Exploring LA!

This week has been much more relaxed - which was strange after the busy, turbulent few weeks preceding it! It's been nice, though, and we're finding time for some things like reading for pleasure and going on walks that we haven't really done much of in the last, well, few years! 

Monday through Wednesday we walked to the local library and checked it out, walked to Macy's nearby because Luce was out of makeup, went to the Samuel French Bookstore and read plays for hours, had plans to go to a workshop with Central Casting but had to bail when we turned up almost an hour early to find a line around the block! We also, of course, made some very yummy brekkys and dinners, had boba, and went out to brunch at a great cafe called Crave with JT!

We've got a couple little projects we're working on - the main one being the show with Chambers! We've written bios, done publicity, and brushed up on our lines; we're looking forward to rehearsals starting back up this week!

We're also trying to get a group together to work on a couple plays to push ourselves and keep on our toes.

The real highlight of the week though, far and away, has been seeing our wonderful friend Ali!! Ahh! We're SO lucky she's visiting us and couldn't be happier showing her around our city!

We met up yesterday in Santa Monica and after a hilariously long run into a huge group hug on the street, we strolled around, looking into shops and taking in the cool, beachy vibes. We walked down to the pier too and it was just so surreal to be seeing each other on the opposite side of the country!

We came back to our apartment, proudly gave Ali the tour (which didn't take too long haha but she gushed exactly as we'd hoped), watched Argo for the first time, had a delish dinner of orzo pasta salad, grilled chicken, and feta cheese, and stayed up chatting till 1 in the morning! Absolutely perfect! 

Today we slept in a bit because it was absolutely POURING with rain! And in LA, that's a big deal. When we got up we made our sweet breakfast quesadillas (whole-wheat tortillas with peanut butter, cocoa almond butter, strawberries, and bananas) and got ready for a day of exploration - rain or shine! 

We spent the day in Downtown LA, which the two of us really haven't explored much, and we found some absolute gems! First we went to the LA Central Library and it was incredible! So beautiful and the absolutely perfect place to be on a rainy day. Han got a library card and checked out a book and we spent almost an hour browsing and looking at the lovely artwork they have on display, very cool!

For lunch we took Ali to Bronzed Aussie to try our favourite foods from home! After gorging ourselves on the finest meat pies, caramel slice, custard tarts, and lamingtons LA has to offer, we headed off to our last activity for the day: a thrift shop crawl! We started on Melrose Ave, one of the coolest streets in LA, and ended up spending hours in the very first shop we found! It was SO COOL! Great clothes and great prices! Luce made out like a bandit and got so many nice things - including  her dress for Ehren and Nadine's winter wedding in Austria - and Han found two really pretty dresses too that she just couldn't resist! 

We went it to two more stores after that and headed home - via Ralph's to pick up ingredients for cupcakes! 

Luce and Ali are baking up a storm and when the cupcakes are in the oven we're going to watch Pride and Prejudice - which Ali has never seen! We've also got tickets to the Groundlings improv show tonight at 10:00 which is another awesome new experience we can't wait for! It's been the most PERFECT day and we're so, so happy to have Ali here with us.

Success and Taxes... Wait, what?

Dinner at The Macaroni Grill was great! So nice to celebrate such a big achievement with Mum and Q.

We also looooved having proper TV and caught a little more of the Olympics, yay! 

Saturday morning we had yummy waffles - mum's trying to fatten us up haha but no complaints from us! - watched TV, did laundry, chilled out. Han had her last day of filming at Chapman too, but wasn't called till 2:00 which was very civilized.

-- Han --

Filming was heaps of fun! I had a couple lines in the scene and it was nice to see everybody again from last weekend. At the end of the night we all did a dance that'll play in the credits and it was just so silly and fun! I had a really lovely time. Afterwards, I popped over to the Chapman Theatre because it was intermission of the show and all my friends were there watching or on crews!! It was SO great to see everyone, I've missed them all more than I realized.. JT was there too, so it was a real reunion! When intermission ended I was nowhere near ready to say goodbye, so I snuck into the show and watched the second act! It was very strange, Classical Japanese theatre, but quite powerful and mesmerizing to watch. I hung out a little afterwards too then headed back to Mum and Q's for the night.

