We lived in Los Angeles for five years when I was in graduate school, and I just couldn’t wait to get out of there as soon as I passed my doctoral exams. I’m having a hard time remembering now what I had against it, because this time, I loved LA.

Through Airbnb we rented a cute Spanish-style house in Alhambra that was just big enough for all seven of us to do the stuff we like to do.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We saw the sights and ate at our favorite LA restaurants

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We hung out with Andreas’s family, who cooked us more food

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We saw some friends – who fed us some more

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

And the family threw me a big wonderful birthday pool party bash! With delicious Greek food, of course. I wish I’d taken a picture of Jim’s amazing zebra cake… not Greek at all, but just the thing when your family is visiting from Africa.

Roasting a whole lamb. Happy birthday to me!

I hope the food is not this good in Costa Rica or I’ll have to buy all new clothes.