Where the streets have no name...

I am writing this from the sofa in my PJs, utterly shattered with the smell of bonfire lingering in the living room. This must mean I have been camping. This was our first US camping trip, using the tent we brought over with our tiny amount of shipped furniture. We used to go camping fairly often at home, but honestly the weather prohibits it most of the time, but every so often we would manage a good day or two. 

In order to ensure we wouldn't wake up cold and a bit damp, we decided this time we would  camp in the desert. Quite a few of husband's colleagues are the outdoor types and had recommended Joshua Tree National Park, so I booked a campsite and on Saturday morning we got up early, packed up the car and went. 

Well travelled tent

It's only about 2 and a half hours from west LA to the park, and the sun was shining gloriously the whole time. It was such a strange feeling to put up the tent and unpack everything without panicking that the rain was about to hit or that we had to move fast. It turns out sand and rock are a lot harder to drive tent pegs into the sodden earth, but once we had the tent up it was fine.Keeping the inner door zipped shut to keep out lizards was different to the usual midges, but the lizards are less bitey, so I was a fan.

Once we were unpacked, we decided to check out the Hidden Valley. It was pretty incredible. The desert fascinates me, coming from a country famed for it's greenery. It's the complete opposite of home, and it's so interesting to me. The Joshua Trees (for which the park, and the U2 album are named) are some of the strangest things I've ever seen. It is no surprise that they feature in a Dr Seuss book (The Lorax.) 

The Hidden Valley. Husband cracked his head off this tree and now has a big scab. I hardly laughed at all.

We made it back to the campsite before the sun went down, since we knew it would be cold and very dark, so we wanted the fire going before the temperature dropped. some yummy burgers, badly burnt corn-on-the-cob and hundreds of cups of tea. I had downloaded the radio play of 'Neverwhere' by Neil Gaiman from the Radio 4 podcast, and we listened to it under the stars. This is the reason I love camping. It's not something I ever did growing up, but I love the feeling of being outside, having no where else to go and nothing to do.

After an awesome night's sleep (the fresh air agrees with me) and a delicious breakfast at Denny's in the local town, we headed out to Key's Point, another area of the park. We were able to drive up the mountain and look down over the Coachella Valley (as in the music festival, which is in a few weeks.) The view was incredible, but it was a bit hazy so the pictures on our pocket camera couldn't really give an idea of the scale, but there was just desert as far as we could see. Incredible.

The view from Key's Point, driving through the desert

I was pretty relieved to get home to my cat (she was alone for 24 hours- the longest I've ever left her. She had plenty to eat so didn't care) and a shower. We were both pretty dehydrated and in desperate need of moisturiser. It was so arid in the park that the moisture was just sucked out of your skin. My lips have never been so dry. It wasn't the most pleasant sensation, but honestly, it's still better than the rain!

All in, an amazing weekend, especially since it won't be camping weather at home for at least another 6 months. Shall try not to boast...

The Graffiti Run

Part of the fun in moving to Los Angeles, aside from ditching the rain and snow in favour of glorious sunshine, has been trying new things. Whether that be vegan food (and my first celebrity spot! Queen Latifah at the Urth Cafe in West Hollywood) or just, y'know, getting up quite early. In the spirit of this new sense of adventure, we signed up to do the Graffiti Run. This is basically a 5k where people through packets of coloured powder at you.

Husband read about it in the LA Times, which ran an article saying, basically, 'The LA marathon is on Sunday. This is on Saturday and is was less stressful and way more fun.' We found a half price deal for it on Living Social and that was that. Except the last time I did any kind of distance running was, quite seriously, during Field in 1999. (As a side note, did other schools call 'outdoor' PE 'Field' and only call it PE when it was indoors? Or is this another one of those odd 1950s throw-backs on Paisley Grammar School used, like how we had a Rector instead of a Headmaster?) 

