Santa Barbara & Los Angeles

In a land where cars reign supreme, and the time to travel from one city to another can take days let alone hours, a trip on the fabled Greyhound is often viewed unfavourably by many Americans. Before I left Scotland, I was assured by a few friends and family members with personal experience not to believe the horror stories that circulate about the bus, that passengers tended to be simply poor Americans and Mexican families, and that the bus drivers were very clued-up. And indeed, as we rattled down the Californian coast on my first Greyhound trip, a nine-hour voyage from San Francisco to Santa Barbara, everything seemed suitably ordinary. That was, until we reached Santa Maria at around 8pm, 60 miles from my destination. A gaunt man of around thirty had boarded the bus and immediately began to remonstrate with the driver.

"You're tellin' me I can't have a cigarette until Santa Barbara?"
"I don't make the rules, sir. Take a seat."
"This is bullshit. I hope you like your fuckin' job, man..."

This exchange continued for another minute or so to the bemusement of the rest of the bus. Then, through the megaphone, we heard the voice of the driver, sounding cool and nonchalant: "Okaaay, ladies 'n' gentlemen, I'm gonna need everybody to step off the bus for a moment." Weary and confused, we clambered onto the sidewalk, leaving the troublesome passenger alone on the bus. Well, it turns out folk at home were right about clued-up drivers. This guy took no crap. He'd only gone and called up the cops! Within minutes, two imposing-looking officers had searched and escorted the agitator away into the night, head bowed and tail between legs. Back on the road, the driver almost smugly explained to us, "Sorry 'bout that ladies 'n' gentlemen, we just had to deal with an uncooperative individual. Next stop, Santa Barbara"...


While that little episode varied the tedium of a tiring journey, the bus disappointingly did not take the "stunningly scenic" route from San Francisco to Santa Cruz, which runs right beside the Ocean, instead passing through a number of in-land towns seemingly comprised solely of shopping malls. I had originally hoped to visit a few spots down the iconic coastline, but having no car and scarcity of accomodation limited my options. Nonetheless, I was grateful to have a day or so in seaside Santa Barbara instead of rushing straight to the urban mass of Los Angeles.


Nicknamed "the American Riviera", Santa Barbara sure would be a sweet place to live. Its population of 88,000 people reside luxuriously between the rugged, arid Santa Ynez mountains and the boundless Pacific Ocean, hotspot for surfers and yachters. The town is known for its similar climate to the Mediterranean, and the day I spent seeing its sights must have been in the early 30s celsius. In March! The Spanish-style County Courthouse (left) was my favourite tourist spot; a really beautiful place to be sentenced to jail. And I don't mean to be unimaginative in my descriptions - I mentioned this film in my San Francisco post - but it had a bell tower that really was evocative of the final scene in Vertigo! Evidently Hitchcock took a similar tour through California in the late 1950s.

The town's main street is full of beautiful people and high-end shops, yet retains a chilled-out vibe that's absent from many big cities. Above all Santa Barbara radiates affluence and good living, but with one important caveat: all the homeless people. And this was an oxymoron I had encountered in San Francisco and would later find in Los Angeles. On almost every corner, there are ragged individuals with sunken, weathered faces, many pushing trollies, that recall Bubbles from The Wire (right). Although I love the character, and confess to being happy at the chance to include his picture, I do not do so to make light of the issue. I was later told that there are huge mansions on the edge of town that multi-millionaires leave vacant for 11 months of the year. I suppose that's just advanced capitalism in action, and what one should expect to encounter in the most unequal nation in the developed world.

When I returned to the hostel in the evening I discovered that a girl named Olivia studying at Santa Barbara University had contacted me on Couch Surfing, in response to a notice I had put up earlier in the week hoping for a place to stay, inviting me to a party that night. Within half an hour, she had picked me up in a rickety vintage car with no seatbelts, and soon we were at her apartment eating dinner and pre-drinking with her friends! Olivia, from Oregon, had traveled widely and exhibited a friendliness, energy, and zest that was fun to be around, and made me feel humbled to have been invited along. Olivia's confident friend Katie looked like someone from The O.C., and had a mischevious smile. She was studying to become a doctor while serving drinks on a golf course to rich old men. The third of their party was a farmer/sculptor who lived up in the mountains, and sported the plaid shirt and scruffy beard to boot. He drove a motorcycle and seemed to have a thing going on with Katie. At one point the four of us discussed what each of our parents did, and when asked he paused a moment and remarked sardonically,  "...average Tuesday Americans...mum's a secretary, dad's an accountant...". Olivia later confirmed that he had indeed been joking, and that his parents were "massive hippies". I suppose they were a rather unlikely group of friends, but that was one of the cool things about them. They seemed to enjoy my company, but I think in my gratefulness I may have been a little too polite. Couchsurfers won't want to be made to feel like they're being put upon, so I'm going to try to loosen up a little in future, while of course remaining courteous!

