The World in a Day
I'd like to say we saw the world today. In a single day we covered the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, we safaried in Africa, we saw the Egyptian Pyramids, we saw the Golden Gates Bridge and we visited Mount Rushmore.... in Lego that is. Today we were at Legoland California.
In all of the travel books it says Legoland is recommended for ages 12 and under, but I don't know about that, at age 16 I still had a blast.
Seeing the world was no problem; getting to Legoland however was an adventure of it's own. Today was my first real train ride, what I mean by "real" is non-sky train or subway. It was a beautiful train ride out to Carlsbad, California, most of the trip was along the water where we watched surfers in action. We saw the gorgeous Beverly Hills looking home like the ones you see in the movies. All was smooth until we get off the train. From there we had to catch a bus that headed up the hill to Legoland. We found a bus in the right direction, but of course it doesn't run on weekends. From there we looked for another bus in that direction, we found it, and thought everything was good, until we got on the bus and discovered that there is no such thing as a bus to Legoland at all. After all that we got a bus which took us part way, and then we just had to wait for a taxi. It was a bit of a hassle, but we eventually arrived!
The whole trip so far, we've been quite impressed with the public transit, but I'm beginning to change my mind. In downtown it's awesome, with frequent trolley stops and clearly marked bus routes, but as soon as we headed out of town, the buses no longer run with the schedule, and at the train station, we didn't even know which way we needed to go.
Back into San Diego we headed to get to Body Rocks, a hip-hop dance competition. I have never been to any sort of big dance competition before so I didn't know what to expect, but my mom thought she made a mistake in buying the tickets. Her thoughts changed moments after we walked into the theater. The music was blasting, the crowd was pumped and there were people dancing on stage like I've never seen anyone dance before. To give you an idea, it looked somewhat like "America's Best Dance Crew" but in my opinion the teams were better. The theatre was filled with local teens, and everyone was having a great time. As a new crew went up to compete, we couldn't even catch their name because the crowd was so loud, but they all seemed to know who was up next, and for each group, they had different hand signs.
The crowd might have even been as entertaining to watch as the dancers. As the routine grew to the climax, you could see people getting more and more excited, and when a big trick came up, everyone was out of their seats, pumping their fists. It was quite an experience, and I'm glad we got to see a new form of entertainment which I hardly knew existed. You can tell by the way everyone acts and even just by the way they dress that hip-hop is huge down in San Diego, and I imagine all along the West Coast of USA. Everyone seems to dance, or at least are a fan of it. I guess you could compare it to the hockey in Canada; except I think dance is more of a culture and a lifestyle than just a sport.
My mom brought up a really good point; she was wondering if these amazing dancers ever actually took dance lessons as kids, or if it's something you just do with your friends until you're really good.
Interestingly enough, this competition has been going for 10 years, and today was the first time an international team has won the competition. It was a crew of 4, by far the smallest team there, coming all the way from Japan who took home the gold. They may have been the smallest team, but they deserved that trophy, no doubt.
Here I am with Nino Magzoon who sang at Body Rocks. He is a rapper/songwriter from Los Angeles. To be honest, I didn't really know who he was, but I recognized his song, "Miss LA".
In all of the travel books it says Legoland is recommended for ages 12 and under, but I don't know about that, at age 16 I still had a blast.
Seeing the world was no problem; getting to Legoland however was an adventure of it's own. Today was my first real train ride, what I mean by "real" is non-sky train or subway. It was a beautiful train ride out to Carlsbad, California, most of the trip was along the water where we watched surfers in action. We saw the gorgeous Beverly Hills looking home like the ones you see in the movies. All was smooth until we get off the train. From there we had to catch a bus that headed up the hill to Legoland. We found a bus in the right direction, but of course it doesn't run on weekends. From there we looked for another bus in that direction, we found it, and thought everything was good, until we got on the bus and discovered that there is no such thing as a bus to Legoland at all. After all that we got a bus which took us part way, and then we just had to wait for a taxi. It was a bit of a hassle, but we eventually arrived!
The whole trip so far, we've been quite impressed with the public transit, but I'm beginning to change my mind. In downtown it's awesome, with frequent trolley stops and clearly marked bus routes, but as soon as we headed out of town, the buses no longer run with the schedule, and at the train station, we didn't even know which way we needed to go.
Back into San Diego we headed to get to Body Rocks, a hip-hop dance competition. I have never been to any sort of big dance competition before so I didn't know what to expect, but my mom thought she made a mistake in buying the tickets. Her thoughts changed moments after we walked into the theater. The music was blasting, the crowd was pumped and there were people dancing on stage like I've never seen anyone dance before. To give you an idea, it looked somewhat like "America's Best Dance Crew" but in my opinion the teams were better. The theatre was filled with local teens, and everyone was having a great time. As a new crew went up to compete, we couldn't even catch their name because the crowd was so loud, but they all seemed to know who was up next, and for each group, they had different hand signs.
The crowd might have even been as entertaining to watch as the dancers. As the routine grew to the climax, you could see people getting more and more excited, and when a big trick came up, everyone was out of their seats, pumping their fists. It was quite an experience, and I'm glad we got to see a new form of entertainment which I hardly knew existed. You can tell by the way everyone acts and even just by the way they dress that hip-hop is huge down in San Diego, and I imagine all along the West Coast of USA. Everyone seems to dance, or at least are a fan of it. I guess you could compare it to the hockey in Canada; except I think dance is more of a culture and a lifestyle than just a sport.
My mom brought up a really good point; she was wondering if these amazing dancers ever actually took dance lessons as kids, or if it's something you just do with your friends until you're really good.
Interestingly enough, this competition has been going for 10 years, and today was the first time an international team has won the competition. It was a crew of 4, by far the smallest team there, coming all the way from Japan who took home the gold. They may have been the smallest team, but they deserved that trophy, no doubt.
Here I am with Nino Magzoon who sang at Body Rocks. He is a rapper/songwriter from Los Angeles. To be honest, I didn't really know who he was, but I recognized his song, "Miss LA".
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