Yup, it has indeed been 14 years since I ran more than a mile at a time. Frightening. With that in mind, we decided to do a bit of training in the week we had between signing up and the race. Essentially, this involved going for a run along the beach in the sunshine a couple of times. As training goes, it's a pretty pleasant way to do it. Beats those poor sods you see with rain dripping off their noses and purple legs running in a florescent waterproof on the Meadows in Edinburgh. Unfortunately this only proved that I get a stitch after about 1.5k and then have to slow down to a fast walk and gasp a bit. It wasn't a very good omen.

Our only pre-dust picture, sunny and clean!

Next thing we knew, it was 6am on Saturday and we had to get up and drive to Pomona, a city about an hour away from where we are in the West of LA. Husband was miserable and grumpy, I was excitable and almost certainly quite irritating. I took a mug of tea with me in the car which gave me just enough caffeine to survive (note to self- must buy travel mug...) whereas husband had refused one, and insisted on listening to NPR discussing the right-wing Republican conference the whole way. It was grey and cloudy and pretty cold. We were ready to kill each other as we sat in the thirty minutes of traffic leading into the car park. When we got out the car, we realised we were amongst the first few thousand people there. We got a sweet parking spot near the action and the sun was starting to shine brightly on a glorious day. Husband went off to find coffee whilst I joined the registration queue. After that, we were both decidedly chipper. Everyone was in a great mood, the atmosphere was awesome and the St. Patrick's day theme made it all the more festive. 

The fact you could buy green beer at the starting line at 8.30am- and believe me people were- made my own lack of athletic ability seem rather less of a problem. There were so many families, babies in prams, kids on scooters (I wish I'd known that was an option...) and young people in wheel chairs being pushed by relatives and friends. People had started throwing powder already. We were in the fourth group to start, so people were already finished. I am seriously proud to announce that I actually ran 3/4 of the 5k, only walking a few times to drink a bottle of water or 3 (WHO are these people who can drink and run?! My chin was the only clean bit of my as I dribbled all over myself.) At the 1k marker, they hit us with red powder. I was COVERED. I've no idea how, but husband was way cleaner than me. As we hit the next markers, I kept building up more and more dust, as he stayed relatively clean, until at the 4k mark a volunteer noticed and just sprayed it directly in his hair. We hit the 5k in a flurry of orange dust. It was really good fun. Despite realising that the family with the 8 year old and baby in a pram that we had started with had beaten us to the finish. 

Same view, different colour

The party atmosphere was brilliant. I slugged some more water as we danced and collected some packets of powder of our own to throw at one another. The amount of green (husband's signature colour) I am covered in shows you that he was better at getting the packet open than I was... When we were done with the party atmosphere/not inclined to get drunk at 10am since we're no longer students, we brushed off the worst of the colour and headed for a McDonalds. Heavenly.

Anyone know how to get dust off a camera lense?!

Husband now thinks we should do some more running. He's talking half marathon. I'm not convinced. I did really enjoy it, but I suspect that was the atmosphere (and the fact it was decidedly non-competitive.) We'll see, shall keep going with the beach runs in the evening since I really am quite lazy and it's nice to watch the sunset and listen to the crashing waves. But running and being timed? I'll have to stop the stitches first. 

Final Frontiers...

This happened when we first moved to LA. Unfortunately it was no where near our house, was during the work-day and, rather obviously, caused traffic to come to an absolute standstill, so there was no chance of seeing it. Husband was DEVASTATED to have missed it, so on Saturday we booked a time-slot to go and see the shuttle Endeavour.

I'm not particularly interested in space. Growing up, my dad was a massive fan and I had watched 'The Right Stuff' and every documentary made about the Apollo missions. On the anniversary of the moon landings, husband and I watched the whole BBC4 night of Space-TV. I know a bit about it, but the thought of going to wander round the outside of what is essentially a giant plane didn't hold any fascination. I ended up being seriously impressed.

Space shuttle. Those aren't windows. I thought they were.

The documentary they show right at the start was incredibly moving. The sheer grit determination it took to drive a space shuttle through the streets of LA was staggering. I couldn't help but imagine how the organisers planned the route, making arrangements to temporarily take down power lines, shaving branches from trees and otherwise making tiny but vital decisions. The whole thing was remote controlled- imagine being the guy that remote-control drove a space ship past a McDonald's in South Central LA? As if to demonstate the full impact this had on the community, we were waiting behind a dad with his two girls in the queue, and he was positively giddy with excitement. The older girl- maybe 12 years old- was desperately scanning the mission crew photos to find a picture of Dr Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman in space. She talked excitedly of the doctor's work in the Peace Corps and how she was an astronaut AND a doctor. Looking with her dad, she found her in STS-47.

