Loz's 25th

Yesterday was Loz's 25th birthday and we had such a random, full day that it definetely deserves its own special post...

I started it at Gary's box aerobics class in order to balance out the badness I knew I'd be doing to my body later on, the music playlist was dedicated to Michael Jackson (of course!) and 9 minutes of skipping to Billie Jean was hardcore but fun.

After the class Chris, Loz and I picked up some crisps and wine and set off for Lizzie and Albert's pool party in Newport. It's really heating up here in Cali so the idea of lounging around on lilos all day was very appealing and we had an awesome day messing around in the water and munching BBQ food. A highlight was the amazing bomb I did in the deep end, really tucked myself in!
At around 6pm we brought out some mini frosted cupcakes, sung happy birthday to Loz and watched the ridiculously drunk (Lizzle and Albert) try to break their necks doing handstands on the diving board. At this point the rest of us were all sober so i've no idea how they got into that state...probably had something to do with Jack Daniels on the rocks.

By 9pm it had already felt like a really full day and we all had that post sun drenched tiredness about us. There was no room for sleep though and we drove down onto the peninsular where all the bars are. We were supposed to be staying at this guy Jim's house so dumped all the bedding there and started walking to the action.
We had been warned not to go to 'Sharkees' but were rejected from the first bar we walked into for not having a passport with us (ridiculous!) so went to...Sharkees. It was pretty bad, filled with arrogant teenage clones and smelled of sick.
After drinking a glass of almost pure vodka, we ran to the nearest emergency exit and found our way to a much better venue called The District. With more Michael Jackson drowning out the American accents around me I got the second round in and we started taking the obligatory 'night out' photos, good banter!
There seems to be a bit of a blank space in the memory now but I know it involves Loz buying me drinks I didn't need and lots of shouting and meeting new faces.

The next thing I know it's 2am and me and my new American buddies are being ushered out of the bar and onto the sidewalk. Everyone was feeling in need of some grease and we took the last 15 pieces of pizza off the guy selling them out of a hole in the wall, haggled 15 slices for $10!
Some more stuff happened like talking to an arrogant guy about his oversized truck and running into a coffee shop to blag a free quadruple espresso and just when I thought the night had ended it got really weird.

I was walking back along the ocean boardwalk, the guys 200 meters behind me, when I noticed some kind of party happening in a big house right there on the beach. The next thing I know the owner (Doug, 50ish, overweight, greying) comes running out and invites me in to his house...everyone else had suddenly dissappeared and the situation screamed 'DODGY'!
I waited for the other two, much to Dougs disappointment, and being spontanious we went in to check his pad out.

Oh....my......god. This guy was loaded. He had a 60 gallon fish tank above the fireplace in the lounge, I think there may have been some kind of baby shark in there and the mercedes SL 600 in the garage was very shiny. Then he cracked open a 2002 $160 bottle of wine and gave us a grand tour, It turned out he'd designed and built the 4 storey place himself as well.

When we got to the roof we found a steaming hot jacuzzi waiting and music blaring away, the opportunity was too good for Chris and Loz and they stripped down to boxers and jumped right in! Being accutely aware of Dougs probable intentions and creepy stares I stayed in full clubbing clothing and just got soaked. Chris, loz and I chatted for a while about how the hell we'd ended up in a complete random's hot tub on a roof in Newport and then....the piece de resistance........Doug appears on the roof top, framed and backlit in the doorway by his designer lighting.........completely NUDE.

I am NOT even joking. He seemed to think we were all going to strip off but oh no, he was definetely the only one.

He climbed in next to Loz and Chris (thank god) and I spent the next 2 hours avoiding his wondering wrinkly toes. EUGH.

As the sun began to rise we hot footed it away from Doug and ran straight across the sand and into the sea. It was one of those still, calm mornings and as I stared out into the cloudy horizon it felt like it was just us and nature right there and then. (If you think my writing's taken on a cheesy undertone it's because i'm watching Independence Day)

There's nothing worse than going to bed when the sun's come up so we went to Jims, got the bedding and drove straight back to our flat in Long Beach to recover. Today I feel as if I have half the brain cells I did yesterday :/ Oh well, what's life if it isn't random!?