Oakland Home

Yes! By our third day in the Bay Area, we found a spacious Oakland apartment that's reasonably priced and within 30 minutes of my job. The Resident Manager seemed to take pity on us and, maybe, even liked the fact I'd lived in her hometown of Lima. We moved in on Saturday and on Monday I was in the office!

Our first table/altar with plastic cutlery, wooden bowls and so tea cup plates for our lunch.

 Furnitureless for weeks!

And here I am! With a new shiny desk to facilitate the photo editing, and an apartment is starting to feel like home.

That's the end of this journey: visit my blog, http://alexandraslightbox.blogspot.com, or www.palography.com for future projects.

Day 14: Pacific Coast Highway

Morning stroll and coffee in Venice...

Endless, excellent street art.

And some fabulous trees, too...

Here we are on the Pacific Coast Highway, heading North to San Francisco.

We walked down this path to the coastline because we heard sea lions. Turns out I'd scraped my legs through a bunch of poison oak... poor choices!

Proud to be lounging.

Foggy, winding roads of Big Sur.

There was no camping available throughout Big Sur, so we ended up crashing in Aptos.

Day 13: Western Play Date

Waking up refreshed at the cabin. Stephanie and Matt, pictured above, made breakfast. Matt is a Brooklyn native who rode his bike to California (where Stephanie hit him with his car, and the rest is history!). Coincidentally, Stephanie's Uncle Paul traveled the world on his bicycle years back. And I thought our road trip was tiring! See pictures from Matt's trip on he and his friend's Instagram: http://instagram.com/gnarmads

Stephanie and Sharon.

Not a bad view to wake up to!

Funny bear decor around town.

Friends :)

Matt likes to find hidden skate spots like this one.

Playing!

Sharon and Paul, what great hosts!

En route to Los Angeles.

Los Angeles was more beautiful than I would have imagined (I often heard complaints about smog, traffic, sprawl) and there was an odd sense of recognition, probably from all of the Hollywood movies.

Arriving at Venice Beach.

Pacific feeling...

The Venice Beach boardwalk was full of cops, by foot, by car and by helicopter. It made an otherwise funky place seem a bit sketchy.

Good night!