-- Luce --

While Han was at Chapman I had a very relaxing day! I caught up on some tv shows, ate a lot of food, and just hung out with Mum and Q. Then that night, on a bit of an impulse, the three of us went out to see Gravity and it was so amazing! I was so glad I could see it in 3D at the movies because it was such an immersive experience! Gotta love Sandra Bullock too - so freakin' talented :) then after the movie we went back to Mum & Q's and Han got back shortly after us..!

On Sunday we headed back to LA to do some adult/actressy things! First on the list: filing our tax returns. Woahh!!! We're really adults now! It was pretty easy - borderline enjoyable - and for some reason a very cool milestone. We also worked on our personal websites (we'll post links on the blog when they're done) and watched some more True Blood - on the actual TV because Q spiffed up Han's computer and now it does all sorts of awesome stuff INCLUDING cooperate with the HDMI cable!! This was more exciting than it sounds, we're really stoked about it. 

Today we're getting down to business: memorizing lines, organizing rehearsals, reading plays, and working on audition submissions! Look out day, you're going to be productive whether ya like it or not!

Couldn't be Happier!

The last few days we've been back and forth to Chambers' working on our own scenes, watching other people's scenes, and workshopping some new material. Very productive! We're really so lucky to have such a great coach who gives us so much of his time and such great opportunities. 

We've eaten like queens too! We've had salads, granola/yogurt/honey/strawberries for brekkie, poached eggs, and Luce baked the most delicious brown sugar cupcakes with peanut butter cream cheese icing!! Yum! We also walked down Hollywood Blvd with our friend Mike - from our first night of background - and had the most glorious, decadent Ghirardelli ice creams, mmmm...

We hadn't fully realized how long it might take, though, and had to move the car at 4:00. The ice cream was too great to leave, though, so Han stayed until the last second and at 3:50, ran, like seriously RAN back to the car! Hahaha only on Hollywood Blvd would that not be cause for too many raised eyebrows.. It was worth the effort though, Han got to the car at EXACTLY 4:00, a little the worse for wear.

The real triumph of the week, though, was yesterday. We made our decision and signed with the Shirley Wilson & Associates Talent Agency!! We couldn't be happier or more excited!!! We're hoping it's the start of something big and we have total faith in our agent, Gregory - he's awesome and seems really excited to have us on board! After we'd signed all the paperwork, we had a little task list from him. We had to stop by Anthony's (the photographer who took our headshots) because we lost the CDs with all of our photos haha oops.. Then we sent Gregory our best pics and signed up with three different acting websites where jobs are posted in addition to the ones the agencies have access to. It felt GREAT to get it all done - we never want to retype our resumes again! We feel like we're getting some momentum up and we finally have everything lined up to get out there and start auditioning!! Yeeee! We're on our way out to Mum and Q's now to see them, do our laundry, and have a celebratory dinner tonight! 

Galentine's Day!!

We're a little behind on the blog but we've had an eventful few days!

Thursday was a recovery day from all the excitement of the start of the week. We hiked Runyon Canyon (which was bloody difficult, but hopefully gave us some killer leg/butt muscle) and then spent the rest of the day chilling out, working on our online modeling portfolio things, watching True Blood, and eating yummy food.

On Valentine's - or, more accurately, Galentine's - Day we treated ourselves to a couple fun things! We worked out and had a second meeting with an agency to talk about their contracts, and then came the fun part of the day! We got the yummiest boba ever and picked up ingredients for (relatively) healthy chocolate cupcakes! Luce baked up a storm when we got home and they were absolutely DELICIOUS!! We had one each then went to the Universal City Walk for some rockin sushi and the long-awaited Winter's Tale. 

