Night Night L.A.

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Last night I had a chance to experience a little piece of what L.A. has to offer once the sun goes down and I can safely say without a shadow of a doubt that the L.A. night life is one of the most surreal, intense, mind boggeling experiences known to man.
The weekend started as such:
Fernando, my Brazillian roommate rented a car with his friend Eric (also from Brazil) This was on Friday. On Saturday, the three of us along with Jay, our other roommate from Montreal got, up early, showered, dressed and piled into the rental to go exploring up the coast. The first stop was Santa Monica, in itself not a new experience since I visited here when I was in L.A. last summer but this time around I was able to see it in more detial. We went through an enourmous outdoor mall, that was packed with shoppers and street performers (one disheveled man even had a small monkey attached to a leash, although he looked homeless and didn't seem to be performing in any capacity so I can only imagine that he was saving the poor animal to eat). After Santa Monica we went further north into Malibu, the much coveted coastal hideaway for those who can afford to escape the city. Malibu is nothing short of picture perfect. every house has a spectacular view of the coast, the mountains look as if they've been professionally sculpted and it would probably take days to find a stray piece of trash, the place practically sparkles. I got some great shots which I will post up here as soon as I can figure out how to do that from a publlic computer without someone yelling at me.
But, I digress, I was going to tell you about the Los Angeles night scene.
That night we decided to drive down to Sunset Blvd. to check out the infamous Sunset strip, a half mile stretch that is home to some of L.A.'s best bars and nightclubs. And this is where things got interesting, the place was teeming with life. crowds of club goers walked up and down the street, clogged interesctions, weaved in and around traffic, shouted and yelled from the street corners. Car horns honked, billboards lit up, lights flashed, rims spinned, the whole place pulsed with energy. And for those of you who were wondering, yes its true L.A. does have the world's most beautiful women or as Vince Vaughn said in Swingers, "L.A. is full of of beautiful babies baby!" The only trouble was the place was such a sensory overload that none of us were feeling very 'money' that night. Suffice it to say after some parking confusion and several failed attempts at the swankier clubs we settled on the Viper Room, the club owned by Johnny Depp, and for those of you who know their movie star trivia, the location where the actor River Phoenix met his untimely death at the age of 21, after overdosing on a cocktail of drugs (circa 1991). There was a good band playing at the Viper who's name I can't remember so we stuck around for their set and then hit the street again to find a new joint but quickly discovered that for all of its hustle and bustle the L.A. night scene is suprisngly short lived, the crowds started to thin by 1:30am and most of the bars were shutting their doors soon after. Evidently the real partying takes place up in the hills at the mansions and Penthouses of L.A.'s rich and famous and if you don't know the right people chances are you'll be turning in early, which is what we ended up doing but all in all the evening was an experience worth repeating.
And that was how i spent my first full weekend in Los Angeles,

This is Evan Aagaard, reporting live from Hollywood, signing off.

- Evan

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