Love, Life and Appreciation: February 2020

The February Coca Cola Insider's box is here! If you aren't familiar with the subscription box by Coca Cola, it's a pilot program introduced in December of last year, in which for 6 months, fans and subscription box purchasers alike, get the opportunity to see new drinks and products in the Coca Cola line.

I wrote about the January box here.

As of now, there is a waitlist for the program, I do hope they continue the subscription and open the subscription up to others.

On to the contents of the box:

The contents of the February box.

I love the little content card they provide. It's descriptive and very visually appealing.

The Sprite Ginger drink looks so yummy. I'm thinking it might taste like Ginger Ale.

I'll be giving this to my mom though, she's very interested in seeing how it'll taste too.

I'm not a big drinker of power drinks and energy drinks, but Rex

tried the drink and he liked it.

The Zero Sugar Cherry Vanilla drink caught my eye with the picture on the can.

It looked delicious and it tasted delicious! I have tried Cherry Pepsi in the past but this was a great taste of Cherry and I loved the hint of vanilla. I definitely will be trying this drink again!

This is a Pop Socket! It's so cute. I'm saving this one! The Pop Socket goes on the smartphones to give the phone a slight pop up and is good for propping up the phone for watching videos. In other words, it's a stand.

This product blew my mind. Coca Cola flavored Tic Tacs! What?! There are a lot of these Tic

Tacs in the package too. I was surprised by this product and Tic Tacs taste slightly like Coke but there is more of a citrus flavor. The Tic Tacs are good. I shared these with Rex and the kids as well as my co-workers. Everyone gave the same face, not too sure about what Tic Tac would taste like at first but pleasantly surprised by good taste after trying it.

All the Tic Tacs had the iconic Coca Cola symbol on them too.

So smart!

Overall, I think this was a good box. I really enjoyed the Cherry Vanilla Coke with no sugar! The Tic Tacs were a very pleasant surprise and I may need to write an update of the Sprite Ginger drink when my mom gets a chance to try it.

Can't wait to see what's in store for next month!

Here it is, part 2 to Calfornia for a solo trip and more the reason of what got me to go! If you missed the first part of the trip, here is that post. The last part of that post was me seeing the Griffith Observatory and going back to the hotel. Gosh that Griffith was mouth-watering.

So the next day was Sunday, remember I got to L.A. the previous day, after a 5+ non-stop flight. It was sunny the previous day but even before the trip, I was looking at the weather there on my phone and I saw that Sunday was going to be rainy. Of course Oscar Sunday and the rest of the days there were going to be Sunny. Now one thing I learned about rain in California as opposed to rain in Maryland or New Jersey is that the rain in California hardly ever downpours nor does the rain last for many hours. In Maryland, before I left the streets were starting to flood due to the amount of rain.

The morning for Sunday it wasn't rainy in L.A. and I was quite hungry so I walked about two blocks away to a Coffee/Bagel place when I saw right outside my hotel window. As I was walking I got a great view of the LAX Gateway Pylons:

Yup, I was that close to the airport! Free shuttle! After a bagel and some hot vanilla chai, I decided I would take a Lyft and go to Venice Beach. I was actually closer to Venice Beach than I was to Hollywood. I briefly thought I could try to go back to the Broad and try to see the exhibit I really wanted to see the previous day, but I didn't have a timed pass and it could have been over an hour to get into the museum and the event for the Oscar's Viewing Party was first come, first serve and stating at 1:30 pm local time.

The rain held up and Venice Beach as a bit different than I thought, there were certainly homeless people in tents there and I took a picture of the well-known sign there and a few more pictures and started my 30+ minute walk on the boardwalk to the Santa Monica Pier. Here are some of the pics I took in Venice Beach:

The water is blue!

For Kobe.

The Venice Sign.

Caught a perfect view of the sun!

I didn't get close to the water. The beach was actually quite wide and I didn't want to get sandy, though I did step in some of the sand on the walkway. It was the further west I have been since Seattle, Washington and even then I don't remember going to the beach.

I walked to the Santa Monica Pier and it still hadn't rained though before the trip I got a small umbrella which I packed with me in my bag, to the beach. I passed by many other early morning joggers and walkers. Santa Monica is also where my best friend, Kate was born. I didn't get close to the pier but I did get nice pictures of the structure:

The pier!

The mountains in the background.

Afterword I went back to the hotel, to rest and get ready for the viewing party. By this time it was nearing 10 am and I knew the event would be starting in a couple of hours. I had the local news on and they had interviews from the red carpet and I was starting the wonder if I would even get into the party and if the traffic there was starting the backup. I put all my thoughts aside and got ready for the party. It was not for the bleachers for the Oscars which was made clear by the postings in the Facebook group. Here's my full dress for the viewing party:

It's a dress from Thailand which I got from Etsy. I didn't think it would make it in time for the trip but it did and I was comfortable. The organizers of the event said the event was casual, so I decided to dress it up a bit. I then headed in a Lyft to Hollywood to wait in line, possibly in the rain for a free, first-come, first-serve event.