The sushi was great buuut the movie.. not so much. We certainly wouldn't recommend it, but it was bad to the point of being laughable so it was still quite fun to watch! And Jessica Brown-Findlay (Sibyl on Downton Abbey!!) was actually really lovely. We satisfied our want for a love story when we got home by watching The Bachelor!! Aaand you know a chick flick's bad when The Bachelor has a better love story in it! It was a lovely Valentine's Day though and, barring having an actual Valentine, what more could you hope for than chocolate and chick flicks?

The weekend was great too and went by so quickly! Han was working on a student film at Chapman which, though the role was pretty small, was really fun! The cast and crew were so, so nice and it looks like it's going to end up being a good little film. Here're a couple pics from on set:

Yesterday was a looong day though and it felt great to get home (after midnight, oh my gosh!) and be able to sleep in a bit this morning.

While Han was at Chapman, Luce spent Saturday at Disney with Mum and Q!! They had a great time AND they saw Penny from the Big Bang Theory!!

Yesterday Luce had a very chill day at home, watching movies, working on lines for a couple scripts and eating home-made cookie dough - perfect Sunday!

Today we had one (we think final!) agent meeting! We went to the agency we're pretty sure we're going to sign with, had a chat, and picked up contracts to look over! Hopefully we'll be signed and ready to go by the end of the week!! SO EXCITING!!!

This afternoon we worked on a project with two of our guy friends, they came over and we read through a reeaaally long but very funny script, an afternoon well spent! We had a light dinner (one of our "2" days on the diet, although it's really hard to decide if it's worth it/doing anything haha) and now we're watching No Strings Attached - Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher are so wonderful!! 

Wow, our lives have become such a crazy, wonderful whirlwind and it's kind of unbelievable!

BEST DAY EVER!

Today was a completely AMAZING day!! Yeeee! We were SO busy in the absolute best way possible. In the morning we went over to Chambers' studio for one last rehearsal before the performance at 12:00!! We were feeling great about the show. The cast is so much fun to work with and the scenes are all comedic so we got to just let loose and have a blast. Before show time, though, we had one last interview with a really good commercial agency! We got to the building about half an hour early, memorized the sides, and went in with three other people to be interviewed all together. The agents were really lovely! We told them about ourselves, did the audition portion without a hitch, thanked them for their time, and then we were off back to Chambers' with 45 minutes till the show!!

The parking-in-Hollywood gods were smiling upon us and we got a spot right outside the studio, raced in, and had time to run our scenes one last time before the producer arrived!! We all killed it in the performance!!! YAY! Everyone brought their A game; it was the best we'd ever done and the producer seemed to love it! We were all so, so proud of ourselves - now all we had to do was wait for Chambers to call later on with the verdict! 

The last thing on the agenda for the day was that Han had to go out to Chapman (for the first time since she left!) to rehearse for a student film happening this weekend. The rehearsal was at 8:00 which is preeeetty much the worst time to be driving out of LA, so instead we decided to leave early and spend a little while in Disneyland! We rode some rides and took in the atmosphere, still on such a high from our awesome morning. 

The rehearsal at Chapman went really well too! The set looks incredible, Han got a couple unexpected lines added, and the crew and the rest of the cast seem really nice, so it should be a fun weekend!

On the drive home we got a call from Chambers! Aaaaand... The show got picked up!! YAAAYYY!!! Better yet, we weren't cut from it!! So it looks like we're lined up for our first production in LA and also our first professional theatrical credit! OHMYGOSH!!! We couldn't be happier or more excited about this incredible opportunity! 

R&R (Rehearsal & Relaxation)

