The City of Angels

Los Angeles has quite a reputation. It is renowned for being the capital of the American film and TV industry, housing some of the best beaches in California and being home to every nutty celebrity and celebrity wannabe. In this city the quest for fame is endless, and those who achieve it are essentially worshipped. Plastic surgery and a tan are practically compulsory.

What they don't tell you is that the place is very spread out. It's like a suburban conurbation, rather than an ordered city. Getting around without a car is pretty difficult to say the least. We found this out the hard way, when we casually decided to walk around the touristy section of Hollywood, down to Beverly Hills and to pop by the LA farmer's market on the way back. We reasoned this shouldn't be such a difficult task, since they were all clustered together on the same map, and the distances looked walkable.

How wrong we were! After surfacing a metro stop too early, we found the distance to the next stop barely walkable, and were forced to turn around and catch the next train. The fact that that particular part of Hollywood was nothing like we expected ("gee, where are all the tourists?") influenced our decision as well. Top tip: go to the western end where all the movie theatres are, take photos with the stars on the Walk of Fame, and then leave. That's basically what we ended up doing.

Dex photographing a star

Not to say there isn't some worthwhile stuff to see in Hollywood. Just be warned: it is one of the most touristy places on the planet. After the Kodak theatre, the Walk of Fame and the Chinese Theatre, it is just row upon row of homogenous tourist traps, stretching off into the sunset. Oh, and another word of warning: the famous 'Hollywood' sign is misleadingly far away from the actual place. Grr.

Hollywood

Chinese Theatre

Having ticked that box, we sauntered down Santa Monica boulevard, and were once again faced with an impossible distance. Having waited for the bus, we took it down to Beverly Hills, LA. Needless to say, it's a rather swanky, upmarket end of town. The rich and famous have essentially barricaded themselves up in this ultra-exclusive neighborhood, creating a stark contest with the (often somewhat run down) rest of LA. In fact, the two of us had interesting table neighbors in a cafe we decided to stop by for a coffee: the girl asked for the nutritional information for the unsweetened, organic iced tea she was getting, and complained when she saw a speck in her iced beverage. Even after the waiter explained that it was a speck of tea leaf, she still, like, totally send it back. A few friends of ours used to live in LA for a while, and one claimed that if you ask any waiter, bar tender, etc for a headshot, 9/10 won't even blink twice or look confused, and say in reply: "Oh, are you a casting director?" At the time we were a bit taken aback, but, especially in Beverly Hills, we could definitely tell what he was talking about.

Bev Hills, omg

LET'S GET 'EM

After this we headed over to the Farmer's Market, which is worth a visit if you're in that area. The name is somewhat misleading, however: it is selection of permanent stalls and cafes, and not a farmer in sight. It's nice to walk through, however, and ogle at the pastries and other unique foodstuffs that are well out of one's budget range (we saw a stall with chocolate flavored pasta!).

Come one, come all! Fat-free, sugar-free, and taste-free ice cream. 

One of the great things about LA is the beach. Beaches, to be exact. Like everything, they're far away from downtown, but the time it takes to get to them is well worth it. We chose Santa Monica beach, as it was one of the few reachable by bus, but there are many others. The beach itself is very broad: over a hundred meters of fine yellow sand before you hit the shore, even at high tide. The Pacific ocean is pleasantly cool, not cold, and the waves are huge! If you love messing around among the waves, this place is heaven. Its latitude means that the sun rides high, making the beaches great for sunbathers. The size of the beaches means that even at really busy times only the shore is packed, leaving acres of uninhabited sand to run around and play in.

Santa Monica pier

End of Route 66

Cali beach

Santa Monica itself is a very pretty, upmarket beach town.. you can see how a lot of celebs have bought homes there. After soaking some rays, we walked over to the Promenade(the main shopping district not too far from the shore) and enjoyed some Pinkberry, yum!

Santa Monica shopping centre