On this trip we carry no keys with us, because we don’t have a home that we are returning to. Checking-in at the airport, we didn’t have an answer to the question: “when are you returning?”, because we don’t exactly know. Our bags contain clothing for all seasons — from sunscreen and flip-flops, to winter boots and gloves — and enough medication for months. These things started making it real to me that it is not quite an ordinary trip that we have embarked on.
Arriving in Los Angeles, after an 11-hour flight and in the midst of the jet-lag and tiredness, the reality of what we had set out on was more than a tad overwhelming for me. Is this a smart thing to do? Will I be able to handle the work I need to do whilst travelling? Will our relationship grow stronger, or will Andrejs be ready to strangle me after a month or two?
Luckily, in more lucid and less sleep-deprived moments, I am less apprehensive and generally more excited about it all (and less scared of death by strangulation at the hands of an exasperated boyfriend).
We first picked up our rental car that will hopefully get us across the entire U.S. It was parked right next to a pick-up truck that was taller than I am. Welcome to America — home of giant cars!
We drove to the home of my friend from college (and freshman-year roommate in 2005). She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their cheerful and very cute 18-month-old son. He honoured me by sitting calmly to let me read aloud to him an entire story about a little train engine that could.
We set off to explore nearby L.A. sights. First we visited The Getty Center — an art museum with beautiful buildings and gardens, perched on a hilltop overlooking Los Angeles. We toured a surprisingly intriguing photo exhibit by Sally Mann, called ‘A Thousand Crossings’. We walked through the gardens and admired the view.
There was even a really cool cacti garden!
We then drove to Santa Monica Beach. We walked along the shore as the sun was setting in the Pacific Ocean.
We saw the famous Santa Monica pier and watched sandpipers search for food in the sand, running around swiftly, deftly avoiding the waves that kept threatening to get their stick-like legs wet. See a video here:
Partially thanks to my friends, we had a very pleasant first full day of our trip. It was the kind of day that reassured me that this plan of ours was not so crazy after all — that we are going to be fine. Maybe it was just a matter of finding some ordinary happy moments — a beautiful sunset, a cool cactus, or a child super excited by playing hide-and-go-seek in a hedge — and not thinking too much about the enormity of the trip as a whole.
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