As of right now, no. But I can ask my parents, but my mom has the asian mom paranoia, so I'm not sure if she'll go for it.

But there are a lot of hotels and motels up there that go for pretty cheap. And they arent far from the resort. Like Heavenly. I forgot about North Star, it's been awhile.

Okay, I just asked, lol. My dad said its fine, but my mom said no... Sorry Serena!

aww, it's ok. thanks for asking though!

jc81375, your brother is moving to Los Angeles for prep school? I thought that was an east coast thing.

Anyway, I grew up in New Hampshire and Massachusetts... went to boarding school... then lived in Michigan and California. New England will always be home. Boarding school seems like an oddity to people out in L.A..

L.A. is kind of impersonal, and its character varies enormously depending on where you live. You could give each area code a different character:

310 - my favorite, urban but on the beach, bustling, artsy. Santa Monica, South Bay, West L.A.
818 - Hollywood, crowded, dirty in parts, trendy in others
626 - Valley. Really warm in the summer. Mostly boring, except for Pasadena. Very Asian in parts.
909 - Riverside. The armpit. Unsophisticated. More affordable housing.
213/323 - Includes downtown L.A., and the ghetto parts around it. Maybe some trendy parts, but oh well
714 - North Orange County. Nice areas on the beach, bland otherwise. Disneyland. Lots of track homes
949 - The rich part of Orange County (but don't call it The O.C.). Newer developments, sheltered. Dont you dare call it part of L.A.. They will deny any connection with the metropolitan area.

oh cool, i like this topic. well, i have lived in los angeles my entire life and know it very well, as well as orange county. so ill describe it a bit:

the people- la is one of the most diverse places in the world. you have people from everywhere, literally. its one of the few regions in the us where whites are the minority. most of los angeles is hispanic, so you have a lot of hispanic culture. there are also a lot of asians, so you get a lot of that. honestly, it depends where you live. generally, the west side of la is more white and upper class, cities like beverly hills, santa monica, etc. if you go to the east side, it is overwhelmingly hispanic, mostly mexican. the south side is a mix of black and hispanic. its more of the "ghetto" of la, with cities like compton, watts, etc. in these areas, there are pockets of different ethnicities. as a result, you have totally different people living so close to each other. its not uncommon to see a brand new bmw driving right next to an old beat up car with a gangster blaring rap music in it. one time i went with my cousin to pick up her friend from his house in east la- pretty much a slum, almost 100% mexican immigrant, where its hard to find anything in enlglish. we drove down the freeway for 15 minutes and were in beverly hills to pick up her wedding ring at tiffany's- where all you see are high end designer stores and super expensive cars. this might be weird for you, because you come from a predominantly white area, probably pretty homogenous- but if you are open minded, you will have a great time learning about so many different cultures and customs. dont be surprised to be driving on the freeway and looking at the cars around you and noticing that there is not another white face around you. there is such a diversity of foods too. you get authentic ___ (fill in the blank: mexican, chinese, korean, indian, thai, salvadorean, ethiopian, etc) food every time. you can go into ethic markets and pick up spcies that youve never veen heard of. i looove diversity and being around cultures other than my own. i thrive in that kind of thing. if thats not your thing, you might have a hard time.

entertainment: we are the entertainment capital of the world. hollywood is in LA. there are beaches that are a blast. in la, you have santa monica, malibu, venice (where the famous "muscle beach" is)... if you drive south a little bit, you get to the orange county beaches- huntington beach, newport beach, laguna beach, dana point, etc. disneyland is in anaheim, about 30-40 minutes from downtown LA. there is tons of shopping everywhere- beverly hills, south coast plaza, the grove- too many malls to name. there are tons of clubs, places to eat. its a huge city, always lots to do.

region: perfect weather. almost always sunny, warm. in one day, you can go surfing in the morning, have lunch in the middle of the city, go snowboarding for a little white, and go dirtbiking in the desert- and be back home in suburbia in time for dinner. of course, you dont really do all of that in one day, but it just shows you how diverse the region is. we have everything.

problems: la is amazing, but has its share of problems that you should consider.
1) culture. even though its really cool to be around different people, its can be a problem because there are soooo many people who live here who were born in different countries-and as a result, you have some pretty big language barriers. i dont know how it is in other parts of the country, but here, most stores and fast food restaurants are staffed by older immigrants- unlike the stereotype that i have that teenagers work all of these kinds of jobs. so that can be a problem, when you cant communicate with people.
2) traffic. serious problem. rush hour traffic here means you literally go no faster than 15 mph your whole trip. and rush hour starts at like 3 pm and ends at night. theres no avioding it. its annoying.
3) crime. there are safer places than others, but i think one of the more serious problems, at least in la, are gangs. there are a lot of them, and tagging (graffiti) is pretty much a normal part of the los angeles landscape. street signs, bridges, walls, posts, even trees- that kind of stuff is everywhere.
4) smog. worst air quality in the u.s. its pretty gross, but you get used to it. just know, a beautiful blue sky is more of an exception than the norm.

