The Mission Inn

We stayed local this weekend and managed to get out and see things even with Mitchell's leg still being a bit swollen.

On Friday night we went to the Orange County improv festival in Santa Ana. Mitchell would have been performing, but he's taking a break right now. We were able to see his group perform without him though, and catch some other people we knew perform during the night. There were lots and lots of groups, some local to Orange County and some from LA and beyond. Each only got about 20 minutes and it ran until after midnight. The theatre itself was pretty cool, it was called the Frida and was an indie cinema which during the week had been running a Godzilla marathon, with all the old films from the 60s and 70s, both the Japanese and American films. 

On Saturday it was a friend's birthday, so we met Rene etc at a brewery for some drinks and games. It was an odd place, with a beer garden out the back of the brewery itself which was just in the middle of a business park. It took a while to find, but was very nice in the evening sunshine.

It closed at 9pm, so we had to find another place to finish the night. We decided on karaoke at Duke's bar which was a lot of fun as there were about 8 of us and we formed the main group requesting songs. Between our group we sang songs in English, German, French and Spanish (Frederico was too shy to sing in Italian or we would have had that too). 

On Sunday we had a little date night in Downtown Riverside. Mitchell was attending a conference in the Mission Inn hotel that week, so we decided to spend a night in Riverside's top attraction. It's a very fancy hotel and presidents and royals have stayed there (not for several years now, but in the 20s when Riverside was the citrus resort all the rich people of LA would travel to for a relaxing weekend). 

After checking in, we went to explore the hotel and see all the wonderful architecture. It's built in a Spanish style with lots of turrets and tiles, and parts look just like a European fairytale. 

There was also lots of Mission items which were probably pulled straight from churches. There were pews in the corridors and wooden statues of saints in alcoves. The doors to the hotel rooms were also big wooden affairs with bolted slats across them. 

After exploring the hotel we went out for some dinner. We'd thought about visiting the onsite restaurant, but it was a little out of our price range, and I'd wanted ramen anyway, so we headed into downtown to eat at my favourite ramen place. 

We'd left Mitchell's poster in the car, so we popped back to get that and dropped it off at the hotel room. It was during this walk we found the hotel's pool and sat on the sun loungers for a few minutes, admiring how quiet in was inbetween the palm trees, even though it was so close to the town and roads.

After this we went for a drink at a nice bar in downtown and had a lovely evening together. 

In the morning, Mitchell had his conference (and a free breakfast) and I had woken up with a sore throat (I think maybe a cold or small throat infection from the microphones at karaoke) so I went straight home. But other than that it was a lovely date night in Riverside and we were glad to finally see the inside of the Mission Inn. 

Lots of love,

Emily and Mitchell

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