This week we had visitors in our new guest room for the first time. Well, actually it is more an office, but we also use it as a guest room if needed. One of Flo’s ex-co workers and her boyfriend came to stay with us for a week after taking a roadtrip down the West Coast from Seattle, where they landed three weeks ago. Sadly we didn’t have that much time to spend with our friends, since we both had to work as usual. But we still had a bit of time to show them some nice things.

We took them to one of our favorite Sushi restaurants down here on Sunday – their first night here, called Waki Sushi in Seal Beach. During the week we mostly stayed in at night, had dinner, talked or watched movies, but during the day our friends enjoyed the sun, beach and a few other sights in the OC. We drove to Anaheim to watch the Disneyland Fireworks on Friday. I think I gave this tip before, but if you haven’t read it yet: If you don’t wanna go to the actual Disneyland Park, but still want to see the pretty Fireworks, you actually can for free. Go to Downtown Disney (you can park there for free for the first three hours) and go to the area between the actual park entrances to Disneyland and California Adventure. From here you have a pretty good view and can enjoy the cute Downtown Disney area for free before or afterwards.

On Saturday, we went to Los Angeles with two more of our friends, got lunch and afterwards hiked to the Hollywood Sign. Many people think this hike is illegal, but it actually isn’t. So if you have a few hours and are in the mood to hike, you should try this one. Not only to get as close to the Hollywood Sign as you can get, but also to have amazing views of huge parts of Los Angeles including the pretty Hollywood Reservoir, Downtown, the Griffith Observatory and if you are lucky you can even spot the beach.

I always love having friends in town, because it gives me a little feeling of home and also makes me see the LA gems that I normally don’t visit!

We moved to the OC 1 week ago and the only thing I can say about our new home so far is: I love it! Here are my (so far) Top Five of what makes Huntington Beach way more home to me than Los Angeles ever could:

1. Stars
There are a lot of Stars and Starlets in Hollywood (and yes, we saw a few in the last two years), but actually seeing the stars in the sky at night is priceless. I guess the smog over LA just makes that impossible!

2. Breathe
This is kinda obvious, since we lived in the middle of a big city, but the air down here is just soooo much nicer. I really feel able to breathe fresh air down here and that feels amazing.

3. Relax
This will probably change soon, but right now I feel like I am on vacation. Smelling the ocean when you walk outside, having a huge pool in front of our apartment and being able to walk to the beach – this lets me forget all the work stress instantly when I come home.

4. Water
It might actually not be the shortest way to take, but every morning and night I drive down Pacific Coast Highway and say hello to the ocean. I can’t really grasp the idea that I live here yet, but it makes me incredibly happy to see the ocean every day.

5. No Traffic
Yes, I have to drive 30 miles to Downtown LA every morning and there sure is a lot of traffic, but down here it’s just so nice. In Hollywood we basically would drive out of our garage into the next long line of cars. But here we need to drive a few miles to actually get stuck in traffic.

I will most likely find many more pros (and a few cons) living down here. But I am already sure this step was more than right. And brought us a little closer to a few more dreams coming true.

People always ask us things like “How does it feel to actually live in Hollywood” or “You must be spending all your time at the beach”. Well, actually living in LA for the most part feels like living in most other cities in the world: You have your everyday work life and sadly sometimes get so caught up in it that you forget to enjoy the good sides of the city you live in. This weekend Flo and I realized that lately we have been more than caught up in our daily lifes and decided to only do things we really wanna do this weekend. And the first point on our list was for sure going to the beach.

Yes, the beach is only about 10 miles away from our house, but we don’t make it down there every weekend. I am a little ashamed to say this, but since we moved here nearly two years ago we only went to the beach to really lie down there and relax once. We normally take bike rides or walks along the beach, but never actually sit or lie down. So last weekend was our second time doing a beach afternoon and we abolutely loved it!

On Sunday we went to the Universal Studios to finally take advantage of the annual passes we got with our visit at Thanksgiving last year. Again I am a little ashamed to say that we only live 10 minutes from the Universal Studios, but never really found the time to go back there in almost a whole year. We had a very fun afternoon there though and again were lucky, because the waiting lines were short and the park wasn’t too crowded. And our visit actually reminded us of another thing we will definitely have to dive deeper into this year: Halloween! The Universal Studios are full on preparing for their annual Halloween Craziness (make sure to google that) and we are thinking about getting tickets!