Day 4 - Los Angeles to Santa Barbara

A bit of philosphy 

I've long held the belief that ever since I moved to Europe from California (at the age of 6, clearly not my own choice) I have been living in something of a Plato's cave.

For those of you not familiar with Plato's Allegory of the Cave here's a brief synopsis: Imagine some men chained to face the back wall of a cave. Behind them burns a huge fire. In between the fire and the men people, animals and objects pass by, casting their distorted shadows onto the wall of the cave. These shadows are all that the men can see and it is as close as they get to reality. Plato explains that a philosoper is someone who escapes this cave and goes on to see reality as it truly is.

Well, for me, true reality is California. Everything here seems so... right. Food tastes like it should, houses look like they should, even all the smells are right. I feel like everything in Europe is a watered down slightly less vibrant version of how things should be (ironic, given that most things here once came from Europe)

Here's an example: when I was about five and living in California my mother went to have her nails done and took me along. While we were out she gave me one of her courgette (zucchini) fries. Many years later I could still remember exactly how it had tasted and asked her where it was we'd been. Fortunately she remembered because today (26 years later!) I found that place and had a portion of zucchini fries. They tasted exactly as I remembered them and it was one of the most... I'm not sure, maybe satisfying? moments I can remember.

I guess it's true what they say about the importance of your formative years. I'll be interested to see if this idea of reality extends to the whole of the US or whether it is just here in California. In any case the reasons to move here are stacking up. Not sure how that would go down with the visa people ("yes officer, I did say you should let me live here because I remembered the taste of your fried vegetables for a really long time")

Santa Monica 

Today I went to Santa Monica for a walk in Palisades Park which runs along the cliff overlooking the beach.

Not much to say about that other than how beautiful and peaceful it was, despite really just being a strip of grass alongside a busy road. I was surprised to see how many different types of people hang out there - from yuppies (do we still use that word?) doing business on their phones to yummy mummys on their morning jog to this one guy in a hairnet having a contemplative lunchbreak. I asked if  I could take his picture. He seemed surprised but straigtened up, smiled and afterwards he thanked me.

In the same park they had some cute little public toilets with weird green lighting so I decided to take this Gangnam style picture. (please note trousers are ON, this is not an action shot!!)

Highway 1

I had my first taste of Highway 1 today. Wowsers. Highway 1 (or, as it's known in this section, Pacific Coast Highway) is a road that hugs the coast along most of California. (I know I keep writing about roads but this is a road trip blog, right?) Along the 50 miles I drove today I saw beautiful beaches, huge cliffs, people surfing and even a weird barefoot guy walking the white line by the hard shoulder trying very hard to get run over.

I'm spending the night in Santa Barbara with some family friends who have fed me proper food and given me a proper bed to sleep in - well, you know, I HAVE been slumming it for all of four days!!