We caught up on shows, watched the Olympics, and ate yummy food. All. Weekend. Long. And it was amazing :)
On Sunday night we headed back to LA and made sure we were completely prepared for the exciting few days ahead!
Yesterday was the first day of rehearsal for Chambers's theatre workshop performance thing and we had such a fun time! It felt great to be rehearsing for something again and it sounds like, if all goes well, this could be kind of a big deal for us - which is SO exciting! We worked on scenes and monologues all day, had lots of laughs, met and reconnected with some really cool people, and then came home to put our feet up. With our newly installed internet we were able to catch up on Girls (which was AMAZING as always) and we also watched Stranger Than Fiction which was a really funny, sweet movie. It was another "2" day of our 5/2 diet, but even though we were a little hungry, we went to bed feeling very happy and excited! We're having absolutely no regrets about our decision to leave school - there's no way we'd be able to take advantage of these kinds of opportunities if we were still there!
Today was another day at Chambers' but it was quicker than yesterday. He brought in a professional director to get all the scenes in ship shape for tomorrow, which was incredibly helpful and really cool! We also helped Chambers cut out red paper love hearts for a Valentines Day surprise for his wife Betsy, shhhh.. Han lived up to her "Most Artistically Challenged" superlative on that little job haha bit of a struggle. We also all toasted (with Shirley Temples) to Shirley Temple, one of the greatest child actors of all time, who passed away today.

After we'd worked on all of our scenes we were given the OK to head home - via boba! We had lunch, watched The Swiss Family Robinson (such a throwback but Fritz was as gorgeous as we remembered) and Luce baked a yummy batch of cookies!

We have working out and fish and chips planned for the rest of the evening - what a lovely day!

Settling into this LA life :)

On Wednesday we did everything we set out to and then some! We worked out, stuck to our diet, and decorated - here's the finished paint chip wall:

When Han moved the Sentra, this little flyer was wedged into the door haha subtle..

The day was yet young, so we organized to meet with Chambers to talk over all our agency options. It was SUCH a successful meeting! He approved of our number one agency and helped us figure out a game plan moving forward. He also asked us to be part of a couple really exciting acting opportunities coming up! The first one's that we're going to be part of a workshop of Chambers's monologues and scenes next week!! There's a successful producer from the valley who's interested in creating a theatre festival showcasing young talent - so we're working hard to make sure we impress him, very exciting!

After seeing Chambers we went home for a little while, had a light dinner (even though we could've eaten a small cow between us.. Or one each...), then went to the Universal City Walk to watch a movie! It's SUCH a cool spot: bright lights, yummy smells (painfully yummy), and a beautiful movie theatre! 

We watched That Awkward Moment and it was really good! Miles Teller and Zac Efron are just gorgeous and there were a couple really talented fresh faces in it, which is always encouraging and exciting to see! We were a little disappointed by the prospect of dating any guy in his 20s if that's an accurate look into what massive jerks they are, though! We're confident (well, hopeful) that we'll be the game changers rather than the girls on the "roster".

Yesterday Han had another agency meeting which went really well! It was after two mini panic attacks: 1) went to move the Sentra back because street cleaning on the other side of the street is Thursdays, IT WASN'T THERE!! No no no no no!!! But actually false alarm, it was there! Just further down the street than she remembered, nice...

2) Got to the agency address and IT WASN'T THERE!! No no no no no!!! (Bit of a theme of the morning) Googled the address, wrong address! Gahh! Double checked the email, right address! Phewww! False alarm, it was there! Just tucked in behind another building. The lady was lovely and said some really nice things! It probably won't be the one, though, because we want to capitalize on the sister thing - but it was still worth going and checking it out!

After that, we went to Starbucks to mooch their wifi again and got asked out on a date by a seriously sketchy, redbull-drinking guy named Bear. Eeek! Stranger danger!! We SO didn't know what to do, so we just avoided committing in any way and never called him - is that bad? We decided it was time to leave shortly after that encounter and went to the Samuel French Bookshop on Sunset Blvd to read some plays and acting books for a couple hours.

After that we headed home and tidied the apartment up to make it perfect because Mum and Q were coming over for tea/to see our appartment all set up on their way to dinner with friends. They were super impressed and helped us with the rest of our decorating! We now have framed posters of Marilyn and Audrey watching over us and a couple inspirational wall decals keeping us motivated!

JT came over after they'd left and we had dinner (Salmon and veggies!) together and caught up on everything that's been going on this last week and a half! It was great to see him and we're excited that now we're only 15 minutes away from quite a few friendly faces!

To top the night off, we finished The Avengers - on the TV because Mum and Q had brought over the DVD player!! Yeee! - and it was just wonderfully inspiring and satisfying, so freaking cool!

