Trying to Assimilate

Last week I took a major step at trying to assimilate to the Southern California lifestyle when I purchased my first pair of flip flops. Now, I am a sandal man. I like the extra straps that help keep the shoe on my foot. So, I knew that this move to a loose, unsecured flip flop was going to be a challenge.
Within 5 minutes of starting on my morning walk to class, I was in trouble. I think in my paranoia to keep the shoes on my feet, I must have adjusted my walking style to use a whole new muscle set in my legs. My outside calves were burning and I was walking like a bowlegged cowboy. I was very relieved to sit down and crushed when I realized I would have to walk back home (uphill). By the end of the day, the new leather of the flip flop had made a number of strategic scrapes on my feet. It was a rather painful and comedic trek home. Stupid Canadian.
For the rest of the week I am taking a break from the California assimilation in order to let my feet heal, but I will give it another go this week. Oh well, who said this California lifestyle would be easy.
P.S.: Today is 88 degrees F (upper 20s C).

Trip Up the Coast to Malibu

On December 27th, Lindsey, Gisele, and I drove north up the PCH to see coastal L.A. Since we are driving through a basin, the scenery is not dramatic until we hit Malibu. Unfortunately, this day L.A. just survived a big rainstorm and was experiencing ridiculous winds.

There were some nice-looking areas. We really liked the Manhattan Beach and El Segundo beachside areas. They had the look of a quaint beachside town. You would never know that it is the part of the L.A. sprawl. Lindsey and Gisele braved the winds to take pictures of Manhattan beach. Lindsey came back complaining of sand blown into her ears and mouth.

Driving up Oceans Avenue in Santa Monica is very cool. I am not sure what is the type of architecture of the buildings, but they had a great retro feel. We were warned of a prevalence of "grimy" people in the Santa Monica area, but we didn't see many. The pier looked very cool from afar, but with the winds we were not going to get close to it.

Continuing on, we drove up the coast to Malibu where we start going up into the mountains right along the coast. Frankly, that is all I can say about Malibu. It is neat seeing the ocean on one side with Mountains on all other sides, but Malibu appears to be solely a residential town with little commercial life (I guess they just go into L.A.). Oh yeah, we even saw a castle up in the Malibu Hills - A castle!

That was the trip, we turned around, found our way to the 405 and zipped home. As we continue to visit different parts of L.A., it is starting to lose its intimidation factor with us "small town" folks.