Saturday 28 June 2003
The sun burned pretty well also this day and we were facing 40 degrees Celsius. Today Ane’s brother Morten had the day off and as his wife had to fetch her father and brother in the airport, we used the day for an outing to the northern Los Angeles.
We drove to Mulhulland Drive to look at the nice houses and the beautiful view. Unfortunately, the view was misty and bushes or fences hided most of the nicest houses. Anyway, it was fun to visit this place, mostly inhabited by the very wealthy people here.
Morten took us via Sunset Boulevard to Hollywood Boulevard where we passed all the cinemas. Here we found Superman, Rambo and a lot other movie characters that posed for money, which was a nice attraction for all the tourists that wanted an unusual photograph back home. Go figure, meeting Chaplin on the street - that is an adventure.
After lunch, we continued to less touristy Santa Monica beach, which is located close to the well-known Venice Beach. We were excited to visit beach-life the American way.
We parked the car and saw that a hockey game was taking place near our parking spot. Soon I got busy with my camera, but it was not easy to follow the fast players.
The pace was high and so was the self-confidence of the players. A huge young lad who waited to get in action saw me and nodded with this one-liner: “You gotta be fast to get a sharp photo of me” and smiled with self-irony.
Along the beach, people were bi cycling and skating, which was quite a contrast to downtown Los Angeles. Here was the place to exercise and one had to be careful when crossing the busy lane when going to the beach.
We reached the water quickly and walked around on the beach wondering how incredible fat lots of Americans are. The lack of self-critics was impressing, when dressing their fat bodies up in tiny bikinis.
Morten’s wife Ruth called him on the mobile and we arranged to meet each other at the amusement place nearby for lunch. Here we met with her and her father and brother among hundreds of tourists, music, stalls and lots of noise in general.
Back at Ruth and Mortens we had a cozy time with the kids and family, got the opportunity to send emails back home and returned later to our motel for a good nights sleep.