Los Angeles

For the next two weeks, you're only hearing from J.  Due to that very bald and angry guard giving me extra time in the US, but the organisation we wanted to volunteer for in Arizona having very limited resources/space at the end of August (because we were late applying, natch), C and I are going to be spending two weeks each with No More Deaths, but at different times.  On the 1st of September he has to leave the country and I'll be joining him in Mexico a fortnight later.

So I have to amuse myself in Southern California for a while.  C having left me alone for the proverbial five minutes, no one will be surprised to learn I've found some horses.

After our last post, we spent one more night star and shooting-star gazing, sleeping out by the roadside near the top of a hill off Route 1.  It was completely magical, amazingly warm, and we woke up here:

Right above that famous pacific coast fog- felt like you could have stepped onto it.

Then we hitched south, and arrived in LA that evening- in this:

which is a 1962 Chevy Station wagon with all the original lowest option insides.  A proper rattly old American roadtripmobile.  It was great.

We spent a day mostly in our hostel, swimming in the pool and eating and drinking all the free stuff they handed out- including champagne though it was not unlimited!  For such a cheap place you really did get a lot, even if it was basic and tacky (tacky'n'proud, I think, and we were in LA after all so thoroughly enjoyed it).  One theory is that the downside was the area it was in, where apparently we'd get shot if we set foot.  While we were there (notably unshot) they told us not to go Downtown or we'd get eaten alive.  Downtown had their own bogey-district.... and so on.

I don't think I'm a reckless person.  I'm also well aware that I'm visibly a tourist and as such easy pickings, and also that people really do get caught in the cross fire of random shootings in LA.  But not every day, right?  And thousands of people actually call this city home and spend every day here.  At times in my life I've realised that I've wandered down the wrong alley- so I've wandered out again. sharpish.  I'm not saying bad things don't happen and that they aren't sometimes concentrated in a few places, and that its worth having a bit of common sense and being aware when you are a potential invitation to all kinds of things.   But a lot of people seem to have got a lot of fear from somewhere, and be suffering more from that than from anything happening.  And they're rarely the people who are actually in danger.  And terrible things can happen absolutely anywhere, you cannot completely protect yourself no matter what districts you avoid.

With C gone (at least, he headed towards the Greyhound station.  Who knows if I'll ever see him again?! :p) I headed up to Glendale to meet an old friend and trainer of one of my room-mates and co-students from when I lived in Maryland.  She (the roomie) is not in California any more, though she is making lots of art you can look at here if you like pretty stylised ponies :).  But she has very kindly set me up with an amazing lady who runs a stables out here and I spent yesterday riding and meeting all the people and horses.

Today I dutifully explored Hollywood, with that sensation of ticking something off a list.  It was ok, but getting around LA without a car is time consuming and difficult which doesn't encourage aimless exploring- it really is a massive, sprawling place.

Back to the ponies tomorrow, I think!