I hope everyone had an incredible New Year’s Eve, with a great start to 2014!

As I mentioned in my previous post, my NYE was spent at a black tie party in Santa Monica.  I won the tickets off KCRW and took my friend, Samantha.  The party was something that was totally out of our element, which I think was great.  We enjoyed a hosted bar and meeting people outside of our usual circle.

Getting there was a bit of a chore.  Lyft was jammed and the app kept crashing whenever I tried to use it.  Honestly, I’m not really surprised.  Lyft has gotten to be the best way of getting around LA on party nights.  Fun drivers, convenient payment system, and about two thirds the price of a cab.  We called for a cab around 10:00.  We were told we would get the next available cab.  No such luck!  Over an hour later, we called around for every cab company that would answer.  No cabs came.  Desperate, we walked to the gas station on the corner to see if one would be around.  Nope.  We gave the Lyft app another try.  Success!  We managed to get through to a driver named Alfredo, at a 25% Prime Time upcharge.  No matter.  Alfredo was a lot of fun and was playing a perfect soundtrack of Too $hort.  Alfredo got us to the party before midnight, with enough time for us to arm ourselves with a glass of whiskey and a flute of champagne!  Even with the 25% upcharge, it was still less than $40 to get us from K-Town to Santa Monica.  I love Lyft!

Samantha and I enjoying our NYE celebration.

Lyft was an impossible option on the way home.  Luckily, getting a cab was much easier.  There was a line of them waiting outside the party, so we grabbed one and headed home.  The driver charged us a flat rate of $65, was silent and played Miley Cyrus (on that note, I think I managed to avoid hearing that “Wrecking Ball” song up until that moment).  We received safe passage home, which is what really matters on New Year’s, but just reaffirmed ourselves that Lyft is definitely the way to go.

On New Year’s Day, I was very grateful for my dark, cool apartment, if you get what I’m saying!  I shook off the haziness of the night before with a bike ride into DTLA to meet up with friends for bloody mary’s at my favorite bar (and much closer to my element), La Cita.  That fixed me up right!  I embarked right before sunset.  The crisp air and bike ride fixed me up from the night before.  I wished a happy near year with a small handful of some of my closest friends in Los Angeles.  Bike rides and friends make for a great new year!

The view of Downtown looking east from 7th St. at Union St.

After a cocktail, I grabbed dinner with my friend, Melissa, at an LA historic treasure, Cole’s.  I’m almost ashamed to admit this, but last night was my first time ever eating there!  As you may know, Cole’s and Philippe the Original has an ongoing feud over which restaurant was the first to create the french dip.  I love Philippe’s so I was pretty excited to give their rival a try.  As delicious as it was, I think my heart belongs to Philippe!  Philippe’s prices are a little better and they seem to be more true to their origins.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ll never turn my nose up at either!

Happy 2014 everyone.  Back to reality for me today.

– Adriane Hoff