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Friday, October 8, 2010

California Diary: Huntington Beach

When you are in California, that too, less than 30 miles from the coast, it would have been stupid not to visit the beaches.
So we came up with this great idea of visiting some beach. But which one? There are so many of them.
After having dinner at a restaurant we tipped the lady who served us (Kim) and she recommended Huntington Beach. We had planned some other beach but then we decided to follow her advice.
Next day we reached the beach in the after-hours of the day. On our way there we lost directions and reached an area of up-market housing complex. There was a row of bungalows with water touching their staircases. On the other side of the bungalow they had the road and parking! Get into the BMW and go to office, or get into the yacht and go shipping!
What a life! Sometimes when you loose track it is for your own good! But then you end up envying others! May be I will buy that house some time, and the BMW, and the yacht...may be..who knows...keep reading my blog!!
The beach was overflowing with crowd. It was like watching Baywatch shooting spot. The American principle seems to be "If you have it, flaunt it!"
Looking at the shops around the areas we improvised it to --- "If you don't have it, rent it, and flaunt it!"
J The crowd was really great! There we swimmers, surfers, fishing enthusiasts, fitness freaks; life guards, pilice, us, you name it!
We decided to take a walk along the lane that seemed to be most populated. We were looking for Starbucks Coffee and found a live band playing just around the corner. There were no vocalists, just the musicians. But they were terrific! There were 5 drummers and 6 guitarists. They even experimented a few pieces as progressions and got a loud round of applause!
There were a few guys playing the drums at the beach as well. More and more people seemed to be flowing in with their instruments and joined the band. One wise guy would decide the tune and then they would all play that! It was a good! They attracted a good crowd.
The only thing I was worried about is the driving on the Free Ways! My friend once had told me, "a person who can drive in Pune, can drive anywhere." I can say I don't quite agree. The sheer speed and discipline of vehicles was overwhelming. Before you could realise someone would have overtaken you at 80 miles and then other guy is trying to join the traffic from the right hand side. I would be so tempted to honk!

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