After I’ve visited the movie studios I drive to my friend Matt. I’m feeling a bit sad to leave Hollywood, but it’ll be fun to meet him again. The traffic is very busy and it turns out to be good that I left the movie studios on time. All five lanes of the interstate are packed with cars and it takes me a few hours to get to Matt’s house in Orange County. Fortunately I arrive perfectly at time, he’s just off from work and together we go one of his favorite breweries where we catch up over a nice Californian IPA. After that we go to a diner place called Habit where we enjoy some good burgers. The evening flies by and we get home around 10pm. I set my alarm clock an hour later again, but fortunately wake up a quarter before 5am. I feel like I get into my natural rhythm again. I do some work at the kitchen table until Matt gets up and after breakfast we drive to a coffee place he’s been wanting to show me. It’s called Hidden House and as we walk in I can see immediately why he likes it. It has a cool vibe, they have a big coffee roaster in one corner and an exposed brick wall. In the center is a long bar where the baristas make their coffee and we sit down. With cups of coffee, some pastries and two laptops side by side we sit down to work a few hours until Matt has to go to his office. I drive down to Hunting Beach where I walk at the pier and view the surfers in the water. In think there are at least 50 people out there with their surfboards. It’s fun to see them do various tricks at the waves. As I walk back, I think that it might be a good moment to finish Highway 1 to Santa Monica to finish the first stretch of the coastal highway. This part of the road in LA takes quite long, because there are many traffic lights, but since I have the whole afternoon I just take it easy and listen to some music and an audiobook while driving. Around two in the afternoon I arrive at Santa Monica where I park in the shopping mall one block away. I discovered that place a few years ago, you can park there for free for 90 minutes, which is way better than the expensive parking closer to Santa Monica Pier. Talking about expensive, the rides at the pier have also gone up a lot in the past few years. I was considering a ride in the rollercoaster, but when I see on the sign that they now charge 15 dollars for a single ride, I laugh and keep walking. I get back to my car and take the shorter route back to Matts house where I arrive nicely on time to meet him and Nancy for dinner.
They take me to a very nice Salvadorian restaurant where we get to taste some authentic food from there. It are flavors I haven’t tasted before and we have a fun and delicious time. After dinner we drive to an area called Plaza Park which has many hip coffee places and bars. There are also several antique stores and it all has a very cool, rustic vibe. We walk around and go inside a few places. There is also a coffee place called Urth Coffee and it looks fantastic inside. I’m telling my friends that if I lived here, I would definitely come here to work often. When we’ve seen most of the area we walk back to the car and drive back home. We say goodbye to Nancy and I join Matt for a quick trip to his work, because he needs to pick up some things there. It’s cool to see his office, though it’s also getting late. When we’re back home we’re both very tired and call it a night. It was a fun day of work, time with friends and discovering more of LA.
While walking in Huntington Beach I thought to myself that I would love to spend more time in this area. I had first planned to continue driving north tomorrow already, but there is no rush. I enjoy being here so much, that I might as well spend another day in LA and Hollywood.
