‘before anyone else’
• People really do say ‘ratchet’ here – I love it
• Giving up 1/3 of the way up on the Hollywood Hike sign because it would take 3 hours to get there
• Got a med card? You can get it delivered. What time is it? 420
• Walking around Venice Beach and seeing a bunch of people on a balcony, getting invited up thinking it’s a rooftop bar, but really it’s the balcony for a shop for customised shoes
• If you go grocery shopping at Ralph’s, get a Ralph’s card because that shit is cheap
• Surfing at Huntington Beach and coming home exhausted, bruised, and battered
• Sprinkles cupcake icecream is the shit
• You can pretty much get into any bar/club you want if you are a girl (unless it’s a gay bar…)
• Seeing men walk around West Hollywood at night in stilettos of ridiculous heights like they’re a comfy pair of sneakers
• 24 hours in Vegas = getting day drunk at the Flamingo pool party in Vegas –> getting a free table and vodka at Hakkasan
• Not a morning person and scaring my roommates every morning to the point where no one wants to wake you up and avoids you in the mornings (love you guys)
• The Abbey in West Hollywood (aka WeHo) is ridiculous
• Katsuya = eatin’ some expensive Japanese food, drinkin’ some cocktails, and seein’ Ludacris
• First ever baseball game: Angels V Tigers – I guess the Angels are my team now
• Also, I love baseball
• Greg explaining to me all the rules about baseball in an obnoxiously loud voice and annoying everyone sitting around us – that’s what you get for buying $9 tickets
• Scaring the shit out of KP unintentionally and being called a “sneaky little asian mouse”
• Spending an hour decorating the apartment with sticky notes for Rachel’s 21st
• Cuddles with Catt
• So much shopping…
• My daily routine – 6:45 wake up, 7:55 leave, 8:00 catch the bus, 8:30 order breakfast, 9:00 work, 14/15:00 lunch, 18:00 leave work and wait forever for a bus to come, 19:15 get home
• Going to the same place for breakfast and lunch across the street from work because you develop a sense of loyalty to the lovely Asian lady who gives you special treatment (also, the building always has cute tatted-up sk8er bois going in and out all the time)
• Everyone in LA is so fabulous and beautiful
• LA has the most varied and interesting people I have ever met
• You know your work is fabulous when your entire work day involves celebrities and luxury clients, and there are bouquets of flowers worth several hundred $$ being delivered to the beautiful ladies that you work with at least once a week, but sometimes more
• Marathons of Gossip Girl/Friends/The Office at home, on a laptop because we don’t have a TV
• Americans have a drinking problem – I literally cannot keep up
• Bartenders are not stingy with the drinks – so strong and so cheap
• $50 cartons of cigarettes – what is life
• Attending a Chelsea Lately live taping and getting VIP treatment and a tour
• Definitely check out Universal City Walk if you have time
• Tattoos because YOLO
• Taking 4 weeks to get used to LA and missing Australia the entire time, and then never wanting to leave when you have to
• Barney’s Beanery’s Margherita Calzone (!!!!)
• Beginning my beer-drinking in America with BudLight. LOL
• O’Haras in Westwood ($4 pitchers on Tuesdays)
• Crying when you have to say goodbye
• Realising that you will probably not see these people you have spent almost everyday with for the last 8 weeks for a very long time :( I will miss you LA family