Happy birthday...happy holidays :)

My real birthday (Dec. 20) was spent on Venice Beach with my man, his sister Elena and their cousin Max. We had a blast as the sun set and couldn´t help but pose for some pictures.

We tried to show them as much of Hollywood as we could in such short time. Took them around Hollywood blvd to Hollywood and Highland mall (Sweet candy store with marilyn monroe jelly bean picture and willy wonka chocolate store), Mulholland Dr., Sunset Strip, Beverly Hills, Rodeo Dr. and they went on their own to Santa Monica. So great to finally meet his sister Elena, she´s awesome and it was a pleasure having them both over.

On Icelandic Christmas, Dec. 24, we took them to the airport and once we were home it was already 6 pm in Iceland, aka where we wish each other "Merry Christmas" so i skyped with my family in Iceland and my sister and her adorable 3 year old twins. It felt wonderful, i felt like I was there. In the evening we met our MI friends and orphans for the holidays where we ate delicious food, played secret santa, present stealing game and finally played music. It was a very merry evening.


On USA Christmas Day, Dec. 25 we drove to Brendan´s (Dan´s band mate) and celebrated Christmas day with him and once again his fabulous family. They had good food and games. The Flavin family brings it every time.

On the 26th, we were invited to an Icelandic gathering. It was wonderful, tons of Icelanders and amazing food. One of my friends had just got engaged so i was so happy to see her and her fiance.

Otherwise I have enjoyed the time off and relaxing. Hope you did too :)

Happy holidays!

Surprise early birthday party

SURPRISE....
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Anna, happy birthday to you"

My boyfriend proved he´s the best boyfriend and organized a surprise birthday party for me a week before my birthday. I had had a horrible morning, did terrible in ear training exam and was so upset that Dan gave me my first birthday present, a pair of penguin slippers. So cute! That cheered me up. Later he took me out to dinner at Mel´s and then we went to Bev Mo to buy some drinks. When we got back i opened the door to find my friends surrounded and singing the birthday song. 

 

Sweetest surprise party ever and i loved every minute of it. 

Dan also gave me the second present..a disney crown, so i got to be a disney princess for a day..

So lucky to have such amazing people in my life, my man and friends
Thank you Dan for making my birthday so special! I love you ♥

Between Thanksgiving and end of school year

Thanksgiving Brendan (Dan´s bandmate) invited us over for Thanksgiving. We thought it was just us and the bandmates...boy were we wrong. We came in and his whole extended family was there. It was a family affair, good food, games, even shooting turkeys (fake ones). Family fun!

Black Friday.... Brendan and his sister bought a huge TV, while we bought some minor things, then waited 2 hours in the car while they waited in line. It was definitely an experience. Black Friday is crazy.....love it and hate it at the same time. Love the prices, hate the endless waiting and people fighting over things like animals.

Love is all around.... got the sweetest friends in the world who called me all the way from Vienna, Austria to tell me they miss me and are proud of me. made my day!

Hollywood life A sunday tradition of ours is to either go to BBQ at Piano bar of see Talking Dead live. Walking Dead is that amazing. And talking about it ...even better.

-The cool thing about living in Hollywood. Started the day seeing Javier Bardem get his star outside El Capitan and then passed Sally Fields on my way back home from school. Hollywood life!
Also saw Hugh Jackman get his star. Only problem. My camera didn´t work...NO! Thankfully there were enough people there with cameras so i got this one online :P

-Speaking of Javier Bardem....Saw the new Bond movie at Universal Walk. the good news....BOND IS BACK!!!! Shaken not stirred, womanizer, old intro....Just wished he would have been played by Clive Owen!Thank you Adele and Paul Epworth for making a proper Bond song, the editing and visual aid during it amazing, Javier Bardem for brilliant acting and Sam Mendes for directing an AWESOME Bond movie.

Annual Hollywood Christmas Parade: very fun, except for when you live here, it really gets in the way. We had to record at school and had to go extra long route to get there. Also, they could have cleaned after themselves, there was puke and horseshit the next week on our street. Not nice!

Recording time: Our band Anna and the Bells recorded our original song "Expirationdating" at school with our roomate Eric and our friends Dylan and Justin. It was an experience. First Dan played the guitar, Martha played piano, then I sang, and in the end our backup singers took their turn. It went by so fast. Dan was happy since he met one of his guitar heroes there. Me and Dan also did a voiceover job (Fifth Element) for the guys´ schoolproject in return. It was fun!