Schools in south LA went out en-masse to see the shuttle, either passing overhead strapped to the back of a plane of lining the streets outside to watch as it snaked through the city. The legacy of that is a young woman completely inspired by what she had learned, a father encouraging her and a family bonding. It was incredible. I can only dream that we will be parents like that. Sadly, we lost sight of them, so I'll never know her reaction when she entered the 'space shed' to see the shuttle. I hope the others around her appreciated her excitement.

BLAST OFF!

The shuttle was amazing. Really, truly, astonishingly incredible. It is a bit grubby. Some of the tiles were cracked. It was somehow simultaneously fancier and simpler than I expected it to be. I was completely overwhelmed by the capacity of man to create something that can reach space. That in the 1960s, before the internet, cell phones, DVRs or even a decent dishwasher, we not only sent men to the moon but brought them back again. Seeing the shuttle really brought all that home. My husband was blown away. In a fit of ill-thought out decision making, he studied aeronautical engineering as his 'elective' subject during his Masters at Georgia Tech. He said he didn't understand a word of it, but couldn't turn down the opportunity to learn what astronauts do. Given access to a rocket ship, he was like a 5 year old hopped up on candy. 

Tile damage. This thing has ACTUALLY been to SPACE.

The rest of the science museum was brilliant as well. It was fun, a good mix of kids activities and interesting facts and just generally awesome. Unlike every other museum in LA, it is free to get in. It's in a pretty crappy part of town. I love that there is free access to science and learning for these kids. The down side to this is that instead of the museum cafe, there is a McDonalds. Husband and I talked about this for ages. On the one hand, I am appalled by this. Corporate greed, the fact parents cannot escape trashy food and obnoxious marketing, how unhealthy fast food is.

This time, however, I'm ok with it. All of the above complaints are true. Parents shouldn't feel strong-armed into a Happy Meal. But museums in LA are so expensive- it's $12 for an adult to go into the National History Museum across the park, pushing it out of the price-range of many local families. California is bankrupt, they have reduced the school week in LA County in order to balance the books. Science funding in schools is virtually non-existent. If the replacement of the cafe with a corporate sponsor enables the museum to provide free entry, then to me, in this instance, I won't have a hissy fit.  But just this once...

A post- Christmas analysis...

The grove, celebrity mall- those specks in the picture are fake snow they pump in from the rooftops

We have successfully navigated our first LA christmas. It was also our first married christmas and our first not spent with our respective families. Christmas Eve involved cocktails with my LA friend and her partner. After they left I insisted we open our gifts of new Christmas PJs and drunkenly watch 'The Snowman'. It was awesome. After some terrible alcohol-challenged sleep, we were up early on Christmas day, both of us feeling rather grim. I had saved a bottle of Irn Bru specially for this scenario, so we cracked it open to help us open our presents. I received some AMAZING gifts. My sisters-in-law obviously know me rather well, highlighted by a selection of Cath Kidston accessories. My wonderful friends sent a crate of Irn Bru, something that will help us survive the Holiday season... I got awesome Fox earrings from both husband and best friend (I obviously went on about wanting some a lot!) The rest of the morning was spent on skype with husband's family. Niece and nephew had consumed vast quantities of chocolate and wanted to show off ALL their gifts. Nephew won quote of the day, however, advising us he 'wasn't very good' in his church nativity play...

Adding to the list of firsts, I made the whole of our Christmas dinner. From scratch. I baked a ham, made cranberry sauce, roasted a turkey, minced pork shoulder and created bread crumbs to make stuffing. I rolled pastry for apple pie then baked and iced cookies. It all took me two full days. After church and a long skyping session to my family (which honestly felt like I was in the living room with them. It was noisy and marvellous,) it was time to eat.

