Sunday, August 3, 2014

life's a beach

Hey, is this thing still on?

I can hardly believe it's August 3rd already. It's been more than two months since I lived in Paris! Not to mention one month since I settled in Los Angeles, before venturing to the Pacific coast (Long Beach) with my mom, for the first time in almost three years.
{Long Beach}
It was the Fourth of July then and we rode bikes along the beach with old neighbors of ours. I felt like I was on vacation. It amazed me that beachfront mornings, afternoons, and evenings could become an ordinary mainstay in my new home. Still does actually. And now that I'm practically an "Angeleno" (with a shiny California driver's license to prove it), my cousin decided it was about time I pick "my beach." Yesterday, he took my visiting friend Hannah and I on an L.A. beach tour--from Hermosa Beach to Malibu.
{Manhattan Beach}
{Venice}
What a multidimensional city I live in, let me tell you. I was mistaken when I'd thought sand + sun + surf would translate to a mildly consistent look and feel to these waterfront communities. Loved enjoying, comparing and contrasting four of them in just one day.
{Malibu}
As I learn a new job in a new city in a country I haven't lived full-time in in two years, simplistic preconceived notions of this most recent home of mine are being debunked one by one. It's wonderful. Wonderful and overwhelming. Living this real life is quite honestly the hardest thing I've ever attempted to do. So, although I do promise to eventually revive my blogging habits, I ask you to please be patient with me until then. In the mean time: a get-to-know Los Angeles reading list. These two books first.