I was having dinner with a friend in the valley before we headed to our main entertainment for the evening - a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. She asked me, "Where around here is good to eat?" I said here are a couple fast food options, and we have a great sit down Thai place up the street. So we headed into Summer Canteen. (Yeah, it's an odd name for a Thai place, but don't let the name fool you - the food rocks!) She took a look at the menu and was floored to see fish cakes. So she insisted on getting that and also tried their lamb curry and some vegetables. Somewhere between the fish cakes and the curry, she decided she had a new favorite Thai place not too far from her work. And even though she was just trying it for the first time, she insisted on getting dinner. I was just so glad that it was a place she liked!!
Then, we were trying to decide on a way to get to the Hollywood Bowl. I suggested trying the Metro, to which she responded that she had never taken the Metro. I thought it might be a good option since it would save us parking money and hassle of trying to get to Hollywood. She was game, so we headed down the street to Park and Ride station. We got down to machines, and I got her a card with money on it to get back and forth to the Park and Ride. We walked down the stairs to the station and had to wait a few minutes. While we waited, she read the history of the Campo de Cahuenga, the foundations of the mission that the station was built under.
When the train showed up, her first remark was that it was really clean. I was taken aback by this. My experience in Germany has spoiled me, I am afraid. But she went onto say that both the station and the train were very clean when compared to New York. I knew that there were signs posted regarding no eating or drinking on the trains or you would receive a fine, but from past experience also knew that people don't always adhere to these. We stood during the short four minute ride to Hollywood.
We came out at Hollywood and Highland and began the uphill trek to the Hollywood Bowl. After a block, we past the place my friend had planned to park. And that's when we began to realize how good it was we took the subway. The cost for parking in the lot she had planned was $25. We had paid $3 each for the subway roundtrip. As we walked closer to the bowl, we realized there were a large number of people coming to concert. If we would have driven, there's a good chance we might have missed part of the concert or least would have spent a lot of time in traffic. And by walking, we were being given a chance to walk off some of the calories from dinner!! While neither one of us were wearing the best shoes for the uphill walk, it still wasn't that bad.
The concert we went to was Hillsong United, which is a Christian praise band from Australia. My friend wanted to go because she used to sing with the band when she lived in Australia. Even though I wasn't as familiar with their music, it was amazing to be worshipping God in a gigantic outdoor amphitheater with thousands or other people. The night was great, but I want it to continue to live on through the way I live my life.
When the concert over, and the last song of the night was sung by the band, we started walking back towards the metro station. We really didn't want to stop singing though, and were singing and talking as we walked past the stacked cars waiting to get out of the parking lots. And once again, we were thankful that we had taken the Metro. We found that we weren't alone in our decision or our thankfulness as they were close more than fifty people waiting to head back up to the valley at the train station. It was a great night for some introductions and another awesome adventure on the Metro!
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