Want to come to my house for turkey sandwiches? seriously. we have tons...

Everything was, rather surprisingly, cooked properly and tasted amazing. We ended up in a food coma. Another skype session to my lovely friends at home was followed by 'The Snowdog' which I adored. I've spent the best part of the last month trying to figure out the difference between US and UK christmas, and I think I've decided it comes down to the collective consciousness of the Perfect Christmas. The 'Golden Age' of the US is the 1950s. Most of their Christmas music comes from then, or is at least in a Frank Sinatra style. Candy canes decorate everything.The idea of Family Christmas is the 1950s ideal, Mom, Dad, Grandma and the Kids. Extended family is for Thanksgiving. 

The UK, by comparison, seems to be based firmly in the 1970s. The music is glam rock, the decorations glittery and tinsel-based. The colours are glaring and the family large and chaotic. I enjoyed Christmas here, but I missed the tackiness and forced togetherness of a traditional British Christmas. There was no Christmas TV on here, families go to the Movies instead. I want my kids to sing Slade and Wizard, to think foil ceiling decorations are magical the way I did when I was young. I want them to pour over the Radio Times circling the things they want to watch. There are so many wonderful things about bringing up your children in the US, but for us, Christmas wasn't one of them.

Post-Christmas came Boxing Day, or Wednesday, as it is known as here. In fairness, husband got Christmas Eve as a public holiday instead, but the TV is back to normal and it doesn't feel like the second day of Christmas, just business as usual. With that in mind, we decided to travel to the LA Weekly Best Coffee Shop in LA, having been to number 4 on Christmas Eve. It was delicious. It was also in Venice Beach, one of the quirkiest places in LA, which gives rise to things like this...

This horror is above a CVS. I don't understand it either...

It was sunny, we got to wear our Christmas Sunglasses (a tradition we'll probably only manage whilst in California...) and wander around for a while. Abbott Kinney Boulevard is a super cool wee street with awesome independent shops and coffee shops and restaurants. It is chock-full of heavily bearded men with babies in ergo's and women in stripy T-Shirts. There are hundreds of 'antique' shops, containing mostly driftwood and old beach furniture. It's the kind of place surfing hipster types hang out in. I didn't know they existed, but they do, and they live in Venice. The boardwalk has the reputation of being kind of skeezy, but we didn't make it that far today. The Santa Monica bus goes that way though, so when it starts to properly heat up I'll head down and report back.

Husband at Venice Beach

Tonight we went to see the Hobbit. This will be surprising to people who know me for two reasons: I famously thought Lord of The Rings was, well, shite, quite frankly. My brother and I suffered through the first one, slept through the second one, then ditched the third in favour of  just going to sleep and dropping the pretence (we were working at summer camp, we gave up most things in favour of sleep.) Secondly, I am also notorious for my hatred of films, and in particular movies at the cinema. They are too long, you can't get nearly as invested with the characters as TV and if you have to watch them at the cinema then you are stuck in the dark with a room full of strangers who mind if you get up for a wander every so often. All this being said, husband really wanted to see it, and I really want to watch Call the Midwife on the iplayer, so it seemed like a fair trade. Unfortunately, the only option in Westwood was 3D, which was borderline unwatchable (even husband complained about the weird focus and odd movement) so I ended up taking the glasses off and watching it all a bit blurry. I didn't really enjoy it, but I was trying to be nice, since we don't have that many people to do fun things with. I shall try not to complain too much about it.

So there you have it, an epic about our Christmas adventures. It was strange to spend it just the two of us, but I liked making up some of our traditions. We incorporated bits of each others' families Christmas' as well as adding in a few brand new things. It was super relaxed, and I loved making up our own rules. Husband is off until next Wednesday, for which I am exceedingly thankful. Partly because he needs the break (it's been a busy few months curing cancer) and partly because it feels more like home when he's around. I am now the proud owner of a Social Security Number so shall be stepping up the job search. Probably just as well, all that Food Network is not good for you...

