Our first stop was the Getty, and art museum up in the hills of Los Angeles. It was incredible. My love of art museums, like my love of sushi, stems from the annual trips to Chicago my father used to take me on. He made it a habit to let me explore the Art Institute of Chicago on a number of occasions, and I will always be thankful for that. The serenity of wandering through an art museum and the complete loss of any concept of time that comes with it will always bring me back to the AIC. The Getty added another dimension to my art museum experience with its amazing panoramic view of Los Angeles and the gorgeous gardens that are scattered around it.
I hope to go back at some point and navigate it on my own time, but we were on kind of a tight schedule because we had another place to see: Venice Beach!
Aaaaaah, Venice Beach. Have I ever had a stronger desire to live anywhere else in my whole life? I don't think so. I could try to describe to you it in detail, but I don't think I could do it any justice. Simply put, Venice Beach is a long boardwalk of shops, street vendors, medical marijuana clinics (like 80 of them. seriously), and fair-esque food to one side, and a long beach ending in ocean on the other. I shopped, went to a drum circle, took a picture with a guy dressed as a giant green rabbit, was asked if I was a prostitute...ya know, the usual. I even found this:
I promise I didn't know that existed when I named my blog. (Its a head shop, of course. In case you couldn't tell.) There are people everyyyywhere. It hadn't even gotten close to clearing out as we were leaving at around sundown. While I loved the shops and the street performers and the people watching, what impacted me the most about Venice Beach was the ocean.
Experiencing the ocean for the first time at 22 is indescribable. I mean, really experiencing it. I've seen the ocean before. I walked along a beach while visiting family in San Francisco when I was 17, but it was cold and I was wearing boots and I didn't venture too close. And I've see the Atlantic from a distance in New York, but there was no sandy shoreline where I could dip my feet in. Yesterday I felt the waves at my feet. I saw their inconsistency and quickly learned not underestimate them after getting slightly soaked and nearly losing my sandals to the curious waters that wandered way further ashore than I thought they would. Just the vastness of it...I feel like I'm incapable of describing it. I really wish I could say more, but I guess all I can say is I'm in love.
I've come to notice that I always end up in places close to a major water system. I started out in Milwaukee, where Lake Michigan was a 10 minute drive down I-94. Then I was drawn to Minneapolis, to attend a school whose campus is literally split in two by the Mississippi. And now I'm in Los Angeles, neighbor to the most incredible body of water I have yet to see. I'm already feeling desperate to go back, to get close again.
Alright, I think that's enough of my sleepy musings. Sorry for the abrupt ending, but I didn't mean to drag this on.
Until later lovelies. <3
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