Eco America

There are not enough hours in the day for me to find time to update this blog. 19th day of travel and this will be my first post. Hopefully I will find time later to fill you in on our San Francisco and Las Vegas experiences, but I'll start with where we are now: Baywatch Land.

I guess this goes for the whole of California, but Santa Monica surprised me by being all I didn't expect the US to be. By first impression it has a small town feel, it is very clean, new, well organized and most of all green. The closest supermarket is all back-to-nature with a truly impressive fruit desk. I even bought  organic toothpaste  Downtown looks like it was built just yesterday and the center is pedestrian only! Drinking age in California is 21 in and they are extremely strict about it. Having to show an ID absolutely all the time can seem like a bit of a hassle, but the people here are so service minded it's really not a bother at all. They easily put the swedes to shame. Plastic bags are banned, smoking laws are even tighter than in Norway (no smoking on or near bus stops allowed) and it seems public transport is existent here, although we haven't tried it yet. I missed an easy-to-find and easy-to-understand way of getting from the airport though.  In the end a shuttle van did the job. It's actually a taxi you share with others going in the same direction, for a fixed price. Brought us straight to the hotel door.

Santa Monica is said to be, alongside the likes of Sydney, Barcelona and Rio, one of the top beach cities in the world, and I can't wait to explore more of what it has to offer. Today we're hitting the beach. Gotta check out what Muscle Beach is all about and maybe we'll even spot a lifeguard or two. Also got to see the world famous Santa Monica Pier. The big, sparkly ferris wheel sitting on top of it, is, of course, solar driven.