This morning, we got all ready to workout then CRASH!!! Ahhh!! The light fixture in the wardrobe FELL and SHATTERED EVERYWHERE!! We saw our lives flash before our eyes because we'd JUST been in there! So scary!! 

We called Rita, the manager, and she came up to have a look and help us clean it up - she's such a sweetie, our wonderful, Brazilian apartment mum. Anyway, we made it down to the gym, worked out hard, spent half an hour in the sauna (love it!) and went back up to wait for the Time Warner Cable guy to come save us from the agonies of internetlessness and creepy guys in Starbucks. We had a delish salad for lunch, the TWC man came and set up the internet no worries (SO happy we have internet, YAAAYYY!), we packed up a weekend bag, and now we're on the road to Corona for a weekend at Mum and Q's! Woo!!

And it was juuuust right!

On Monday it was back to business with another talent agency interview!! We'd been told to prepare a monologue each and that there'd be sides for us to read, so we spent the morning refreshing our favourite monologues and practicing cold readings - we made a fair bit of progress actually! We went to the interview/audition, filled out paperwork, did our thing, and it went SO WELL! We really clicked with this agent and he seemed to have a lot of confidence and belief in us right off the bat. We're thinking he very well might be the agent for us! It was an incredibly successful meeting, and we headed home feeling hopeful and excited! We were still pretty exhausted from all the hard work of the past couple days (well, really weeks) so we spent the rest of the day hanging out at home. One thing that was top priority was getting the gas for the stove/oven to work!! We'd called the gas company and the lady had said there must be a pilot light issue, but we were pretty sure that there wasn't any gas at all coming through.. So we looked around, moved the stove and found a knob that looked like it controlled the gas flow! BUT it wouldn't move. Like, not even a tiny bit. We pulled and heaved and tried our best but ended up calling the maintenance guy because we weren't even sure we were on the right track. He came up and we told him the problem, he took one look at the stove, turned the knob with one hand as if it was a faucet, and ta da! The burners worked!! It was slightly embarrassing but he was super nice and probably relieved it was such an easy job. We (well, mostly Lucy) cooked up the most DELICIOUS turkey burgers for dinner. We put goats cheese inside them, then topped them off with spinach, mushrooms, olives, a fried egg each, and BBQ sauce. So good!! We watched most of The Avengers on Lucy's computer (until it decided it had had enough and wouldn't play the disc) then fell faaaast asleep.

Yesterday was another rockin interview/errands day. We had our last joint interview scheduled for 2:00, so we ran out to Trader Joes for healthy snacks, Home Depot for paint chips (we'll explain later), and Starbucks for wifi (it's been a bit of a struggle without internet, we're craving HBO GO in a serious way aaand having some difficulties with stuff our phones just can't quite manage). After Starbucks we had our meeting! It went well, no issues, but they really didn't wow us - also, they don't have a theatrical department so we'd only be able to audition for commercials. It's looking like Monday's agency is the one we'll go with! We just still want to get a couple more opinions on it and make absolutely sure it's the right choice with our heads as well as our hearts.

We wanted to connect our computers to the TV to watch movies, so we went to RadioShack to pick up an HDMI cable (GREAT service haha the two guys both jumped to help us out, very funny. One of them recognized our accents and knew Summer Heights High so we had a great chat with him) then came home. Han called up Time Warner Cable and set up internet - they're coming to install it on Friday, YAY! - while Luce sorted our yummy snacks into little snack bags. Next up, Han opened up the HDMI cable to get that sorted aaaaand womp womp, it wouldn't fit into the plug in the computer!! Lameeee! Han went back to RadioShack and found a cable with a medium sized plug on one end and a regular plug on the other. The guy at the store (not the Summer Heights High one, the other one) insisted we needed a "micro" rather than a "mini" though, so Han got the even smaller one and went home. IT WAS TOO SMALL! Feeling waaay too much like Goldilocks, Han went BACK to RadioShack, got the bloody medium sized plug cable, came home, aaaand: it was just right. The plugs fit and it looked good to go, but after a lot of "no signal" and some heavy googling of "PC to TV HDMI won't work" without success, we had to concede defeat. We'll have Q help us out next time he's in LA - quite likely we'll have another situation like the one with maintenance guy on our hands!

