Walk me ’round Santa Monica

Though the palm trees and warm breeze give off a calming vibe when exiting LAX, a visit to Los Angeles may not be a vacation everyone would describe as relaxing. But to me, hopping a plane to spend a long weekend in the California sunshine seemed a perfect way to take the edge off this Midwest spring in Chicago.

Even at 10:00pm on a Wednesday, my brother, Dan, weaved his car through the crowded freeway traffic, passionately flipping the bird to overeager L.A. drivers as they sped past us. This is, of course, can be an average drive for a local like my brother, so I sat back and laughed my way to his studio apartment in the neighborhood of Los Feliz.

In the one hour it took us to drive 30 miles from Los Feliz to Santa Monica Thursday morning, I learned that Los Feliz is pronounced like “Los fee-liss” instead of how one might sing “Feliz Navidad” and that “Wilshire Drive” is actually “Will-sure” instead of “Will-Shire”. Now educated and prepared to attack the day, Dan dropped me along the Third Street Promenade where I found a breakfast sandwich and café street patio with my name on it.

Those who live in Santa Monica make it clear that they do indeed live in Santa Monica and not in L.A., as this west side of town is much different than a visit to Hollywood. While downtown Santa Monica is still crowded, the people are generally more laid-back and the energy is calmer than the glitz, glamor, hustle and bustle of L.A.’s entertainment district. This is the life, I thought as I soaked my face in the morning sun while slurping the final drops of my freshly squeezed orange-pineapple juice.

Lined with shops, restaurants, and movie theaters, The Promenade encompasses several blocks of the downtown Santa Monica neighborhood. It’s considered a premier shopping and dining district on the Westside of Los Angeles and makes for a popular tourist destination due to its close proximity to the Pacific Ocean. Performers fill the streets while families enjoy lunch, and friends laugh loudly over margaritas at an outdoor cantina.

As in most cities, one might even find an unexpected show like the one I witnessed on my afternoon stroll. I rounded a street corner just in time to see two grown men yelling and chasing each other in the street. As I tried to make sense of the situation, one of the men came barreling past me holding a Victoria’s Secret shopping bag while the other flagged down a policewoman passing on her bicycle. After the second man passionately argued that his Victoria’s Secret bag had been stolen, the officer hit the petals and chased down the thief. She even kept her bike helmet on during the embezzlement to be safe. In the end, she did find the thief and returned the bag and its contents to its rightful owner.

Not far from the Promenade, pigeons fill the lawns around Santa Monica’s oceanfront while homeless men and women curl up next to them in the grass or on park benches. Tourists walk this same oceanfront and along Santa Monica Pier while eating churros, snapping photos and breathing in the Pacific Ocean air. Dogs walk in and out of shops with their owners while rollerbladers skate their way through the paved beachfront paths.

The sun shines, people are somewhere between down-to-earth and crazy and, in my opinion, that is just the right place to be. I take in this West Coast way of life, but cannot help but think about the homeless lying by the beach. If I end up without a roof over my head someday, I thought, I may stay away from the Victoria’s Secret fighters along the Third Street Promenade, but Santa Monica’s oceanfront will definitely be on my list of places to sleep.