Today we woke up and drove to Santa Monica for the first time. It took us a while to find parking, but finally we came across a spot and fed the meter.
We walked down 3rd Street Promenade, a road with a lot of restaurants and shops. Then we walked over to the Santa Monica Pier. It looks kind of like Navy Pier in Chicago, except with more stuff to do. We first saw an arcade with every single game I played when I was a little kid, so I HAD to get some quarters. We played Skee-Ball first; it used to be one of my favorites ... and I soon found out it still is! We also played Whack-A-Mole, and a basketball shooting game. Our tickets amounted to about 50 points so we got a (drum roll) .... back scratcher the size of my hand! Actually, two of them, and a little ring. They were pretty crappy prizes; good to see not much has changed in the arcade world.
We were hungry, so we then decided to grab a bite at a tourist trap on the pier. Burgers were not so good, and overpriced, but what can ya do? We ate, then continued down the pier. We saw a small Asian man/street performer that was twisting his body into strange shapes; he must have been triple jointed or something. Then we kept on walking. There were some rides too, like a Ferris wheel and rollercoaster, but we decided to skip them and save the money.
Mike's turn:
After returning to the car (with four minutes left on the meter) we drove back to the house to shower and get ready for dinner at Toast, a West Hollywood cafe that came highly recommended by one of Chrissie's friends. We were dressed and out the door by 5:15, with "Toast" plugged into the GPS. Unfortunately, this was not the same Toast. I don't even think the GPS led us somewhere bearing the name Toast. I think it just gave us an arbitrary residential address. That's ok, in this day of computer phones, we were able to Google the proper address and get back on course. Never mind the wasted twenty minutes. We spent the next two hours- let me clarify, 120 minutes- sitting on Santa Monica Blvd moving less than 4 miles. We arrived at Toast at 7:30, 2 hours and 15 minutes after leaving for an early dinner. It was very good, though.
Then we headed into town for some drinks, wooooo! We decided to try a place Chrissie had seen from the car earlier called O-Bar. We got there, and it was quite obviously a gay bar. We walked a half mile west and found a place called Palms that didn't seem too flamboyant, but we were obviously in West Hollywood's "BoysTown." The doorman was very nice and allowed us to skip the $10 cover charge, since we weren't really there to see the acoustic performers laying it out on the back room stage. After one drink, we drove to a bar/steakhouse called STK. The bartender was way cool and talked with us for half an hour before they closed, giving us tips on nightlife, celebrity spotting, and the best place to see the Hollywood sign (more on that tomorrow). He also recommended the Belmont bar next door, so we walked that way and continued our night out. Nothing special there. We drove to the landmark Chateau Marmont hotel and found our way to the front desk, where we were pointed back out to the street and to the East, where the Bar Marmont was waiting. It was very cozy, and the Whiskey and Cokes were good.
PS- For you Californication fans out there, we found the ballerina clown from the opening sequence! Picture at the bottom.
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