Meanwhile, while the RadioShack saga was going on for Han, Luce was working on our latest decor addition to the apartment! We'd gotten one of just about every colour paint chip from Home Depot, and Lucy designed the cutest rainbow of swatches to put on our wall! We ended up actually putting them up after dinner, in a remarkably cohesive team effort, and it looks GREAT! SO happy with it!! We still have some blues and purples to do today, but here's what we have so far:

Dinner, though, was an equally masterful effort from Luce - so freakin yummy!! We had three potato (potato, orange sweet potato, and white sweet potato) pancakes, grilled chicken, and roasted veggies, mm mmm! 

We watched Silver Linings Playbook (which Lucy's computer survived until the end of!) and called it a night.

Today was have plans to exercise, not eat a lot (we're trying this 5 and 2 diet where two days a week you only eat 500-600 calories), move the Sentra because there's street cleaning on Wednesdays, mooch the Starbucks wifi again, finish the paint chip wall, and go to the movies tonight! Should be a lovely day!!

We're home!!

The last few days have been completely crazy and wonderful! We're feeling like our hectic period of inbetween-ness is finally coming to an end and we couldn't be happier! 

We spent the whole day Friday packing, sorting through everything in the garage, packing, going to Best Buy to get a fridge, packing, and uhh packing! We also went on another (possibly last) big Walmart trip with Mum and her childhood friend Robin who was visiting for the weekend. We were feeling some serious déjà-vu from both of our set up experiences in our old places, only coupled with insane excitement because everything was starting to feel very real. We got so many adorable, colorful, perfect apartment things and we're feeling like the luckiest girls on earth right now! It was a huge day of organizing but we were feeling more than ready for move-in day the next day!

It's crazy to think that we moved in YESTERDAY!! Ahh the place already feels like home! We got the U-Haul out to Corona fairly early and packed it (quite expertly and surprisingly not very stressfully) full of everything we hadn't already put into the cars. 

Before we knew it we were on the road towards North Hollywood babyy! The two of us left first and drove in convoy, which was actually a surprisingly fun challenge, and got to the apartment first to sign all the paperwork.

We signed on the dotted line, got our keys, and started lugging load after load of stuff up to our place! 

Oh man, it was hard work!! It didn't take terribly long though and then we were onto setting everything up! Luce and Robin worked on the kitchen, Mum and Q assembled the bed, and Han worked on the (ohmygosh) walk-in wardrobe!! Yeee! 

The professionals (Mum, Q, and Robin) left us to our own devices a little later, having already gone above and beyond to help us, and we plowed on through for hours until the end was in sight. Here's the product of all our hard work!!

We microwaved some soup (still don't have gas for the stove) and had a go of our new coffee maker, so cool! Then pushed through the last of the unpacking to get almost EVERYTHING into a place before absolutely falling into bed and crashing out. What a successful day! 

Today was more of a recovery/odds and ends day. We worked on decorating the apartment, set up the printer, organized drawers/bookshelf, vacuumed (love our cute new vacuum, so easy and borderline fun to use!) and had a huge grocery shop at Ralph's! After a whole trolley FULL of groceries, we each took a stab and guessed what the price would come out to aaaand - wish there was a way to better emphasize how incredible this moment was - HAN'S GUESS WAS 20 CENTS OFF THE ACTUAL PRICE!! It was amazing. Wow! Love little moments like those!! Anyway, we headed home (ahh, love the sound of that! HOME!) and kept going with all our bits and pieces, had a three way phone call with Sarah and Izzy, made a wonderful salad for dinner, watched A Knight's Tale (on the laptop because we're still working on getting TV and internet), Luce ran back to her old place to pick up a few things we'd left there, and now we're about to go to bed for the second time in our lovely place! We want to get a good night's sleep too because we're meeting with another agency tomorrow!! So exciting! Life is gooood! :)