Hej! On Monday David and I went to San Francisco for a few days. David's brother Joakim was there for a gaming convention to show his new game, and since he was in the same country AND state as us we of course wanted to go and see him. We were eager to spend some time in San Francisco too, since we haven't been there more than a few hours before. We had an amazing stay- San Francisco is a beautiful city- and on Wednesday, before we drove back to LA, I documented the hours we had left in SF with my Nikon. Let's see what we were up to, okay?
I'll never stop thinking Nob Hill is funny. Never. Giggle every time I see this photo.
And here we were! Beanstalk Cafe, squeezed between buildings in the middle of building renovations. I love it!
David looked cute, and a little worried. I asked him a camera related question and this was his face before answering.
This, my dear friends and readers, is a Cragel. Croissant and Bagel coming together in a beautiful way. When I saw people raving about it on yelp I knew I had to try. This is their morning cragel. Scrambled eggs, cheese and bacon. Yup! It was AMAZING!
OMnomnomNOM!
David also chose a cragel. Of course.
The cafe was tiny. We were so lucky to catch the only table in there. Lots of regulars came in to get there coffee and bagel fix. All of them were perfectly individual characters. The "mayor" (that's what he looked like at least) talking in his best booming speech voice as to make sure no one misses his presence. The old man sitting quietly on the bar stool sipping coffee and reading his paper like he most certainly does every day. It was lovely to watch it all while having our breakfast. It was the perfect start of the day.
Okay. No more pictures.
Look at that cool cold brew machine! It dripped- slowly, oh so slowly- filling the decanter in the bottom.
And then we had to get going. We wanted to see one more thing before we left San Francisco. But first one more look at the city!
We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge.
And went to Muir Woods! Even though we were early both the parking areas were filled to the brim and we had to park along the road. Faaaaar down the road. So we had to take a walk to get to the walk, haha!
SO worth it. Muir Woods is a beautiful redwood forest with thousand year old trees looming high above our heads.
(Can you see the two tiny old ladies in the middle?)
Tourists of all ages. Isn't this the cutest?
This one is quite cute too. Trying to get an entire tree into one photo- It's impossible!
All you could do in Muir Woods was look up, following the tree trunks all the way up, up, up.
It makes you feel really small.
Aah. So lovely up there.
One of my all time favorite things: sunshine coming through the branches in spots, creating the loveliest combination of light and dark.
Here's another one.
And here. (If you look closely you can see a spider web in between the branches)
And this! See what I mean?
Spider webs everywhere!
The sunshine was especially tricky here. The contrast are beautiful, but can make it super hard to get the photo you want.
Hi! The girl in the entrance kiosk told me I looked smashing in my outfit. That made me happy, because I felt kinda tired and very far from smashing.
I have a lot of photos like this. Dark trees and bright green foliage. Can't get enough of it!
Always a big fan of creepy roots.
Looks like some kind of pre historic monster.
It's fun to take photos of other tourists being touristy.
Muir Woods was such a wonderful place. I actually cried a little because I was so overwhelmed by it all. Nature is fucking awesome!
And when we got out of the woods we stopped to take in this fairly astounding view.
It felt like a good way to end our San Francisco trip.
We drove back to LA with new energy and when we drove into Hollywood and saw all the movie posters it actually felt like coming home. Isn't that strange? And walking through the door to our apartment, it smelled like home. Not like New Apartment. Home.
David was on a hunt for the perfect piece of dead branch for an idea he's got. We walked up to the reservoir during golden hour to search. I pointed at branches I thought looked good, David said "no", I pointed at another nice looking stick, David said "hmmmm... maybe... but no." Repeat forever and ever.
Aha!?!
No.
I took selfies with a view while David muttered about stupid sticks.
And found lovely grass that photographed well in the setting sun.
I had a good outfit week.The weather was sunny and warm, but I could still wear hats without dying from heat stroke. So in other words: Perfect Weather.
This one is a personal favorite. Red and black always look smashing together. I had red lips too, of course.
Here's a parade of car selfies. Two with hats, all three of them with the same pair of black sunglasses.
We found the perfect mid century secretary desk for my work space. It's so beautiful! And Swedish, which is a little funny considering everything.
We've also bought a rug, two bedside lamps and two nightstands. All on their way to us right now in different speed (days, weeks, hopefully not months).
As usual David put together a Behind the scenes video for our latest short Closet Space. So much work goes into these little films and it's nice to be able to show you a little of that.
On Wednesday I met up with my friend Caroline and we walked around the entire reservoir. I hadn't done that before so that was fun. Even though I stepped on a rattlesnake. Luckily it didn't get angry, and I jumped away in half a second, screaming my lungs off. A little adventure on a weekday.
I tried this season's trendy hair style: pigtails. I can always get behind trends when they're as spooky as this.
And yesterday we found out that Closet Space got a Vimeo Staff Pick! So awesome! This is the third of our videos that's been rewarded Vimeo Staff Pick, previous ones being Lights Out and Not So Fast. Yesterday the number of views started to climb fast and now we've passed 30 000 on Vimeo, and 26 000 on youtube.
