C'est dans la poche!

Who would have thought so? Today is the first day of summer and I passed my driving test!


Aujourd'hui, premier jour de l'été, j'ai réussi le permis de conduire!

Downtown L.A.

Last week-end we decided to visit Downtown L.A. We took the Surfliner again and went southward this time to Union Station in Los Angeles. Strange trip were we realised you can only take the train with your passport in this country... But relatively nice; we went through Burbank, Glendale.
Then we arrived in Union Station. It has a definite 1930's feel about it and nicer than I thought, grandiose architechture, with 1930's lines and a huge mural of nice healthy people of all ages and ethnic background to symbolise the Mellting Pot, almost socialist... Well, from what I have been told the area around Union Station is to be avoided at night. In the daytime it is ok, lots more beggars than in provincial Thousand Oaks as I expected. It was used in the film The way we were (1973). I remember the scene when Barbara Steisand has to leave Los Angeles and go to New-York to demonstrate against Macarthy and the Witchhunt, hounded by the press and photographers. Well, nowadays, part of the station has a very nice restaurant and walking passed it feels like we should be embarking on the Orient Express, or the local equivalent. Some of it is closed down today and there is going to be a wedding party. A bit surreal.
This is a totally different part of LA for Stephen and I. The previous times we have been to Santa Monica, UCLA, Beverly Hills, West Holywood. This is something else. It is scorching hot and we make our way to the City Hall, again 1930' s architecture, grandiose and old-fashioned, small gardens with tramps and druggies. We try not to show that we have a guidebook and try to look like we know where we are going. Opposite the City Hall is a disused building locked and abandonned hiding its former grandeur behind bars and outgrowing vegetation. We walk past the LA Times building, arrive at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. It is a fabulous building by Gehry, crazy, like a funky mushroom/flying saucer organically growing in all directions, with metallic scales shining in the sun. Fabulous and ... it has air-conditioning! We have a fresh lunch inside and then cross the road and visit MOCA, Museum of Contempory Art. It doesn't have what it says in the guide book, but instead a massive Richard Tuttle exhibition. Playful, wonderfully childish collages with cardboards, wires, MDF, neons, and painted over. They also organise concerts/ music events outside, and we would have stayed, had we had the time. We have to work out our route carefully in those areas because on the guide book it says near the Library, a few block away from here, is a open drug market where the police doesnt really go anymore! Great! The Business District is just behind MOCA, with Wells Fargo Buildings.
After visiting a very modern cathedral by the Freeway 101, we decide to go to Pueblo, the oldest neighbourhood in LA. We discover a bit of the history, how the Native Americans disappeared, the missions, the Spanish invasions, the American conquest, how the European settlers planted the first vineyards. The name Los Angeles was the name of the parish El Pueblo de La Reina De Los Angeles. Olvera Street is a colourful market for tourists with everything from leather sandals, Frida Khalo, Marilyn, Our Lady of Fatima posters to $6.99 pink plastic guitars with your name on it. It also has the oldest house in LA the Avila Adobe, built in 1818. There is a Mexican dance festival on the Plaza and it feels a bit like the Feria in Nîmes, Spanish music, the smell of fried treats, little girls dancing sevillane-type dances in a sunny afternoon, happy colourful crowds clapping and dancing.
Then it is time to take our train. Last futuristic vision of Union Station, a police man standing on a tiny motorised scooter; glimpses of "Blade Runner" come to mind.

As we returned to Thousand Oaks I saw this article on the L.A. Times website on John Fante's Downtown LA walk. The unforgettable novel "Ask the Dust" was written here but the LA it describes has completely disappeared, even Bunker Hill is not a hill anymore! A strange town really, growing too fast, and erasing its past as it goes along.


Je promets de traduire mes billets en français très bientôt. Désolée.

Hiking in Rabbit Valley

One of the advantages of living in a remote suburb is that there isn't much at the end of our road apart from hills and valleys. So we often go on hikes in the canyon we have discovered there. We can even go after Stephen has finished work. We were warned about bobcats, big wild cats that come out at dawn or dusk, generally angry that their territory is gradually invaded by the sprawl of suburbia and ready to attack humans! Everyone who has lived here for a long time says how much the valley has changed, that in the 70's Thousand Oaks used to be a big village, and has grown exponentially with the develpment of Amgen. The valley used to be farm land, mainly strawberry fields and horse farms.
There are signs along the paths that say: " Caution Rattlesnakes", which are not exactly reassuring! But it reminds me of the vipers in Lozère when we were little, watch where you walk, avoid rocky, exposed areas, since they love basking in the sun and if you get bitten, run to the nearest hospital!

On a hike with Flavia and her two dogs Ziggy and Zaza, she showed me some small skull left on the side of the path and told me that coyotes, small skinny dogs, run to catch pets, in people's gardens or farms but also on trails, and then kill them! Walking in Britian along the North Down way and the South Down Way, through the green rolling hills of Sussex or Kent over the past few years was quite different, much more peaceful! But we like hiking here too, the scenery is very dramatic: rocky cliffs, volcanic canyons, sandy earth. The vegetation is very dry. Some eucaliptuses, " garrigue" type of vegetation, aromatic plants, dry bushy trees and, that's different from the Languedoc or the Provencal hills, cactuses abound. In this region there are three geographical zones: the coast, the valleys and the desert. The weather forecast on the radio gives you the three which are usually quite different: in the spring, the coast is much cooler, usuallly overcast, the valleys are overcast until mid-morning, the desert is very hot and very dry. Here in the valley, it is quite nice. The wild life is quite different from England too, lots of rabbits, hence Conejo Valley (rabbit in Spanish), cute lizards, dragon flies with hues of luminescent blue, lots of crickets that chirp all year around, roadrunners, little birds that run fast on the ground (like in the cartoon, except they don't say "bip, bip"!). I am fascinated by hummingbirds, very small birds, that can only be found on the American continent, almost like big bumble bees, who don't really fly but hover or dive suddenly. Lots of seagulls fly here from the Pacific. We have also seen racoons, mainly around rubbish bins, small black and white mammals with big black eyes and a strippy tail, generally not as scary as foxes.