Christmas cheer

The staggeringly obnoxious tree  at Universal Studios

It is finally feeling like Christmas in Los Angeles. There are so many reasons for this, but the main one is that it is actually pretty cold. Like, normal person cold, not 'cold for here'. The weatherman (who is called Dallas Raines. I wish I were kidding.) is treating this like a sign of the apocalypse, but I've watched enough crappy TV to know that it always 'surprise snows' in LA at Christmas.

This is the first Christmas in 3 years I've not had exams/wedding/work/mind-blowing stress in the lead up to the holidays. I do have a cat that is CHOKED with the cold, and an extremely reluctant taker of her prescribed antibiotics, so I would hardly say life is dull, but I am enjoying the more laid-back approach. Especially compared to last year, which involved an examiner telling me 'your patient is dead, you need to fix it...', an experience I don't care to repeat.

I'm learning, particularly living in the area I do, to say 'Happy Holidays' to people instead of Merry Christmas. I can hear some of you (*coughCHRIScough*) saying something about 'PC gone mad' but the reality is that there is a really significant Jewish population in West LA, and I want to be respectful to others' cultures. I've learnt more about Channukah in the last few weeks than in my life up til now. It's so interesting living somewhere so multi-cultural. I always thought of Edinburgh as multi-cultural, but it makes me laugh now. I am frequently the only white face in a shop, with people from every corner of the world gathering in LA. This week alone in our church they have had the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe (compete with Tamales and hot chocolate) and a Phillipino feast on Friday, which comes with a spit-roast pig in the car park. It's fascinating, and makes me excited about the possibility of bringing up our kids here. The world seems both big and small in LA, with exposure to so many different, interesting things.

Stockings!!

 Since I love making things, I decided to undertake Christmas Stockings for husband and I this year. They were the hardest thing I've ever made (including my arsenal of skirts and quilts) but I persevered and learnt lots of new sewing techniques (this is quite boring if you don't sew, but I am feeling pretty smug.) They are FAR from perfect, but I think they will last for a very long time. I also made one of husband's Christmas presents. He is pretty snack-centric, so I made these. I don't like nuts, so I only tried the flavouring, but they were so good. Super spicy but pleasantly sweet too. I gave them to him straight away, since I wasn't sure how long they'd last. They seem to have gone down well and were so easy to make. I'd definitely recommend them!

Hope you are getting into the Christmas spirit!

The old college try...

The start of this story goes that I am still somewhat under the weather. I have a GP appointment using our seriously swanky health insurance tomorrow. When you don't feel 100%, the thought of driving to Pasadena for an american football game doesn't really appeal. 

We went and it was fun. Up til now, my experiences of american sports have been baseball-based. I love the baseball. I love going to a Dodgers game and seeing the ordinary people who live in LA, not the plastic, orange people or the students who take themselves too seriously (I'm looking at you, UCLA Law. Every single one of you I've encountered is kind of a douche.) Instead, it's the working class, people who do everyday jobs in an everyday manner. The baseball is a friendly, funny crowd who don't take anything too seriously. You drink a beer and eat hot dogs and shout at the umpires. There are always hundreds of children in the crowd, little girls with blue ribbons in their hair and boys who run around with oversized mitts on their hands.

Dodgers v Rockies, September 2012

The football was nothing like this. The Rose Bowl, where UCLA play, is 45 minutes (on a good day) away from the campus. You are expected to drive in the afternoon, 'tailgate' (eat BBQ and drink) until the game starts at night. The car park was a golf course. A golf course covered in broken glass and burnt patches by the time we arrived at 7pm. We missed the first touchdown walking from the 18th hole back to the stadium- it was so far away. I was tired by the time we got there. Everyone was WASTED. I don't think I can overstate this enough. There were pools of vomit all around the stadium. Automatically this felt more like home- as any Edinburgh resident can attest to, it's not really Sunday morning unless you're dodging vomit puddles. People screamed and shouted. Middle aged men with battered baseball caps high-fived one another, made mad hand actions and downed more beers. It was brilliant. The Arizona fans shouted and sang and argued with the UCLA fans that surrounded them in some drunken, good natured banter.

