Santa Monica is such a mix of the best and the worst things of L.A. that it's almost incomprehensible. I don't mean for that to sound bleak, but the difference that you will see from the Santa Monica and the first alleyway behind the Ivy at the Beach restaurant is staggering.
And that's a distance of only about 50 feet.
I mean, even just to get into our "man cave" of a hotel room (which was rated right up there with the Sheffield House as the trip's worst, so far), we had to pass through an alleyway of restaurant employees on their smoke break who were far from owning one of the car's parked in the Ivy's valet.
And yet, there are several things about L.A. that I found I loved... or, at least I wish I had more time. A trip to Hollywood Boulevard, Sunset Boulevard, and Beverly Hills gave me a sight of the "good life" (by the time I write this, that Kanye West song really doesn't have the same "pop" to it), and when we drove to Los Angeles International, I was able to see the surroundings where much of the people who sat around us in Dodger Stadium probably lived.
We sat in the back... far, far in the back. Yet, it was amazingly close to both Manny Ramirez and Matt Kemp in the outfield, who we saw hit back-to-back homers, even though L.A. fell 4-3 to the Arizona Diamondbacks - in the trip's first extra innings duel.
The D'Backs won, but it didn't really matter. I mean, that's freaking Manny Ramirez in right field! He's an idiot, but I never knew that hair was that long until I saw it up close.
Matt Caicco even bought a Manny Wig - an amazing purchase for a guy tremendously careful with money (in a good way Caicco, you know that).
I didn't see too much of where Vincent Chase hung out, but I didn't really care. I did see where the Z Boyz hung out, though, and that's perhaps a little more real. All I've ever seen on L.A. was in movies and T.V. shows, and you never really get the vibe of the city.
Even in movies like Crash, Heat, and the Big Lebowski... L.A. looks less than "flattering" but it's still charming. And, while I was charmed, I was glad to see it's real side... the side that everyone living there experiences.
In fact, we lived a better life than even that.
I would highly recommend Santa Monica as a sleeping post. I mean, I'm sure there are several other places here that are fine - for cheap kids like us, some healthy girls told us that we could get a much nicer hotel room in Venice Beach for half the price, so keep that in mind - but the waves and the Promenade made it all worth while.
By the way, the waves were tremendous.
In the words of the Mexican guys in black jeans and carpenter boots walking back and forth across the sand, "Mangomango, Fruits and Mango."
I'm out...