Since walking around the reservoir I've wanted to show David the beautiful route, so yesterday afternoon when we felt like going for a long walk we went there. It's almost 10 km (6 miles) from our door, up to the lake, around it and then back home so it takes a while. But it's so worth it!
Hollywood sign looking pretty over there.
No, Hollywood. You don't have to think this way. You are your mind too. Body and mind. A functional body, or not. But I'm thinking you mean it in an aesthetic way and that is just bullshit.
Pretty as all hell.
Abandoned houses in valleys always make my trespassing loving heart sing.
Spooky trees doing spooky things.
And the most magical view. Like a painting.
David got a call. The cell phone reception isn't great up in the hills so he had to stand perfectly still to be able to hear the other person. I was annoying and took photos while waiting. Obviously. And that was my week.
Hej! On sunday David and I went on a little adventure. We had been writing all weekend and needed a little energy boost so we drove to the old Paramount ranch that I had read about here .
Hanging out outside jail.
They used to film a lot of things here, the largest production being Dr Quinn Medicine Woman, but now it's just an abandoned western town in the middle of nowhere. So cool. We arrived in the afternoon just when the sun was turning golden. There was quite a lot of people there. Some were having a picnic, a few were newly engaged couples taking their engagement photos, and some were just like us; walking around and looking at everything for the first time.
The Saloon.
I brought my Nikon with me for the first time in ages. I've been feeling a bit rusty with my real camera lately, so I thought it would be nice to get back in the habit of bringing it with me more. Most of these photos are taken with my Nikon but the self portraits are my iPhone as usual.
I really liked that the buildings looked old and weathered. Since they were made for being in movies they've probably always looked like this. Maybe a little less dusty and broken. It must be so fun building a place like this, making it exactly how you want it. A little town that looks like it's been standing forever.
Some parts were obviously fairly newly added. Like the barn door to the right. It looked very nice and polished compared to the rest.
Ooops! We're in jail!
Loved the light in here. That's how you notice these building were made with movie making in mind. A tiny room with windows at the best spots for as much light as possible.
When we had seen all the houses we went on a hike up in the hills surrounding the little town. It was such a beautiful afternoon.
We took our own cutesy love photos. Because spooky trees are the most romantic things I know.
And David climbed a little.
We walked further up the hills. David is always ahead of me because I have to stop to take pictures all the time.
I caught up with David when he had stopped to photograph his long shadow legs.
The view was fairly spectacular.
"Can I have my sunglasses on? I look cooler with my sunglasses" Okay, Mr Hollywood Director.
So Many Spooky Trees! *insert approximately a thousand heart eyes emojis*
And I found a new favorite.
It was love at first sight.
The sun was getting low in the sky so we headed back to car.
Stopped by the river first though. Such a moody spot. Spooky trees and moody rivers (what a great book title!) are on my "all time favorite things" list. Oh, and uprooted trees too!
Our spooky love.
Almost all the people were gone by now. The place looked just like a ghost town.
I made plans in my head to return soon. With a picnic basket. And maybe bring my sister and her kids. I think that would be wonderful!
Really loved the colors here!
And let's end this post with a jumping photo, because YAY for abandoned Western towns!
Hope you enjoyed tagging along on our little afternoon adventure.
I realized I needed a real headshot (Not just selfies and outfit photos, hehe). At first I had planned to take it myself but since I took Davids headshot I thought it would be fun if he took mine. I like it very much.
I also like this one with my Peekaboo Tooth:
There was A LOT of photos that featured Peekaboo Tooth- making the prettiest photo look super silly.
One of the reasons for the headshot was that I wanted a photo on my imdb page! And here it is!
A dinner:
Since we have a full kitchen now it’s so fun to cook again! I’m not very fond of the gas oven though. Yesterday we got an oven thermometer and found out that when the oven should be 350 f it was really only 275 f. So now I know why everything I’ve made this far has been undercooked. Anyways, we celebrated by cooking this lovely dinner. Pan fried sun chokes in sage butter and Baked Parmesan Cod. Very very tasty! And super fancy on a monday. I made a cold sauce to go with it all, with sourcream, garlic, parmesan, salt and pepper. By the way: Sun chokes!!! OMG! SO tasty! We had fried sun chokes (omg omg omg!) at a restaurant a few days ago and now I’m HOOKED!
An apartment update:
We have a table and chairs now. Our place feel like home.
A hint of what’s coming:
My book. Looking pretty as all hell. I’m working on the shop details, so stay tuned.
A Hollywood update: I realized I hadn't showed you this yet! David made a little video about Lights Out and what’s been going on. He’s planning on doing a series of behind the scenes videos showing you the work that went into turning Lights Out into a feature film. It feels so good to finally be able to talk about this. Hopefully we’ll have a trailer to show you soon too.
Other than that: I have been fighting my chronic urticaria lately. Something I’m not going to show a picture of, because YUCK. Think boiling lizard skin and you’re close. We’ve been talking about how to use it in one of our horror shorts but we haven't figured out how to solve the problem with me mostly crying from itchiness. So here's a selfie from when I was bored from itching all day, and I put on a velvet cape and a leaf hat just to have something to do.
Oh, and here's me and a cactus. Yesterday was COLD. And windy.
Well, that was all for now. Talk to you again soon!