a post-finals celebration in laguna beach

It’s been a long semester. So last Monday, as soon as my last final ended, I hopped into a car and made my way to the airport, to go celebrate my friend’s birthday in Laguna Beach. Naturally, I overestimated how much time I would need at the airport, so after getting through security in less than five minutes (thanks TSA precheck!), so I ended up with over two hours to spare. So, I decided to spend that time spend buying and trying all the new snacks I could find. Turns out, pop tarts bites are…not good. They’re just so dry.

Eventually, it was time for me to board my red-eye, and just to my luck, I was seated in the window next to a couple. Which was fine, until they decided to turn the five and a half hour flight into a romantic wine and movie night, and I was trapped. So, I filled the time shovelling popcorners into my mouth and watching wipeout. Soon enough, we arrived at LAX, ahead of schedule, and I hopped in an Uber to my friend’s house. However, once I got there, I first could not figure out which house was hers. And once I figured that out, I couldn’t figure out how to open her door. So, I FaceTimed my friend who was luckily (for me) still up, doing her final, and pondered whether I should just sleep outside, since at that point, I had been freaking out for a solid 30 minutes, and it was almost 4 am. However luckily, one of her friends saw my desperate text and happened to be up, and let me in, after which I promptly passed out.

Once I eventually woke up, we headed out to go kayaking and stand up paddle-boarding, during which I realized three things. One, the water is very chilly this time of year. Two, paddle-boarding is exhausting. Three, I am not good at stand up paddle-boarding. Consequently, I made other people drag me behind their kayak, which resulted in me being absolutely drenched in the chilly water. Oh well.

After that strenuous experience, my friend made as a beautiful charcuterie board as a snack.

We then went to the nearby tidal pools, where we saw an abundance of purple sea urchins and sea anemones, and a surprisingly large amount of starfish, which was very very exciting. Also, it was just absolutely stunning.

Once we had taken a sufficient amount of pictures, we took the free trolley into town, and wandered around until dinner time.

We stopped by my friend’s favorite gelato place, Dolce Gelato. Naturally, I had to get some, and the Mrs. Claus (white chocolate, peppermint, and crushed candy cane) and Mother Ginger (cream cheese frosting and gingerbread) did not disappoint. I enjoyed the Mrs. Claus flavor more, as the Mother Ginger mostly just tasted sweet, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

For dinner, my friend made a reservation at Carmelita’s, which has amazing free chips and salsa. I got the carnitas and a Mexican coke, both of which were very tasty and which I consumed in record time.

Obviously, we couldn’t skip dessert, so we went to my friend’s favorite frozen yogurt, which she described as “tart.” I’m personally not a big frozen yogurt fan, but I really enjoyed this frozen yogurt. The salted caramel was especially good, as it had a really deep caramel taste, as if they mixed actual, freshly made salted caramel into the slightly tart yogurt. Mixed with the popping bubbles and vegan cookie dough, this was probably the best frozen yogurt I’ve ever had.

The next day, after a very nutritious breakfast of some very most and tasty red velvet cake from Susie Cakes, we headed to Manhattan Beach, and did a bit of exploring there.

We had lunch at the Kettle, where I had again, a very delicious French onion soup burger, that was extremely juicy, especially when dipped into the savory and flavorful French onion jus. My friend also recommended the muffins, so I got the blueberry crumb muffin, which arrived warm with butter, which was pretty good, although I wished the exterior was a bit more crisp.

We then did a bit more wandering, and naturally, ended up at the Manhattan Beach Creamery, which my friend had recommended as well. Clearly, this is a bit of a trend. I got the bananas foster creamwich which unsurprisingly, was phenomenal. I’m a big fan of bananas foster in general, and the caramelized banana-flavored ice cream went really well with the chewy oatmeal raisin cookies. A very satisfying purchase.

While we are our creamwiches and attempted to not get ice cream all over our hands, we walked down to the boardwalk, where we saw people attempting to surf, and checked out the Roundhouse Aquarium.

It’s a pretty small aquarium, but it is free, and I got to see some Garibaldi, which I learned is California’s state fish. Also my friend apparently once used to have a plaque here because she donated all her birthday money, but sadly they seem to have taken it down since.

Afterwards, we headed back to my friends’ home, where we sampled some of her sisters’ very tasty cookies from her cookie dough company, Doughbaby.

We then headed back in the direction of Laguna, and had a quick dinner at Asada, which had the best salsa and chips I’ve ever had, and blackened mahi tacos, which were pretty good, although it needed a creamy or wet element to bring together all the dry components together.

The next day was my last day, but luckily, that morning my flight got delayed an hour and moved from Burbank to LAX, so I had a bit more time than I initially expected. We decided to attempt some last minute Christmas shopping at the South Coast mall, stopping for some Raising Cane’s along the way. The coleslaw was surprisingly good, as the sauce was creamy and slightly sweet, while the vegetables still retained their crunch. The toast was of course, amazing as always, buttery, rich, and a little on the salty side. The chicken tenders were solid, although the breading kept on falling off, and the fries were distinctly mediocre, as they largely did not retain any crispness.

After our little mall trip, we went back for one last trip to town, and I grabbed some probably overpriced candy from the Candy Baron. We also stopped by Active Culture for one some frozen yogurt, which like last time, did not disappoint, and I picked up a rose matcha boba and a roasted turkey panini from Urth Caffe for the airport, which proved to be a phenomenal decision.

Thanks to the wonders of TSA precheck, I once again breezed through security, which meant that I again had almost two hours to kill. Except as soon as I got to the airport, I discovered my flight had gotten pushed back an hour to take off at eleven, as opposed to nine pm. And then it got pushed back another hour. To kill time, I did some work, walked around in the absurdly small terminal five, where by ten pm, pretty much everything was closed. I got a lavender elderflower lemonade from Lemonade which was pretty tasty and almost made up for the fact that they had run out of almost every food item by the time I made it to the front of the absurdly long line.

I also finally ate my Urth panini, which was pretty solid, and definitely a better option than any of the mediocre overpriced restaurants in the crowded terminal.

Eventually, my flight got pushed back yet again to 12 am, and as it approached 11:30, and as the flight before mine that was boarding at the same gate still had not even finished boarding. Which was troubling, considering it was the holiday season, and my flight had already been delayed three times and moved to a completely different airport. So I thought there was a chance that at this point, my flight might just be canceled completely. Luckily, there just so happened to be another JetBlue flight scheduled to leave on time at 11:59. So after some frantic back and forth between the two flights’ gates and a very empty help desk, I barely made it onto the flight.

Amazingly, I secured an upgrade, so I immediately collapsed into my very comfy seat. After a brief nap, I ate some second dinner, which was accompanied with a mocktail version of their signature cocktail. All of it was pretty tasty, especially the the gelato with blackberry compote, although the panini was a little less crisp than I would have preferred.

Also. Can we please appreciate the little containers of chili oil and maldon salt. Truly the little things in life.

I then promptly passed out, and awoke pretty much as we made our final descent into JFK, when I discovered the flight attendants had hung goodie bags of breakfast-y items for us to take off the plane. I also discovered that my original flight had not been canceled, but it had taken off at 2 am, five hours after it was originally scheduled to land.