There was a strong South American presence at the party, and with it lots of Guacamole and Columbian music. The atmosphere was very relaxed, and it was a small enough crowd that I could chat to people. Many were enthused at the novelty of having a Scot around, and they were all pleasant and intelligent company. When the dancing started, I felt a bit self-conscious and slightly ridiculous trying to hold my own in a room full of phenomenal Latin dancers, but was elated by the delightful randomness of the situation. All in all, I'd highly recommend Santa Barbara as a side trip. If I could do it again I'd have stayed longer.

The next day I was Los Angeles bound, where I stayed with the man who stabbed my brother with a cutlus and threw him off a pirate ship to be eaten by sharks. Yes, none other than Cas Anvar (left), Lorn's co-star in the Sky Movies Peter Pan prequel, Neverland. For any Lost fans out there, he played Sayid's brother, and also recently starred in Source Code. Cas's bachelor pad is in Studio City, home to many a Hollywood heavyweight. On my first night there we had a dinner party with some of his friends from "the industry", a collection of LA-based actors and directors from Quebec, where Cas originally hails. Discussion centred on the Oscars, the number of titles on respective actors' IMDB pages, and future film projects, as we tucked into a mouthwatering banquet that included roast chicken, shrimp, and lots of wine. One of the actresses, apparently quite famous in Quebec, expressed dismay that many of her French-speaking twitter followers had been chastising her for tweeting in English as well, rather than exclusively French!

Away from Cas's warm and welcoming abode I experienced a touch of culture shock. Materialism and consumer-culture really are rampant in Los Angeles, and though it's something of a truism that the United States has taken these forces to their extremes, it is nonetheless arresting when you experience it first-hand. While it would not have been possible to fully explore the vast sprawl that is LA, much of what I did see basically followed this pattern: fast food chain, supermarket, giant billboard, starbucks, palm tress, hanging traffic traffic lights. Next block: the same. Next block: the same. And lots of cars. Lots and lots of cars! Crossing a road was like navigating a battle-field.

Visiting Hollywood Bouelvard was one such disorientating experience. It's kind of cool at first to see the stars names on the pavement, but really the street is just littered with kitsch and people dressed up in celebrity costumes (the crassest probably being a Whitney Houston impersonator, complete with angel wings). I returned there at night with a few of Cas's friends to go to a club, and was warned that things got a bit manic after dark, with heavily dolled-up women in stilettos and their dates full of drunken bravado. It was little different to Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday night, in truth. Luckily one of the girls in our group, Anya, knew the club owner, so we bypassed the hoardes in the queue and slipped in the back door to the VIP room. It wasn't the sort of place that would normally appeal to me, but I enjoyed taking everything in from the familiar guise of detached observer. We left the club with the owner, a friendly middle-aged Armenian, who had been courting Anya all night. He flung his arm round my shoulder and told me of his love for Kenny Dalglish.

Despite my misgivings about "the City of Angels", I do not claim to know the city after 3 days there. A place that size must have something for everyone, if you know where to look. But perhaps it is no coincidence that two of LA's most popular attractions lie on its shores, at Venice and Santa Monica. I cycled the twisting boardwalk that connects the two beaches, with Cas roller-skating alongside. Venice (left) is a bohemian strip of freak shows and fire-eaters, painters and body-builders, skater boys and gymnasts, contrasting with the family atmosphere at Santa Monica. Los Angeles revealed another side of its personality on my visit to the Farmers Market at 3rd and Fairfax, and its laidback atmosphere provided a welcome refuge from the never-ending metropolis. But soon I would be out of the city for good: due-east, bound for Masters tennis in Country Club territory, and a citrus farm in the heart of the Californian desert.