Venice or Bust!

Yesterday a couple of classmates and I drove out to Venice Beach for the day to hang out and have fun. It was a beautiful, sunny January day in the upper seventies. I must say that West Coast beaches are very different than East Coast beaches. The waster was so blue and the beach was completely flat except for a few rock outcrops. The sand is so soft and fluffy (can sand be fluffy?) and there were so many cool shops along the boardwalk.



Even though it was warm and sunny, the water was freezing. Erica and I were to only ones to actually go in all the way. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but then I had to walk around the rest of the day covered in sand. I decided to embrace the sand, as I was at the beach, and ended up having a great time. The street vendors and musicians were really cool and we stopped for pizza and beer at one of the sidewalk restaurants.



I got some really fun items out of the day as well. The first was a free CD from a guy we helped wash bird poop out of his shirt and hair. We told him it meant good luck! He gave us one of his CD's for free (usually they charge $5 or $10 bucks) as a thank you. Then I started talking to a woman carving names and shapes out of blocks of sand. She started to make me one and told me they were $10 per name. My friends were leaving so I told her I had to go and gave her $2 as a tip. She finished it really quickly and told me to take it anyways, which was really sweet.



Before we left, we were hanging out in the parking deck and the guys started teaching us fighting and defensive tactics. I learned a lot of ways to protect and defend myself and just some cool moves in general. Thanks to Chris, Roy, James, and Alex I am pretty sure I can now stand my ground in a fight and ward off any would be attackers! Hopefully. So watch out if you try to mug me, I will retaliate and run!




Overall, it was a really awesome day. Sitting on the beach watching the sun get lower on the horizon, I realized how incredibly happy I am to be here getting to know new friends and a new city. Plus, I was outside in the sun all day and only got a little bit sunburned. Success! Next up: the Golden Globes!



~Lucy~