Babe, Pig in the City.: The Magic Castle.

In the very beginning of our journey here in LA, Ashley and I heard of this place, The Magic Castle. It's a private club that you may only come to by invitation from a member. And the members are hard to find.

While it was on our bucket list, we held it loosely, thinking that we could not possibly find a member, let alone get tickets from them. That is.. until last week.

One of the phlebotomists from work was drawing blood from my patient. Through conversation I came to learn that he used to be a Magician at the Castle. I told him how Ashley and I had wished we could've gone, and before I knew it he was handing me a guest pass to the Castle.

So last night we got all dressed up, as there is a strict dress code, and went to watch some magic.

Joining us for the evening was our friend and fellow traveling nurse, Tanya. Daniel, a PTA from work, and Nick, also a phlebotomist from Kaiser.

The lobby that you enter into has a gift shop and bookcases. The way into the rest of the castle is to stand in front of the bookcase and say, "open sesame", then the bookcase slides away to reveal a big ornate lobby.

That's what this place was, so ornate. And dark. Unfortunately we weren't allowed pictures, so most of these were sneak photos, and also very dark. There is a great virtual tour of the castle on the website, if you feel like seeing it.

We enjoyed walking around the mansion, looking at all of the pictures and memorabilia. We got drinks and dinner. After which, we watched the main magic show.

Daniel and Tanya got pulled onto the stage for one of the tricks.

The Houdini Room

We had so much fun walking around this place and watching magicians. They were everywhere, and always ready to perform. You could see them feeding off of our gasps and laughter. We ran into this group of 4 magicians in the ballroom that put on quite a show for us. One of them was a balloon tricks guy. I liked him because he told stories and when the story was done he had a balloon animal that fit the story.

This is the one he gave me, a bear riding a tricycle.

There was this old phone booth that we walked by twice. I knew there had to be something funny about it. So I went inside and shut the door. Once the door was closed the light turned off and a skeleton was illuminated in the window next to me. I screamed because it was startling, then we all laughed as everyone took their turn.

There were people gathered around every corner watching magicians and psychics. We were there till about 1 am, and that's only because people had to work today. Otherwise, I'm sure we would've stayed for more magic. We had so much fun.