Moving to Bevely Hills, USA
 

So, been an interesting year for Styla21.... I havn't been posting much but drop in when I can for a look around JW.
I've been back and forward between Australia and USA way to many times for the last 18 months. This time, my girl and I are not heading home; I've just signed for my house and we're making camp here.

I was hoping some of the JW US fraternity would pitch in on things, from something as random as: which Cell phone provider is best, to which Banks, to what to do if you land a speeding ticket. Which supermarkets are best, cable providers, car leasing companies, fedex or ups, ETC!

ANY help would be very much appreciated. There's so much to be done when you no longer are existing in a hotel..

Thanks guys! Hopefully catch up with some Californian members soon. :fadein:

Definitely welcome. I just moved down to Southern California myself last year. So I am still getting use to the area.

Banks: Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Washington Mutual, are the big ones and probably the most convenient.
Supermarkets: Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Vons
Cable: Time Warner & Dish Network
Cell Phone: Cingular/AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint. I am personally using Sprint and it is pretty good.

Umm. . . what else? Feel free to ask :) .

Welcome to California!!! :D

how true.

anyways welcome to california.

welcome to california indeed. enjoy our ridiculous women!

Actually I noticed that a bit more prevalent in Southern California than in Northern California.

But yes, the Eye Candy down here makes up for it. :shock: :lol:

Welcome! You aren't too far from a few of us. I live only about 20 min away from Beverly Hills and so does Minacious.

Banks: Like ae86 said, the bigger ones he mentioned will probably be easier for you
Cell: I use Verizon, its good enough for me
Supermarkets: Vons, Albertsons, and Ralphs are all ok. Trader Joes has more organic type food, Gelson's is really expensive but they have harder to find stuff and a better selection of meat/fish usually
Cable: Time Warner is what I have, it might change for where you are though.

Let me know if you are ever interested in going down to the Crystal Cove car show on Sat. mornings. I usually go about once a month or so.

If you need anything else, just ask, I have lived here all my life so I am pretty familiar with everything. :D

Sorry to jack the thread. . . but Nova, when will be the next time you are going? I am interested. :)

HAHA! Excuse the typo :oops:

I bought my place in Pacific Palisades; great location as it's central to my office which is on Wilshire, and only a 20min drive or so. We looked through Malibu, but the commute would be to much (hour?), and feels really removed from anything.

Would love a JW meet. I should have my car by Friday - Pic or STFU so I will not say anything more until it's in the garage. SKETCHY though, driving on the wrong side of the road, and steering from the wrong side of the car :fadein:

Love to, let's line something up. What is it exactly?

Styla, what kinda car do you have?

You really gonna drive down from Oakland or did you move and I missed it? Its every Saturday from 7am-9am in Irvine, Ca so we can really go whenever.

Its an informal car show with all kinds of cars. Used to be the Crystal Cove show but now its called Cars and Coffee. The best thing about the show is the variety of cars that show up. Everything from Enzos, Veyron, XJ220, etc to classic cars, hot rods, motorcycles, etc.

The only problem with the show being informal is that sometimes its a crap shoot. One time I went there were only about 20-30 cars there and they consisted mostly of a 911 car club. Another time I went there and there were a couple hundred cars there of all types. So sometimes it hard to judge how the show will turn out.

I am free basically whenever. Minacious lives close by too so we can see if he wants to go as well.

nobody ever moves to florida unless their old or latin. :cry: :wink:

Shop for electronics at Fry's and eat at In-N-Out Burger. Mmmmmm Mmm

Haha, that would be quite a drive from Oakland. :)

No, I am down in Walnut right now, out by Pomona. Yeah, if you guys are down, just shoot me a PM. I will probably just meet you down there since I could take Hwy 57 straight down to Santa Ana.

Looking forward to it. How about first Sat. in April? 4/7?

LOL that would be a hell of a drive from Oakland. First Sat in April will probably work for me, i'll let you know. :D

so true. Welcome to CA. It's great here in socal because we're essentially in the heart of the car world. Everything sort of converges here. You get to see all kinds of great cars on the road It's one thing to be able to see them at the numberous shows here, but seeing one spontaneously on the road is sheer bliss (like when a blue Ford GT drove past me)

The one big drawback is the utter lack of racetracks. Even drag strips are few and far between. All of our good road courses are either up north or out in the desert. The former El Toro air base should become a road coures!!! What a waste of fine runway.

Anyway, I use cingular and am very happy with it. Wamu is my bank but I think I'd rather use Wells Fargo. Vons is ok for shopping but they've moved upscale a bit and can rip you off. Albertsons is alright. Best deals are at Sam's club where you can buy in huge bulk. I personally boycott 76 gas stations since they got rid of almost all of their cool orange balls (replaced them with flat red circles). I used to go to Chevron but some of my local ones watered down the gasoline (probably isolated incidents but I still do not go to them anymore).

In the last two years Walgreens pharmacies seemed to have popped up everywhere. They're pretty good and many are open 24 hours. Pick your part and ecology are both good salvage yards with tons of cars. Don't expect to find anything great in them though. They are mostly for older more common cars.

If you're ever in the middle of Orange County, you can visit what I feel is ricer central. Just south of Lampson on Beach blvd we have the US's only super autobacs (an automotive super store full of ricer paraphernalia and other stuff). You can see all sorts of horrendous cars. It is a good place to find an easy and amusing street race though.

This April there is a replica car show at knott's berry farm. There you can see more replica cobras than you ever wanted to. Anyway, they all cruise down to Huntington Beach on Friday (the 27th?). It's fun to cruise around HB with "Cobras" all over the place. As mentioned by others. the cars and coffee meet is great fun. More cars show up in the summer months. There are a ton of other car events but there's just too much to list. Oh, don't miss the Long Beach Grand Prix this year, ALMS will be there!

Lastly El Torito makes some pretty good Mexican food.

I'm expecting nice car pics then ;)