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Published: December 25th 2008
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23rd November 2008 Whittier, Los Angeles
Hi from Whittier in Los Angeles state (about 40 minutes from downtown LA!)
Sorry about the lack of news but internet access where we are staying is limited and slow so frustrating to use. Also we’ve been taking it easy and so haven’t done too many spectacular things yet!
A few days ago ash was falling from the sky and the street and house smelled of smoke. We were in a park the day before that, celebrating Carlos’s (my brother-in-law) birthday and the otherwise cloudless sky had a massive cloud of dark smoke that temporarily reduced the sun to a small red ball, like an “end of the world” eclipse. It was surreal and spooky! We are safe where we are but the nearest wildfires were only half an hour away. It’s so dry here, and although we have really enjoyed these unusually high November temperatures, it’s actually seriously worrying for such an arid part of the world to still be so hot and dry in November. Fires are an all year round danger now when it used to be a summer phenomenon only.
And still everyone drives everywhere
pumping out pollution often in big gas-guzzling cars. Having said that, the cars are changing - Japanese smaller cars are increasing and the big 3 American car giants Ford, General Motors and Chrysler are about to go bust (credit crunch + building too many big, crap over-priced cars that people don’t buy anymore). You still have to drive a long way to do anything or go anywhere in this massive sprawling city of Los Angeles which has few skyscrapers but stretches wide and flat in all directions linked by mile upon mile of huge 4 -5 lane concrete freeways. Of course, after a reluctant, hesitant start, I have now joined the legions of drivers, just hope we don’t get caught in a fire!
In fact, we are living in Whittier a pleasant town just outside LA city. Sofia loves it here, and Viviana is very happy to be with her brother Carlos and his family. Sofia especially loves playing and sometimes fighting with her cousins, Maria-Jose(3) and Carlo (8), as well as a really friendly Mexican family with 3 eager to play kids who live next door. It could be Mexico in most areas we have seen -Spanish is
Domestic fun!
Katty, Maria-Jose, Carlito-Jose, Geraldine(neighbour) and Sofia the first language of most people we meet, that includes the shops and supermarkets and restaurants. Viviana is enjoying sharing mummy duties and generally hanging out with Katty and Carlos too when he is around - he works 7 days a week, nearly 70 hours in 2 jobs as pay is poor and California is the most expensive state in the U.S.A.
What have we done? For the first couple of weeks not a lot apart from hang out and sometimes join in the school run. I sang a couple of times at the school for deaf and hard of hearing that Carlito Jose attends, we have had a barbecue and birthday parties in the local park as the daytime temperatures have ranged from a cool 20 degrees C to more than 30! And we all had fun dressing up for Halloween trick or treat which seems as important as Christmas here.
Then we had a good week visiting the much colder city of Seattle. My brother Oliver lives there and our Mum came over to meet up with us too. Sofia of course loved all the attention from “Mem” and Uncle Oliver! The mist and drizzle broken
CarlitoJose´s destiny in LA
Carlito content with his life in LA looking at the San Pedro sunset up by patches of sunshine that made the gold and red autumn leaves glow reminded us of England. My brother wants to be James Bond and near enough is. He has a beautiful Aston Martin and hi-tech apartment with a spectacular view of the lakes and mountains of Seattle. There are so many buttons for lights, blinds and TVs that even after a week we had no idea which buttons did what…We rented an American giant family car, called an Escalade I think, which, to be fair, was very comfortable and served us well. Seattle is in fact a very attractive, compact city albeit with a dull winter climate; we ate in some really nice restaurants, walked in beautiful autumnal arbotoreums and went to a couple of good museums. All in all a really good trip!
And we were there during this amazing historic election which was genuinely exciting to watch. Obamania has taken hold, notably in the latino communities here, even Sofia is chanting his name “O - ba -ma”. But the country has so many extremely difficult problems (the imminent and catastrophic collapse of the huge auto industry is just one of the latest) we wonder how
long Obama will remain popular. He’s clever and an inspiring speaker but the U.S looks like it is heading for deep recession and there seems little he or anyone can do to stop the inevitable. He only becomes President on 20 January anyway - wish him luck!
Back in LA we’ve taken our jumpers back off and our shorts and T-shirts back on, at least for the daytime. The temperature still peaks at around 25 degrees in the afternoon but, as in a desert, drops dramatically at night leading to sniffly noses for most of us at one time or another.
I’ve started spending some time promoting the latest Puravida CD here just to see what the reaction might be and if it could be taken a step further (ie a song placed in a movie would be pretty cool!). An ear infection and lingering tendonitis have stopped me from playing guitar in the last few weeks much to my frustration, but this luxury of time that this break has given us means we can still do things we don’t get to do when we are busy in Bristol.
We’ve been to lively and kitschy Hollywood to
see those stars etched on the street and at last I’m getting the hang of driving around Whittier and into LA city. This last weekend my brother Oliver came down to visit us here in LA and we had a really busy, fun weekend - Beverly Hills, hippy Venice beach and stylish Santa Monica which share the same immense stretch of soft, sandy beach, the Getty Centre (an amazing, modern, hi-tech museum and gardens complex funded by a billionaire). Oliver seemed to love LA, mostly the warm sunshine but also the big, cosmopolitan city vibe. We have now seen more of its attractive side too; mostly Beverly Hills to Santa Monica. Later this week Carlos has some time off and so we are hopefully going to do a California coastal tour taking in Malibu and Santa Barbara amongst other places.
And then it will be Ecuador! We are getting excited about that but we will miss the lively, fun family atmosphere here; there are seven of us in a small 2 bedroom apartment, but Carlos and Katty and their two children are so easy -going and generous-hearted it’s mostly been very comfortable to stay here.
So adios from LA!
The next time we write will be from Ecuador!
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