Area 77

Muneera throws back her head and laughs hysterically as she prepares to describe her eventful summer of 2005.

Muneera, 22, calls the summer of 2005 one of her most favorite so far. She had come to the United States to visit a friend in Los Angeles to spend four weeks of fun and excitement. Seeing celebrities, shopping compulsively, and almost getting food poisoning are just some of the highlights of Muneera’s four weeks in LA. Not to mention, driving the chaotic streets of LA when she’s had absolutely no experience driving in America.

“We were as sick as you can get and enjoyed almost every minute of it.” Jumana, the friend Muneera was visiting, thought she would take her guest to a famous restaurant on her first night in the city. Killer Shrimp is a restaurant that has only one thing on the menu: shrimp. “We spent maybe two and a half hours stuffing our selves with these amazing shrimps! Only when we started to feel the rumble did we realize that we probably had enough.” No sooner did they get back to Jumana’s apartment when everything went “out of control.” They took turns heading for the bathroom and when both happened to be on the couches at the same time, they laughed at each other and made fun of how bad the other looks. “I remember one of the things she said to me was that I looked like my high school junior year yearbook picture! I laughed so hard, I had to head back to the bathroom.”

Seeing Keanu Reeves and Amanda Bynes was definitely a highlight of her visit. They were on their way to Cheesecake Factory to have some cheesecake, when on the sidewalk all dressed in black, signature stubble, and messy hair comes Keanu Reeves towards them. “Thank God we were in the car or else we would have died of embarrassment from all that screaming.” They even thought about going to the restaurant they saw him eventually go into but then decided that that was too desperate of them.

A week later, during the shopping hours of their day, they saw a very “modest-looking and humble” Amanda Bynes in Saks Fifth Avenue. Surprisingly, their reaction to seeing her was very different than it was for Keanu Reeves. “We were at the makeup stall that was right next to the one she was at but just pretended she wasn’t there. I guess not all celebrities are screamable.” However, later on they figured that if they were in the privacy of the car, they would have screamed anyway.

At one point during the visit, after Jumana had complained a few times that driving in LA was a pain, Muneera offered to take the wheel for a day. “Big mistake. A thrilling experience for both of us, it was.” Near misses at intersections, tailgating, and zigzagging through traffic are the only things Muneera is willing to be known. “It was great fun screaming every two minutes,” she says. “I did a lot of screaming in those four weeks.”

It was really memorable, and the girls enjoyed it immensely. They even made plans of Muneera visiting again next summer. Even though all the shopping caused a bit of a problem in the luggage check-in at the airport on the way back home, Muneera will never forget eating “a million” shrimp, seeing a couple of celebrities, and enjoying a nice anarchic drive in the streets of LA. “I don’t know what other obnoxious things there are left to do for next summer. We did mention driving over to Las Vegas though.” And with a smile she says, “I’m guessing that place has lots of potential.”

This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 9:14 am and is filed under Funny, Literature/Poetry, Silly. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.