venice beach (Los Angeles)

venice beach -------------------------arcades along beachfront


baywatch

venice beach, l.a is a REALLY "interesting" spot. there are such characters perusing streets. apparently, in the 60/ 70's, there was a lot of drug testing and these are the souls that didn't manage to get right after it all. on several occasions we saw men in tight speedos (one was wearing the american flag), topless and in cowboy boots. i kid you not. i had to look twice as it was quite surreal.

besides watching the oddities, we walked around, dined on huge american-sized pizza slices and strolled along the third street promenade.

we stayed in a great (for v.beach standards) hostel not even 200m from the beach/ freaks. prime location for a day at the beach.

off the point a little, there were some things that we noticed on arrival in usa: "ped x-ing". we were not even in china town and we saw this painted on the road or on a sign. after much discussion and reflection, we discovered that it meant ....drum roll...pedestrian crossing! those americans really are smart!

the joys of being a tourist in a foreign country -

Venice beach

L´arrivee sur LA se revele quelque peu chaotique avec des autoroutes a 7 voies, des voitures qui doublent dans tous les sens, des ´humers´, 4*4 hauts en suspension, des limousines a tous les coins de rues. On se trouve une auberge assez sympa a cote de la plage des ´freaks´ou gens bizarres. En effet, en se promenant sur le front de mer, on peut observer plusieurs zigotos un peu decalés portant des strings avec drapeau americain et santiags ainsi que plusieurs hyppies essayant de vendre qq trucs. Apparemment, c´est ici que pas mal de drogues expérimentales auraient été testées ... En tout cas, en un jour, on a pu voir la cabane de mitch bukanon (alerte a malibu), les filles qui font du roller sur la promenade en maillot de bain (alerte a malibu), les flics super baraqués a vélo (alerte a malibu) et enfin les skaters et surfers venant taquiner la vague ou le bitume. Le soir, on va diner américain (entendre bonne grosse part de pizza) sur Third Promenade du cote de Santa Monica.