Of course, my favorite part of day one was our very first customer of the day… I looked up to see my sister pushing a stroller with little guy Aaron, and big guy Sean riding along. Kelley's neighbor, Shirley, came along. Not only was Sean the first kid in Los Angeles to get to talk to the elves at Northpole, because it wasn't yet busy, he got to talk to not one, but all three elves!
The rest of the day was fairly slow, as many kids in LA are still in school. We expect the next few days to be crazy busy, so it was nice to have a day to get everything figured outI had brought a few snacks with me, but I walked upstairs for a quick lunch overlooking the plaza at Cho Oishii sushi.
One of the things that I love about traveling to larger cities is the dramatic increase in diversity from what I'm used to in Kansas City. All day long, we invited kids to talk to the elves, only to learn that the child only spoke Dutch, Chinese, Afrikaans, Japanese, you name it.it made me sad that they couldn't join in.
I had a tiny joiner moment while I was eating lunch. A cute, older Japanese couple walked by and the man quietly said something to his wife, not expecting that I could understand.
After the event closed for the day, I shopped for the last couple hours that the stores were open, then sneaked into The Grill on the Alley for dinner, shortly before they stopped admitting customers. I was lucky to get in: the bartender who served me was super friendly, and the food was really amazing. The manager came by to ask how my mail was, and complimented me on my selection, the Idaho trout with hazelnut butter sauce, stuffed with jumbo lump crab meat, and sides of roasted broccoli with lemon and Parmesan, and incredible crusty sourdough bread with a top and nod of sun-dried tomato, olives, and anchovy. He said it was his favorite dish on the menu.
What a great first day, and I'm looking forward to two more!
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