Drammamine Delusions:
They swabbed my camera for explosive residue. If I ran, the two soldiers no more than 20 feet away from me would have shot me. They would probably have shot to maim just so they would be able to ask me questions like, “who sent you?” And in failing to appropriately answer their simple-difficult questions that clearly do not apply to me, they would probably send for an Arabic translator.

As a precaution the airport would be evacuated and scanned brick to brick for bombs. Thousands of Americans would start to hate me for I would have been the the reason they would not be with turkey, cranberry sauce and their family on Thanksgiving, not thinking for a second that, instead of being mad, they should be thankful that they were not the one roiling in pain because of a bullet behind their knee as armed soldiers and translators rattled their brain with simple-difficult questions and Arabic babble. But they did not find exlosive residue on my camera. So I did not have to run. And they did not have to shoot me. And I was on the plane to Oakland International a couple hours later.

Touchdown Oakland:
Hui Chin and I chose to fly Southwest because they listen to the little people. It was $39 to Oakland on Thanksgiving afternoon and $59 back to LA early Monday morning. But low prices aren’t the only reason to fly Southwest. They’re more on time than other airlines, Southwest employees are generally nicer, during the flight they occasionally sing you funny songs and tell jokes over the PA, they’ve got better ads on TV and they serve salted peanuts instead of pretzels on the plane.

The flight to Oakland took slightly less than an hour. From the airport, we took a $2 shuttle to the closest BART station (Bad Ass Rail Transit) which happened to be at The Colliseum, home of the Raiders. Touchdowwwwwn Oakland.

Do the Bart man!:
There was a really friendly black guy who worked at the BART station who helped us out with how to get tickets to where we needed to go, and back. Stopping only about five times to pick up and drop off passengers, we were in Union Station, San Francisco in no time. It was getting dark when we got there so Hui Chin and I wasted no time getting to the hotel.

They’ll treat you right at the Cartwright:
The cheapest (without too dangerous), most geographically strategic place we could find on the internet was the Cartwright Hotel. Their selling point was their friendly service and we got a taste of that service as we checked in; both Hui Chin and I had a a glass of wine in our hands as we were escorted up to our room.

The Cartwright wasn’t a five star hotel, or even a four star. But it works. We had a mini bar, a TV, City Guides, Queen-sized bed and our own bathroom (some of the places we looked into had common bathrooms. Yucks

I finally get to meet Kirsten and Jorgen, who Hui Chin talks about so much. Kirsten and Jorgen were Hui Chin’s host parents when the international student program found her in Denmark. Kirsten and Jorgen are 80 something years old, each still going strong, each still requiring the other’s company.

We start the day with a delightful brunch at the Inn of the Seventh Ray. Dining at the Inn is a really expensive occassion, but I think it’s well worth the money if you bring the right person or people. This is a little promo blurb about the Inn. Most of what is served at the Inn of the Seventh Ray is grown on their very own farm, without the use of chemical insecticides or fertilizers. Their motto should be, “We pee on our vegetables.” And if you found a worm in on your leaf of lettuce, they’ll probably tell you it is protein fortified.

After lingering around the Inn’s ecclectic bookstore for a few minutes, we continued our way across the Santa Monica mountains to the Pacific Highway and then to Venice Beach.

When we arrived at the beach, we stepped out into August weather that was as perfect as I’d ever seen it in November. The ocean hosted over a dozen white sails in its glistening waters, wild geese flew in formation, sometimes no more than a foot above the surface of the sea. The sound of breaking waves. The constant tease of ocean breeze. The call of seagulls, fading as they flew away. Throw in a foldable cloth chair and this was the kind of day that would inspire poetry. But you had to be alone.

Hui Chin, Kirsten, Jorgen and I walked most of the Venice stretch, stopping at a sidewalk cafe for hot chocolate and beer, and also to rest our feet. We decided to head back to the car after our half hour tea break.

Because we had already seen what the sidewalk had to offer, we decided to leave our foot prints on the sand. Along the way, we bumped into the tribal beach orchestra. Consisting mainly of a motley crowd of incense burners, aspiring musicians, tree huggers, restless youth, pot heads, almost homeless, new age teenagers, and fans of sage, this ever evolving and devolving group gather here in a circle weekend after weekend and put on a most energetic performance with their hand drums, wind chimes, claves, castanets, tambourines, cymbals, triangles, wood blocks, cow bells, pots, pans and coconut shells. Within the ring of musicians, you will always find people losing themselves to the music of the beach, and they will dance till the sun goes down. And next week, they will dance again.