To my surprise, it wasn't raining when I got to the location, which was The Montalban Theater. The traffic was not bad at all and I asked my Lyft driver to get me close if there were blocked off roads. Oh, I forgot to mention that I was going to do a walking tour that morning that was to be in Hollywood and walk to the Egyptian Theater and the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but it was canceled due to blocked roads and walkways for the Oscars. I improvised with the beach though.

I got to the theater and saw the sign for the Oscar's Viewing Party hosted by People Magazine. Guess what! I was third in line! There were only two party goers in front of me and I became very good friends with them as well the party-goers who came up behind me. One of the party-goers was from Hawaii! We were the friends of the front of the line! They were all surprised I flew by myself to the event, never having been to Los Angeles and California before. We all felt that we had a strong chance of getting into the event since we got there around 10:50 am and were first:

#PEOPLEINSIDERS #PeopleViewingParty

Part of the Hollywood walk of fame.

Waiting in line.

We waited for about 3 hours and more people started to come. As we waited, it started to rain and the organizers moved under the awning. Shortly after that, it began to pour and the people let out an "ooooh" and an "ahhhh". I wish I recorded it because they really looked shooked to see it raining so heavy and I was laughing because that's the kind of rain on the East Coast like all the time. Shortly after the rain, we got into the event and the organizers had a red carpet set up with a PEOPLE backdrop. We got a swag bag filled with snacks and drinks and a future February issue of PEOPLE magazine as well as Oscar's prediction scoreboard. It was a viewing party and there were screens to view the Oscar arrivals, we also got to be a part of PEOPLE TV's streaming show which they didn't show the streaming show on the screens but we got to see the guests interviewed and the changing of the set. We had two hosts and they were people from The Bachelor. I don't watch The Bachelor.

In my seat.

The set.

The hosts. (remember the event organizers said it was a casual event)

One of the attendee's mother gave me this pin, as a gift to remember them by.

Here are other attendees who I met, we were at the front of the line and the attendee with the hood is from Hawaii!

The set.

The set up for the panel session.

The award show.

If you think, oh wait did I miss a post about a celebrity being at the viewing party, you aren't wrong. There was no celebrity and the special guests advertised in the email sent, were PEOPLE editors explaining about celeb Oscars secrets. The dismissal for dinner was a mess and very disorganized, many of the attendees including myself missed the beginning of the show because the viewing party panel session and trivia portion went over.

After getting the Uniburger without tater tots and I drink, I sat down to watch the Oscars and it was pretty nice being with other attendees who liked viewing the Oscars such as I and the fact that the Oscars was being broadcasted from like 6 blocks away, but I also thought I could be at home watching the show and that was my last night in L.A. People started leaving about an hour into the show and I bid farewell to the friends that I made and took off into the night to explore downtown LA and more of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I was kind of disappointed by the event, I felt like they made it seem like it was going to be very big with at least one big name, but it was free and I was thankful that I met really nice people and that I even went that far and got to see all I saw the previous day.

I walked a stretch of the Hollywood Walk of Fame and took pictures of many different stars. Then I walked to the Dolby Theater where the Oscars were actually broadcasting from. It was blocked off and there were a few museums open which I saw during my previous search of things to do in L.A. like the Museum of Illusions but I was slightly turned off by all the trash on the sidewalks and the amount of teens smoking and acting out. I thought I can see this back home in some parts of Maryland. So I walked to Captial Records and that's where I was picked up by Lyft to go back to the hotel. I figured I would need to be on a clear street because much of were I was prior, was blocked off. I caught the best picture win, on the TV back at the hotel. Here's a couple of pictures from my walk after the left the viewing party:

Steve Irwin!

Outside the Dolby theater.

Capitol Records

The next day I took the free shuttle and flew back to Baltimore. The flight had a 50-minute layover in Houston, TX which turned into 3 hours, so I didn't get back home until close to 11:30 pm EST. I got on the plane at 8:45 AM PST. I have good memories though and I got back safe. I was safe while I was there and I got to see many things and meet good people during my trip. One day I might go back to California and this time with friends and the family.

One of the attendees also said to let her know when I go back to Cali, ahead of time and she'll get me into the Magic Castle. The trip was certainly an adventure and showed me to go out and do what you want to do. I did planning before the trip and I couldn't do all that I planned and things didn't all go as planned but I still did it. The fear didn't hold me back and I am thankful for the opportunity.

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