The RoseBowl. Image courtesy of husband's instagram

Then it was half time and I was cold and tired and not feeling very good. UCLA were winning by miles. We watched the marching band and flag girls and cheerleaders perform their half-time show for a little while then started the half hour hike back to the car. I'd go back, but I'll definitely need a beer or four.

lazy weekend LA style...

As the title suggests, this weekend was a lazy one. Husband had a really long work-week, and we've travelled a whole lot the last few weeks. Saturday we went to the local mall. The local mall is just a boring, bog-standard mall. I love it because it makes me feel like a local. There is not a tourist in sight. We wandered around and bought a few things and I obsessed over the doggies the local shelter brings to a shop in the centre. We're not allowed a dog according to our landlord, but I want one rather desperately. I fell in love with an 8-year-old Australian Cattledog called Murphy. Unfortunately I had to leave him there. Horrible.

I finally drove on the road. It was terrifying and a bit exciting and I only ran through one stop sign, which I'm taking as a victory. Husband is actually a very good teacher. I'm trying to be a good student, even though I want to have a big strop when he criticises me, since he's actually trying to ensure I don't kill us both. I probably won't, but only time will tell...

We also discovered something of an LA institution- the Farmer's Market at The Grove. It's been running since 1934, so we're hardly the first people to go, but I had the best brazillian BBQ, wandered around the petting zoo and cow lasso-ing areas set up for their fall festival and watched a rather terrifying scarecrow try to convince people to enter the pie eating contest. It's probably best to let the people of the LA County Fair explain why events like this are important in this city... 

Personally I think the slur on Blondes in the uploader's title is a little unfair. Brunettes in LA can also be this... rurally challenged.

There are, alas, no pictures of this since I left the memory card of our camera IN my computer, but we had a gorgeous afternoon. The weather was starting to cool a bit, so being outside was pleasant. Not to worry though, temperature's to be back up in the 30s for this weekend...

Late Nights and Early Mornings...

We were really busy this weekend. Properly, old-fashioned busy. Friday night drinks with husband's work colleagues, where I had to speak extra slowly because they were all convinced they wouldn't understand me. Two (american) pints in I'm not sure they could, but I had stopped caring.  

Saturday we drove for an hour and a half through a lunar landscape to Santa Barbara, a town I've heard so much about but hadn't made it to yet. It didn't disappoint. From the beautiful pier, green-y turquoise sea to the Spanish style architecture in every single building, it was heavenly. There was a man on a skateboard being pulled along by two Labradors down the main street. A lady locked in the toilet when the handle fell off in her hand, proving looks can be deceiving, because the bathroom was really fancy. Little Toppers bobbing in the ocean, following their leader. Seagulls and Pelicans and a water taxi called 'Little Toot'. It was marvellous. It was still warm, even though the weather man said it is finally starting to cool down. I had a mint choc chip ice cream on the pier.

How do you follow an idyllic afternoon like this? Ikea. Ikea in Burbank, to be specific. If you are a Greater Los Angeles Ikea afficienado, like me, you will know this is the WORST one. It may be the worst Ikea in the world. It has no car park. You have to park 5 minutes walk away, meaning the loading area is some sort of apocalyptic warzone of trollies, trucks and despair. We were barely speaking to each other by the time we got home. This is standard for our trips to Ikea Burbank.

Husband had to work this morning, so went and sat by the pool with his laptop. I built the things we bought in Ikea, drank coffee and listened to my music up loud. Shopping followed, lots of it, then my least favourite part of the week- a driving lesson with husband. I'm no good at driving. I wish I were, but I am terrified and angry at myself the entire time. I've not made it out of the empty car park at the end of the street yet. Today it wasn't so empty because there was a big Romney/Ryan rally outside the Federal Building next door, and it was the first time I wasn't scared because the thought of hitting a few of them cheered me right up. 

It's now 1.30 in the morning and everyone from home is getting up, heading in to work and starting their day. This causes me untold confusion, sort of like jet-lag, because I think I'll miss out if I go to bed. The house is still very much alive. The waterfall outside gushes on, the pool is still lit up like christmas, the fan still whirls around, buzzing gently as it goes. It's never quiet here. I think that's why I love it.