On one of our walks we saw a film crew once, reminding us that Tinseltown is less than 50 miles away. Yesterday we went hiking in Wildwood Park, more canyons and gently rolling grassland plateaux. From what the hiking book, Day hike around Ventura County says, this particular park was used to shoot "a number of Westerns and televisions series like Bonanza in the 50's, 60's and 70's, the Rifleman (1958) by Sam Peckinpah, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, and the original town of Dodge City. One of the trails in this park is called the Stagecoach Bluff Trail, named for its numerous stagecoach racing scenes"! Other trails are appropriately named Lizard Rock trail, Teepee overlook trail, Paradise waterfall.
A real escape from consumerism and the car obsessed society or trying to know of Paris Hilton is in or out of prison!

The American Riviera

Last weekend wanting to escape from the daily grind of a stressful job (Stephen) and after having failed the driving test (me) we decided to hop on the trainline called the Amtrak Surfliner.
The nearest station is in Moorpark, we would go by cab and see where the train would take us. At first we toyed with the idea of going to San Diego and then thought Santa Barbara would be closer. Basically this one line, the Amtrak Surfliner, goes North and South along the Pacific coast. So we took our rucksacks (here: backpacks) and set off. Santa Barbara is only one hour away on the train and we thought we'd check out the "American Riviera". There are only three trains a day, and Moorpark is not even a station, just a stop. The train ride was very nice, along the beach sometimes overlooking the shore, through towns like Camarillo, Ventura,... Quite a few Americans have come and parked their campervans by the sea for the weekend.
Santa Barbara has a lovely little station very close to the beach. Last weekend was a bank holiday for Americans, Memorial Day weekend, celebrating American troops throughout history and as we arrived in Santa Barbara, we went to the beach and saw a pacifist demonstration. Arlington West: www.veteransforpeace.org. Veterans from various conflicts had set up this memorial with 3,000 white crosses commemorating the lives of all the American victims of the war in Iraq. They invited people to reflect on the meaning of war, with slogans and recommendations. We spoke to an old man, and were amazed when he replied in a perfect French: " Ma femme est de Charentes-Maritimes", and telling us he was Austrian and fought in the Second World War with the American troops and had taken part in the liberation of Italy. He knew what a war was and that is why he was campaigning for Peace. We were very impressed to have met someone who had lived through History and was willing to share his thoughts and memories.
On the first day we stayed by the sea and walked on the pier, sat by the Ocean and soaked in the atmosphere. On the second day we went to visit the Old Mission and stumbled across the I Madonnari Festival, a street art festival on the grounds of the mission to sponsor the Children’s' Creative Project. There were jazz and salsa bands, kids dancing, drawing and barbecues. The artists using chalk on the tarmac to produce amazingly colourful compositions that will only last until it next rains. Tigers roaring, water lilies, planets in danger, reproductions of Dali, symbolic and religious scenes, there were about fifty pieces of art to admire, the whole thing was very eclectic. The crowds were strolling in the alleys left to walk and admire the art. The artists were still drawing and talking to people. We carried on the visit of the Santa Barbara Mission, which is the best preserved mission among twenty one Franciscan Spanish Missions built at the end of the eighteen century along the Pacific Coast. The missions were evangelising the local Natives, the Chumash, with overall less damage than when California became part of the USA. Then the Natives were not treated as citizens, could not own property and could be shot on sight. Still, Missionaries changed deeply the lifestyle of the Native Americans and conversion to Catholicism was compulsory. Then it became more peaceful.
Then we walked through the town, a Real Town! With Buses! A town centre! Botanic gardens, an Art Gallery! And Art fims! Amazing! Even an organic market! How naughty of me to be sarcastic of Thousand Oaks, but I have forgotten what it feels like not to ride my bike along or cross the Road 101, my favourite motorway, to do anything! Any direction here is given as “in the parking lot of Vons/ in the parking lot of Target”…
On the third day we explored the town center, which has very nice courts of justice, County Courthouse, a 1920’s Spanish style building, with Tunisian influence. Basically this is the style of the whole town since it was completely rebuilt after the earthquake of 1925. Yet an old Spanish fortress, il Presidio, is still standing. We fell in love with a quirky second-hand bookshop on Santa Barbara Street, which seems to have the perfect selection for anyone who is keen on American and world Literature…
The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is small but holds a beautiful collection of European paintings and sculptures, including a lovely Chagall, Matisse, Braque, Bonnard. Dufy. The Asian art collection was a real discovery, guided by an American architect who had lived in China. Another walk to the beach through the organic market, and it was time to take the train. We could live here, and I can see why it is called the American Riviera, "un peu de Douceur de Vivre" by the Pacific Ocean, wineries nearby, palm trees lining the beach. We'll come back again. Back on the train, vast carriages with very big seats. It is not so bad to be here.
Photo Album: http://picasaweb.google.com/L.PonsWood