A Big Adventure

(this happened on) Monday 20th July, 2009.   LA   (40 years ago today man first landed on the moon)

Venice Beach

Stefan (our Son) was on facebook this morning contacting us from Pattaya, Thailand. he has decided he would like to come and join us in Vegas.

Sarah (My Sister) was also on-line and was saying that if she takes the job she has been head hunted for she would have to leave New York and move to London for three months and she wondered if Sasha and Stefan would like to flat and dog sit in NY. September until November it would be a great opportunity for them.

Sasha needed a mobile phone for her trip tomorrow to see No Doubt, we went to Walgreens and picked her up a pay as you go phone and then we headed on towards Venice Beach and Marina Del Ray, home to the famous muscle beach. The beach is miles of soft sand and is dotted with many people but due to the size still looks mostly empty.

We walked out on a pier over the water watching the surfers waiting to catch a wave and the pier was full of people fishing, everybody was enjoying the sunshine and the beach scene.

Venice Beach

We parked the car in the beach side car park and walked along the beach. People watching here is so excellent as this place attracts every kind of crazy.

There was a mad denim clad, guitar playing, roller skating, be-turbaned guy. Women with whole collections of Handbag dogs, crazy, crazies, and Dr’s offering to prescribe cannabis everywhere along the beach. (Cannabis is legal for those with a prescription in California).

The beach side is lined with houses, shops and food places on one side, and on the other you can find basketball courts, showers, a cycle path.

There are artists selling their work, jewellery stores, tarot readers, you name it, this place has it.

One of the things I have never seen anywhere else is a sort of miniature tennis which seems very popular, the court is much smaller and the net is lower but it looked like a lot of fun.

Sasha had a corn dog from a beach side place, she had to try one.

She also bought some nice cheap American Apparel socks and pants so she was very happy.

Some of the commercial buildings have pretty cool graffiti, real art work not just tags and some of the houses were very cool, there is a real individuality in design down here and it works, if all the homes looked the same the place would not have half as much style.

We enjoyed watching all the beautiful, all the muscled, the tattooed and the downright strange people walking, riding, skating etc along the path.

We walked for a long time, Sofia was enjoying the strange sights so much that she just kept on walking. Eventually we turned around and headed back the way we came, it was time to find somewhere to eat.

We found a place by the beach, called the Terrace Cafe at Venice beach, it’s a great place to sit and watch the world go by, the food and service were both average, we are  very disappointed overall with the food so far in LA.

Later, that evening we headed back to Manhattan Village to go to the cinema to see The Hangover, but amazingly for 24 hour America at 8:00pm this place was already closed. So it was back to the hotel.

Sasha was unable to get her new phone to work, we are off to Vegas tomorrow and Sasha is off to San Francisco.

Venice Beach, Marina Del Ray, Pattaya, Thailand, New York, No Doubt, Walgreens, Muscle Beach, California, Los Angeles, world travel, gap year, holiday, American Apparel, Terrace Cafe at Venice Beach, Manhattan Village, Las Vegas, San Francisco