The doing.

On Monday it was time to get down to business. Being a little nervous about the infamous "LA traffic," Mom and I decided to give ourselves plenty of drive time to get to the hospital. We quickly learned that though LA traffic is bad, it's also lazy. Traffic here doesn't start until 7 or 8 am, and we left at close to 6:00 to make it about ten miles in order to arrive by 7:00. Lucky for us there is a Starbucks on literally every third corner here so we stopped for some coffee, and not a minute too soon for Mom (the self-confessed opposite of a morning person) who had the luxury of driving me to work while she was here since we had uno caro.

It's official!

I'll be honest, the excitement outweighed the nervousness of beginning work at a new hospital. I had recently passed my RNC-OB (registered nurse certified in inpatient obstetrics) exam and felt like no matter what, I know the nationally recognized standards and, even though I may not do things exactly the way the other local nurses do, things would get done safely and efficiently. Brookwood was the only hospital I'd had the pleasure of perfecting my nursing skills and I felt very grown finally embarking on my new normal as a travel nurse. This grown up feeling translated into my parents getting my first (and most likely last) set of selfies.

Hospital-provided scrubs are awesome sauce.

When the day ended, we, of course, had to celebrate. Since our arsenal of celebratory restaurant choices was essentially empty at this point, we found a place called the Elephant Bar Restaurant. Being from Alabama, how could this not have been anything but awesome?! And it was. Minus the fact that every single restaurant and bar here cards. Every. Single. Time. So after a good dinner (and possibly closing down the restaurant) it was back to the Extended Stay with a much accomplished day behind us.