004 - thu 04/05/2006 - los angeles

we packed our bags early in the morning and checked out of the hostel. the plan for today was to head to santa monica, on the beach, and on the way stop at the getty museum. we took a bus that took a scenic route down through westwood and past ucla. the area around there was super green, super-leafy in a californian (?) way, although maybe the fact that we'd been basically surrounded by concrete and freeways for the past couple of days made the greens so much brighter.

getting to the getty involved much more walking than we had planned. the getty itself was a cool place, perhaps more interesting for its architecture and the way it is built into those aforementioned rolling californian hills, than for its actual contents.

when we made it to santa monica, we thankfully dumped our bags at our hostel room, and headed down to the beach - santa monica pier. we walked along venice beach, hoping to see men lifting weights, bikini babes on roller skates, et cetera, et cetera. but we just saw normal people hanging out on the beach, walking their dogs, pushing strollers. it was nice to just see normal people, out doing their thing - on hollywood boulevard, it was just tourists and, well, freaks. though we did see a lot of skates.

after a long walk up and down venice beach, we headed back into town, skipping a couple of streets to get to the 3rd street promenade, which is kind of the go-to zone in santa monica. its a shopping strip with foot traffic only, like bourke street mall but nicer, restaurants, buskers, etc. as we ate dinner at an italian joint, the sun went down and the fairy lights came on. fairy lights always make places look nice. the 'serenity'... after dinner we window shopped (suz bought some sunglasses) and then we went back to the hostel and slept.

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