Venice & Santa Monica

Yesterday Stephen and I went on a little excursion to Venice Beach and Santa Monica. To our surprise, these two places are only about 30 minutes from our front door! We had a blast walking around and seeing the sights.

We hit Venice first. We'd both heard that Venice is a pretty crazy place, and I'd say that is somewhat true. There's this great walkway along the beach where vendors set up booths of random stuff to buy and people put on various shows for you to watch. There's also a big recreation center right on the beach where you can play basketball, miniature tennis, workout at Muscle Beach (a weight room on the beach), and bike and rollerblade along the beach. It was pretty cool.

I actually got pulled in to be a part of one of the shows! This guy was crazy and after about 20 minutes of talking about how much pain he was about to be in, he finally walked barefoot on a big pile of broken bottles and glass.

He had me hold a bottle, a fake crawfish, and put on some "island wear"

Then there was this guy painted in all gold who looked like a statue until you stuck some cash into his box and he went crazy and did some dance moves and then went back to being a statue. We're pretty sure the dog in front of him was fake.

Stephen got stopped by a guy trying to sell CDs of his band and took a moment to give him his opinion of the music.
After walking along Venice Beach, we drove a couple miles north to Santa Monica. This place is awesome! It has a pier that has a carnival on it(!) AND a blocked off street called 3rd Street Promenade that is set up as an outdoor mall. GREAT L.A. SHOPPING (I'm definitely taking Sara here when she comes out!). Once it got dark, more people came out to put on shows like those at Venice Beach. We watched a group of guys break dancing and stopped to listen to an evangelist as he took on questions about Christianity. Great stuff.

Here's the Santa Monica Pier and Amusement Park:

After bringing to his attention ALL the yummy things to eat like cotton candy, pretzels, funnel cake, and popcorn, Stephen finally let me get some cotton candy.

We had a great day and finished it off with a movie in one of the 3 movie theaters on the Promenade, a stop at Starbucks for a warm drink, and listening to the evangelist for about 45 minutes. I have to say this was one of the best things we have done since we've been out here. Walking the 3rd St Promenade makes a great date night! Hooray for tons to do and see and it's all just 30 minutes away from us. Now we know somewhere to take guests when they come to visit!