last sunset at the canal

Day 96 Malibu, Venice Canals

On Tuesday mornings, at 7.30 am, the street in front of our Venice garage/shack gets swept. We wake up at the crack of dawn and blearily circulate round Whole Foods, buying Christmas groceries to bring to Palm Springs. We come to blows over dessert. It had to be over dessert. Rob wants to make a chocolate bowl and fill it with ice cream. I desperately want a cherry pie because 'Murica. In the end, my cherry pie wins the day. I gaze at the chocolate stand for a long time. There's nothing under US$3.99.

rollercoaster roads at Echo Park

Day 95 Echo Park, Costco Fail

I'm feeling like povvo Martha Stewart today. In the morning, I slap together tuna sandwiches and thrown in some funfetti chewy Chips Ahoy and fruit in a my souvenir Liberty bag. 

homeless at the end of the santa monica bike path

Day 94 Santa Monica Farmer's Market, end of the Bike Path

We have a love-hate relationship with our little Venice Canal garage. On Air BnB, it looks positively adorable with bright white walls, cosy quilts on a bunk bed, papier mache tigers, and Henri Rousseau-esque paintings on the walls. There's two bikes that you can use and you can cruise to the start of the Venice Boardwalk in less than five minutes. Throw a football behind you and it'll land in the canal, if there wasn't a wall.

It's still adorable in real life. But it gets bitterly cold at night and damp with heat during the day.  The bed sinks in the middle and there's barely any power. If you've got too many things plugged in and decide to take a shower, chances are the switch will flip and you'll be dripping water naked in the stall.  

stages of a sunset from griffith's observatory

Day 93 Santa Monica, Abbot Kinney, Griffith's Observatory

The night before I had to fish an insect out of Rob's left ear. True story. All day at the Getty, he'd complained about something fluttering in there. At night, I took a look with the aid of my cellphone flashlight and there it was, looking back at me with it's two tiny beady eyes. I don't know who was more scared; Rob because he had a living thing stuck in his ear or me because I was solely responsible for getting it out of there. A few Google searches later, we came out of CVS with the wrong-kind of tweezers (the pointy kind). In thirty minutes, I was stabbing Rob's ear drum with it. In the end, he got it out himself by pouring olive oil in his ear, drowning the bastard, and letting it float out. The next day, we look at all the suspiciously damp corners of the shoddily-converted Venice Beach garage we're staying in with new eyes.

twisting through the hills off sunset boulevard

Day 92 The Getty, a drive on the Hills, Venice side streets

The art inside the Getty has no hope of competing with the building and the views outside. That's saying something 'cause there's Monet's Haystacks, Vincent Van Gogh's Irises, and a gorgeous parade of flower-crowned Alma Tadema ladies.

songs about santa monica

Day 91 Annanberg Space for Photography, Sunset Boulevard, The Grove, the Freeway, Santa Monica Pier

The Annanberg Space for Photography has an exhibition on climate change around the world. There's photos by Magnum photographers of the effects of natural disasters on coastal cities in Japan, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Africa, and the USA. It's a very LA kind of exhibition, if I can make a sweeping generalisation. I have a better time than expected. It has all the bells and whistles; murals, helpful infographics, tv screens everywhere, a library filled with expensive coffee table photography books that they beg you to look through, touch screens, and comfy booths and director chairs.