The Traveling Girl

SoCal or Cali

"Aloisia, wake up." Sloan whispered as she shook me.

"Mmhmhmh." I groan as I slowly lift my head up.

"Be happy you weren't the first to get waken up." Jade mumbles with a pillow over her face.

"She's been up all night!" Karlee says standing and stretching.

"Yup, I don't want to miss a thing!" Sloan smiles.

"Yeah, I can't wait for Cali!" Jade takes the pillow off her face as she talks.

"Um it's SoCal, not Cali!" Sloan says rolling her eyes.

"I'm pretty sure it is."

"I'm pretty sure it's not."

"I'm pretty sure it's both!" Karlee says.

"I'm pretty sure I don't care.....and whoa!" I start to say but a beautiful glowing city catches my eye. I look out the tiny plane window, it's around two in the morning, so it's still pretty dark.

"Aaaahhhhh!!!!" Sloan yells.

"Let me see!" She pushes Jade out of the way and stares out at the beautiful city.

"Miss can you please keep your voice down."

"Normal passengers are still sleeping." A flight attendant mumbles as she returns to the front of the plane.

"Hey, guys, wasn't yesterday Friday?" Jade asks, slightly looking away from the window.

"Yeah, why?" I answer.

"Oh.no." Sloan whines.

"I missed TAR." She cries.

"AAAAAAAHHHHH! You stupid head, don't call it TAR call it The Amazing Race!" Karlee yells.

The flight attendant sticks her head out to see what's going on. Karlee smiles at her and does a little wave. The flight attendant sticks her head back behind the curtain.

"Attention passengers, we will be landing in South California, in five minutes, place fasten your seat belts, when the green light comes on you can take your seat belts off and grab your luggage. Thank you for flying with California Airlines."

Passengers woke up and put their seats belts on.

"Yay, Cali he we come!" Jade cheered grabbing her phone and snapping pictures.

Sloan looked to the passengers sitting behind her.

"She means SoCal here we come." Sloan said as the passengers looked at her like she was crazy, which in my books, she is crazy.

I took out my phone and snapped a picture of the glowing city, then I sent it to Ruby, who we weren't seeing until Paris, then Rome.

To: Ruby

one attachment

Hey! We're about to land in SoCal or Cali, whatever you want to call it. Here is a pic of the morning sky!

xoxo

She responded immediately.

From: Ruby

OMG! I am sooooooooo bored w/out u guys!

Thanks, it looks beautiful, and can I call it California?

xoxo

I laughed then put my phone away. I felt my ears pop, I lifted my hand and held my nose, trying to pop them back.

"Here," Jade says passing me a piece of gum.

"I can't.." I start to say but then remember that I got my braces taken off a couple of years ago.

"Thanks." I smile.

The landing feels very smooth, I just sit and stare out the window at a dark beach, then as the plane starts to touch the ground I start to look at palm trees and other things that look tropical. The a flash of green appears and passengers go nuts. I just sit and wait for them to be done, Jade is sitting beside me so we just sit together and watch as Sloan and Karlee are dragged out of the plane. We giggle to ourselves, when it looks like the crowd has died down we stand up, and grab our carry-on bags. I lead the way as I step off the plane into the tunnel that they attach.

I see Karlee waving at us as Sloan walks around to everyone checking to see if it's a guy from the twenty-sixth season of The Amazing Race.

"Wow, that was fun!" Jade huffs.

"We should grab our suit cases." I suggest.

"Sloan, stop pestering people and come with us!" Jade yells grabbing Sloan by her glitzy tank top.

We walk to the luggage drop-off and wait, a bunch of crazy tourist are running around trying to find all seven of their bags. Finally a pink suitcase labeled "Sloan Moriz" comes into sight. Sloan runs and grabs it then our suitcases start to come out.
Mine is purple with Hawaiian flowers all over it.
Once we all have our suitcases we walk toward the east exit where a bus from our hotel is waiting for us.
As we walk Sloan is still looking around for the man, she runs up to a Starbucks and says,

"Hi can I get one refresher..." She starts to say, then she turns and looks at us.

"What do you guys want?" She shouts.

"Hibiscus refresher please." Yells Jade.

"Iced decaf mocha." I shout.

Karlee looks too shy to shout, so I order for her.

"An iced hot chocolate with extra whipped cream!"

Karlee shoots me a look, I smile back.

Soon Sloan runs up to us with a tray full of drinks.
We all grab our drinks and run to the exit. We find the bus to the Ramada hotel waiting. We step on and place our luggage down, the bus is empty.

"Are you the ladies from Canada?" The driver asks.

"Yes?" Karlee answers.

"Alrighty, take a seat, don't worry it's not a far drive." He says.

"where is everyone else?" Jade asks.

"Oh, well everyone on your flight got here early, so I had time to take them and drop them off and come back to get you girls!" He said half laughing.

"I guess the drinks made us late." Sloan says cheekily smiling.

The bus driver was right, it wasn't a long drive, we got to the hotel in ten minutes, but you couldn't see the airport, all you could see was a beautiful beach. Well actually it's pretty hard to see anything at three in the morning.

"Thanks for the ride!" Sloan says happily as she gets off.

"Yeah, sorry about being late." Karlee says pulling her suitcase behind her.

As I step off the bus a beautiful breeze hits my face. The four of us walk into he hotel, which i must add it beautiful!

Thank god Jade knows the owners and could get a deal on rooms.

We walk up to the front desk, the lady turns around and smiles.

"Room for Gellark." Jade says.

The lady looks at her computer and then hands us each a room key.

"Floor nine, room nine seven two. Enjoy your stay!" She says.

We walk away and find the elevator, beside it through a window is the pool, it is beautiful. It has three hot tubs and a separate pool has a water slide.

The elevator shoots up, and we are on the ninth floor.

We walk to the room and Sloan fights to unlock the door. When she slides her key through and the door opens, a huge suit is revealed. It has three different rooms, two bedrooms and a main living room. The living room has a bathroom as does one of the bedrooms. Karlee and I claim a bedroom with the perfect view of the beach. After setting down our suit cases, Karlee and I flop down onto the bed and fall asleep.