wow, that was long, haha. i love living in la, and in southern california in general. i love the fact that it takes me 20 minutes to get to disneyland, 1/2 hour to get the beach, and 40 minutes to get to hollywood. i love the fact that my next door neighbors are romanian and mexican, the people across the street are asian, and their neighbors are white (its not like this everywhere, by the way). its a great place, and you will no doubt have a lot of fun. lemme know if you have any questions or anything. good luck!

oh, one more problem: housing costs. the average home price in la is somewhere around 500,000. and keep in mind that most homes are track homes built decades ago. my house, for example, is a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom, in an average area, built in the 1950s, small front yard and decent backyard. how much is it worth? 515,000 or something like that. its pretty ridiculous.

Thanks that was long but it was really informative! lol I love different cultures and I speak good Mexican (lol my name for Spanish), along with several other languages.

lol houses are ridiculously expensive in California, I was flipping thru the realty book and I'm like isn't it wonderful we could own a 1 bedroom cottage for 1.5 million.

The good thing is things are slowing moving along. One of my dad's friends is buying our house soon proly in a couple of months because he really needs to move and he's paying a very generous amount for our house and for us to move early so we are either going to rent our buy a cheap house near the city in CT (My dad still needs at least a year to wrap up things here). My dad actually found this really cheap house in the suburbs of this city but I don’t want to live there for even a little while because the house just plain creeps me out.

Mainly whenever I go there I just get a really creepy feeling and I figured something has had to have happened there or something must be wrong with the house for the price they are selling it. The house is smaller than what we have (lol my dad actually just found out our house is double the size the realtor told him it was when he bought it! lol he always though our house was bigger then it was actually listed for and the appraiser confirmed it) but it’s still quite large and it comes with a five car garage, a security gate, a pool/outside hot tub, 2 balconies, and a large attached deck/patio for only $379,000. There is obviously something wrong with the house because it hasn’t been lived in for a year and a half and the price is too low especially in this neighborhood where the cheap homes start in the 7’s and this is by no means a cheap home it was custom built by some Italian architect.

The only cool part about this house would be my bedroom the original master suite because it has one of those circular staircases downstairs into this room that is wall to wall mirrors including the ceiling and a big 8 person hot tub in the middle. lol I’m like wow whoever owned this house obviously had some sexual fetishes.

So the house just creeps me out plus the outside is really creep/dilapidated since no one has lived there in a while although the inside is amazing I just can’t shake a bad feeling that something either happened in that house or outside in the woods. Plus the price bothers me too obviously there is something the realtor is hiding if it’s priced that way either something bad happened or something’s majorly wrong with the house.

Huge bump, but JC, did you ever find out what was "wrong" with the house?

Oh the house was infected with mold or something and it would have been hideously expensive to repair. The house is actually still for sale we bought a house around it so I jog around the neighborhood and its still empty.

lol! like a 2 year bump! XD

omg, i love cali... lived there for the first 8 years of my life.

VENTURA, CA!!!! :-D

i miss you ventura!

the ventura mission! i want to go back!!

Hah, I live in New England now and I hate it I would much rather live in California.

Watch marathons of The Hills?

when was it??

i've seen almost all of the episodes i think so what are you reffering to in particular?




lol.

i love the east too much, i could never leave princeton, but i do like cali

i love LA, CA. but next year, i'll be moving to the east coast for college. i'll be exposed to the seasons =o i'm sure i'll miss the LA weather though.

I've never been to California, and I've only been to the west coast once when my work sent me to Seattle. I'm dying to see Cali!! I love the ocean and the beach and surfing, so I know if I went I'd never want to go home.

__________________

I'm just saying that she wants to know more about the L.A lifestyles then she can watch that show to get a little somethign something out of it. Lol.

Oh, The Real World: Hollywood is coming soon too.

I love California! The last time I was there was 5 years ago when my dad and I took a road trip from San Diego to San Francisco! We stopped in Hollywood and we wound up being in the middle of a movie set for the filming of Hollywood Homicide with Harrison Ford! My dads hair wound up being in the movie for a few scenes! It was pretty cool! I want to go back SO badly!

I love LA. I've lived here my whole life and that's probably not gonna change anytime soon.

Just yesterday, I went down to San Pedro for a volunteer orientation and it happened to be right next to the Korean Bell of Friendship and I stopped by to check it out. There was an amazing view of the ocean with Catalina island in the distance. It was really nice cuz the past few weeks its been cold (which in LA means high 50's-60's).