Flashback: L.A./Venice Beach

So folks. I am back in Amsterdam since beginning of this week. And already the speed of the city has gotten to me... I have to find a place, make 2983 phonecalls and write even more emails, organize rehearsals and I also played my first gig this weekend. BUT I have a good feeling about all of this, I took lots of motivation and inspiration from my trip and I will try as good as I can to continue with this good energy (hehe, it's gonna be hard though when the rainy days come ;) There is a lot to do in the rest of this year, I decided to try singing in my rock band, so that we can finally start recording and putting an album together. Well, if it doesn't work I at least ruin my own music and not someone elses, hehe! But I will write about all of this, maybe here, maybe I will start another blog (because this is a travel blog, right) or get my website back up again finally...

ANYWAY, here are the pictures from Los Angeles! Remember, after L.A. I couldn't get my hands on a mac computer to access my Ipod and to upload these pictures... Well, here we go!

I stayed one week in Venice Beach/L.A. with Vikki. She was really great and took me out to lots of cool places and partys! Most of L.A. though is rather,... hmmm,... how to say... boring! It just goes on forever in the style you see in the pic above. BUT, if you are in the right company and you hit the good spots, it rocks!!! ;)

goin' crazy in Venice Beach

the pier at night

Venice Beach!

what I didn't knew, those palmtrees are actually an import... If humans would leave california untouched, it would actually be destert. But thanks to us L.A. has those cool palmtrees which follow the sun during the day with their crowns. Cool!

looking down from Hollywood Boulevard into the city

well, and this was funny (NOT). I did not see the sign that you are not allowed to park on the street from 2-6 pm or something like that. I went to check out a guitar shop, and after 10 minutes my car was already pulled up by this truck. They are fast there! Luckyly they accept credit card and for 150 dollar turtle got off the hook again, haha!
What totally helped me to overcome this oh so unuseful waste of money was that a few minutes later I played an 1964 Fender Stratocaster in the "Guitar Center Vintage Shop", which was in perfect condition and was defnetly one (if not THE) best guitar I ever touched. Problem: the beauty was 80.000 dollar. Gulp. Well, lucky me, there was another one which was slightly banged up, but same year and sounded EVEN BETTER to me. And it was only 64.000 dollar (yes, sixtyfourthousand). I will start saving tomorrow. Wanna donate? Ev'ry dollar is welcome ;)

and in the small back streets of Venice Beach you find those beautiful jewels of houses...
they are unpayable of course for people like you and me, hehe

on Abbot Kinney in Venice, one of the main streets

next to Vikki's house

on the beach at night...

... and during the day!

this wall is especially for graffitty artists. With permission you can spray here. Which is nice, the motive changes every few days!

buy your slippers and hats here

just outside (north) of L.A.

californian sunset

I could totally live there!

of course, there was one more thing to do...

... to see this!

the streets of L.A. at night

I am not done here yet,... there will still be more! So keep checking back!
By the way, thank you all for coming here and reading my stories. It was so nice to see that people checked every day! It really helped me to go on with the blog, and when I was somewhere alone I was thinking about that I am gonna post the pictures I took, and that like this I can share my travel with all of you - plus, I never felt really "alone" :-)

that's all for now, see you later!