Venice Beach at the most western end of Santa Monica, looks out over the pacific, with beautiful wide white beaches, and an eclectic range of personalities and human beings who visit and live in this beautiful place of the world.
However, we had our weirdest experiences here and watched some very “loaded” and crazy people from travelling on the bus, to on the beach itself.
The bus trip from LA to Santa Monica is 1.5 hours long and this is the express bus. You are jammed in like sardines and homeless people ride with all their belongings in plastic bags which they drag on board causing verbal arguments, I mean fights actually and they are basically harassed of the bus. Then the so called well adjusted normal people start arguing with each other and we just sat and zipped our mouths as the situations were quite volatile.
At one point the bus broke down and I thought their was going to be a riot, so we hopped of and decided to walk to the next bus stop while the rest of the people waited for a “spare bus” to come and get them.
Walking through a Mexican precinct on basically a 4-lane highway under various stages of construction, I needed to go the bathroom. Every tree seems to have a CCTV camera and there are no public loos in sight and I am desperate. I saw this large building, which had “Administration” on the front, and I thought this would be my only opportunity before I burst! Turns out it was the Vietnam Vets retirement home and respite service, and I was welcomed at reception with interest. “Your from where??....and you want what?? But they did recognize the agony on my face and the desperation on the betrothed’s face and let me use the loo. You know the anti nuclear conversation seems irrevocably connected with NZ and I politely excused myself from this to find the next connecting bus stop with the crazies to get to Venice Beach.
The photos tell the story of the beach; we hired cruiser pushbikes and biked from Santa Monica Boulevard down to muscle (Venice Beach) beach to watch the men and women pump iron. This part of the beach resembles a shantytown disappointingly. Hawkers with everything to sell, even their own belongings. Homeless people sleeping on the dunes and the public facilities are in the middle of a huge overhaul. It felt grimy and smelt bad, but we understand that the facelift for this part of the beach is underway. It is however a funny and worthwhile experience. Marty and I went into a bar and had a couple of beers and joined the locals in watching 9 flat screen TVs all on different channels, with the locals all in different sates of inebriation. A very funny and memorable experience.
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