Random Scrap:
The best part about living in Santa Monica was that for seventy five cents of a fare and a fifteen minute bus ride, I could be in downtown Santa Monica. I could walk along the Third Street Promenade and then head to the ocean. With my Sony CD Player I would just walk through from the pier all the way to the Venice Beach. My feet cold from the ocean water. This was how I imagined this place when a few years earlier I sat down in front of my computer trying to find out online the names of hostels or details of the transportation. It was a different place from its photos. None of them showed the homeless but also none of the photos could reflect the chill of late night breeze of the smell of the ocean. The pier was not an image anymore but a living thing with its people, a man drawing your name in fancy fonts for or a one-man orchestra. They would for the next several weeks become my stopover on the way home, a moment of reflection, escape and a hope that at the end it was all going to be worth it.