Los Angeles, take 1

No Kidding.
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We weren't such big fans of LA, but we did have a good time because we met up with Anna's friend Ali.  It was pretty weird since Ali lives in Ithaca, NY, but she just happened to be in town that weekend.  How about that for great coincidences?  Ali's boyfriend Marc (are you following the characters here?) plays in a band in LA, so we saw them play a great show in Hollywood on the Sunset Strip.  A fantastic time was had by all, and the band even let us crash at their apartment that night.

Marc's band, Another Day Late, headlined a show on Sunset Boulevard.
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The next day we went down to the Angels game.  The "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" (formerly "the Anaheim Angels", formerly "the California Angels") want you to think that they're from LA, but this is a serious identity crisis, because Anaheim is actually pretty far away.  Traffic is, of course, ridiculous and there are more lanes than we could count, but luckily our MassHole driving fits in quite well.

The game was very exciting, with the Angels pulling off a win in extra innings.  The weirdest thing, though, was the appearance of the Rally Monkey.  Basically they show a chimp in an Anaheim jersey jumping up and down on the Jumbotron and shrieking, then everyone in the park goes nuts.  It's bizarre.  Everyone around us had brought their very own stuffed Rally Monkeys, which they proceeded to wave around like mad.  We were clearly unprepared.

Ali... in LA!
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While at the game we met some girls from Australia who knew literally nothing about baseball.  We taught them a little about the game, and then took them on our 6th inning move to the good seats.  We watched the rest of the game behind the Angels dugout, where the players actually look like real people.