Panels: Interesting panels at my school lately, wen to Getting Airplay That Counts (How to Make Radio Work for You). Love Music Business panels, informative and inspiring. And i got Dan´s band a radio gig in the process. Gotta love networking.

Flu at the worst time... when i had three performances and Dan´s parents coming to visit.Let me tell you..Hell hath no fury like a vocalist with the flu. I had to cancel one performance, Dan and Martha did the song without me but did it amazingly.

House of Blues gig...Anna and the Bells performed at the legendary House of Blues Sunset on Dec. 2 at Musician´s Institute Christmas Party as well as the Artist Development: The Show itself. Despite being sick, i managed to pull through (big thanks to Dan) and had a blast. i love my band and the people in it. Dan´s parents saw us performed at House of Blues and were so proud.

 

I passed all my exams...WOHOO....

now it´s just one more quarter until i graduate 

Introducing...Anna and the Bells

Anna and the Bells

My new band "Anna and the Bells" upcoming shows:

Dec. 2 
6:30 pm

Performing our original songs “Expirationdating” and “All We Want is RockNRoll” at Musician´s Institute Holiday Party at the House of Blues on Sunset Strip.

Dec. 6 
5:30 pm

Performing our original songs “Expirationdating” and “All We Want is RockNRoll” at the Artist Development Showcase at Musicians Institute in Hollywood.

this is just the beginning…working on new material and looking for more gigs.

Stay tuned
www.annaandthebells.com
www.facebook.com/annaandthebells
www.twitter.com/annaandthebells

Help me win!!!!

I entered a writing contest on expatblog.com and i need your help

Please go to the link below and LIKE, COMMENT and SHARE

http://www.expatsblog.com/contests/39/expat-lessons-101

Thank you sooo much!!!!

Celebrate good times

MY OWN BAND 
First band meeting and practice for Artist Development: the Show at school where we perform two of our original songs (mine and Dan´s). We got some great people to play with us and i´m so excited. We had our first band practice on Halloween and my backup singers just happened to be both wearing a zombie costumes, so i was a cop with zombie backup singers. How awesome is that.  

 

HALLOWEEN

Halloween party on Friday at our icelandic friends place. Very cozy.
Dan´s friend from Arizona stayed at our place, went bowling with them while supporting our roomate Kevin playing drums at Lucky Strikes. Had our own lane and Halloween movies in the background.

Carved my first pumpkin, I did an A while Dan carved Stan´s Dad from South Park. Phenomenal!

 
HARRP
Dan just joined this amazing band HARRP (http://www.harrpmusic.com/) as their latest guitarist and they were nice enough to invite him and me to dinner ending with a beer in hand next to a bonfire. Felt like summertime. So nice!

TALKING DEAD

Was sick for a week and what a more awesome way to come back from being sick...then go to TALKING DEAD live with Will Wheaton and Machete guy...what an episode!

WHITNEY HOUSTON TRIBUTE:
Was a seatfiller with my friends Hanna, Crystal and Emelie at an at an amazing tribute to Whitney Houston....where Halle Berry, Britney Spears, LL Cool J and Clive Davis spoke while Usher, Jennifer Hudson, Cece Winans and Yolanda Adams performed. Great performances, sucked though that Celine Dion was missing, since she and Whitney Houston were my idols growing up. 

EDDIE MURPHY: ONE NIGHT ONLY

Eddie Murphy and Stevie Wonder singing Higher Ground, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, Samuel L. Jackson, Jamie Foxx, Tracy Morgan, Russel Brand, Arsenio Hall all saying how Eddie Murphy inspired them. Just being with them all in the same room was amazing. Me and Dan were in awe, even better we got free wine! Talk about EPIC evening. Thanks 1iota.com for giving us a chance to be a seatfiller at Spike TV´s Eddie Murphy: One Night Only.

(copyright EW)

  

ANNIVERSARY 

A year since I met Dan so we decided to pose for a picture outside Jimmy Kimmel where we met. I´m so grateful for that day cause that´s where I met my love.

  

Later that evening we met my best friend Alexandra and her boyfriend (visiting from Mexico) at their hostel for drinks and barbeque, and played some Foosball. Needless to say the guys won.  But me and Alexandra won for best yelling, heheh. 

Later that evening a party bus (limo) with full bar  picked us up and we went to the bar Saddle Ranch, used in many TV series/movies for its mechanical bull. So cool!

 

Having my best friend visit me meant the world to me. I hadn´t seen her since she visited in Jan and before that since the summer. Thankfully she travels a lot so i´m able to see her. That´s the problem with having international friends, living so far apart. There are some friends I havent seen for years and can´t talk to because of time difference. That tests friendship. Thankful for true friends like her.

LIVE PERFORMANCES
All my performances at school are online. Me and Dan finally performed together in the concert hall. The song was no other than "Ain´t no right" by Jane´s Addiction. Was so proud to be able to sing that. Another favourite is "All my life" by Foo Fighters on Halloween. Such fun!

Dan´s birthday week

"BEST BIRTHDAY WEEK OF MY LIFE" (Dan Zerin)

My man Dan had a birthday and since he was so amazing to take me to Vegas and give me an awesome birthday i thought i´d do the same. Give him a birthday to remember. A birthday week!

His first gift was an an autographed cardboard picture of his favorite actor Danny Kaye

 and one of his movies "On the riviera".

His best friend Andrew (since he´s romanian, i call him his BROMANIAN) came to visit us for 10 days for Dan´s birthday. Talk about a good friend. To top it off he gave him a hockey jersey and brought Dan´s favourite Michigan beer Bell´s Two hearted ale and others which they drank that night.

Nightmare on Elm Street Day

-I borrowed Dan´s book about Robert Englund (who plays Freddie Krueger)and had it autographed along with an autographed picture. As you can see on the picture below he was stunned. He couldn´t believe it

Awesome story though, I sent it to his wife Nancy who handles all the fan stuff, and since it took longer because she missed the apartment address the first time around she sent a postcard for me the second time around which read "Dear Anna, Before I met Robert I dated a guy on Sycamore, more like SICK-amore. Sincerely, Nancy Englund" ...how cool is that! I got a postcard too.

After i gave him the present we, Andrew and our good friend Crystal went on our own  
Nightmare on Elm Street Tour, which included

-Nightmare on Elm Street house (or Genesee Ave, located in West Hollywood)

-John Marshall High School in Los Feliz....also filmed Grease and Pretty in Pink there

-Tina´s house and The Canals (located in Venice Beach)

The day after we did our own Winetour of Santa Monica

On Monday, Andrew and Dan went to see Conan O´Brian´s show. His guests were Simon Cowell and Demi Lovato (from X-factor) and Jake Gyllenhall (a special guest since he was suppose to appear later in the week). Needless to say they had a blast!

Tuesday until Thursday was Vegas ....
-stayed at Excalibur, that theme including Sword in the stone bar and men in armor.
 Amazing. Now i can say i slept in a castle.

-upstairs was like a mall, including wedding chapel next to a pizza hut.

-gambling (we won at a penguin machine at the Bellagio )

-drinking in the street (since you can´t do that in the rest of USA)

-saw water-, volcano- and pirateshow...and of course posed for photos :P

-walked around amazing hotels

-dinner at Lynyrd Skynard bar

-dinner at Heart Attack Grill

-buffet at Mandalay Bay, where Dan ate something bad and had an allergy attack so we had to go back to the hotel. Nothing scarier than losing your breath. Thankfully we had just seen the pirateshow near Walgreens, where we could purchase allergy meds and help him catch his breath again.

-only pepsi at the hotel ...worst news ever since i love coca cola...

 

on the bright side they had popcornopolis, aka heaven! 

-stopped at the Pawn Shop (known TV show Pawn wars, which Andrew loves)

-stopped in Arizona where we bought the town out of BELL´s beer

Once we were back in L.A. Andrew was kind enough to take us to a Romanian restaurant. He was happy to get Romanian food and i was happy to get some Schnitzel. Delicious.

Last gift was a VIP pass to Universal Halloween Horror Nights. Andrew and Dan went and had a blast, especially since they love the show Walking Dead and this was the first time the show had a terror tram and a maze. Plus Alice Cooper Goes to Hell and Silent Hill. So many cool things to see.

While they were off, me and my good friend Crystal went to Ralphs and FreshNeasy and got some supplies for a surprise party. I invited Dan´s and my friends over and around midnight, when the guys came back, we turned down the lights and once they were inside everyone yelled SURPRISE!!!!
It was a success, Dan was so surprised and thankful.

On his actual birthday i showed him a video of happy birthday in icelandic, english, japanese, spanish, hebrew, yiddish, finnish, swedish, danish, german, romanian and another video from his family and friends (and his favourite teachers), who couldnt be there on his birthday! He loved it!

In the evening me and Andrew took Dan to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner.
So delicious and a great ending to a great birthday week.

I´m happy everything worked out so well.
Thanks to everyone that helped!!!!