My exchange #9 - Venice, California

This weekend I visited Venice, a popular beach town in Los Angeles County, together with four other exchange students from my university. We started the day by going to Venice Beach, which is one of the most popular beaches around Los Angeles. The beach was quite nice, but it was so crowded that it was hard to really see its beauty.

It had been almost 40 degrees Celsius for the past few days so swimming in the cool water felt amazing, and we had a lot of fun in the strong waves.

However, I do prefer Huntington Beach over Venice Beach, mostly because it was a lot less crowded but it also felt more untouched and natural.

After spending some hours at the beach we decided to take a look around the city, and we started by going to the canals of Venice. I guess they are the reason for why the city got its name. I was not expecting that the canals would be very beautiful but they where actually a lot prettier than I had anticipated.

The houses around there where really cute, in many different colors and shades and some people had put up some cool decorations.

After seeing the canals we took a walk to Venice Downtown, Which is full of funky restaurants and bars. I did not notice those two police men standing in the corner of the picture until I looked at it at home. I think they look quite funny, almost like from a series or a movie.

I wonder why anyone would advertise a surf shop with SHARKS?!? At least it does not encourage me to get into the water...

It is really cool how each beach town seems to have its own pier! Most of the piers were first built for big ships to get loaded and unloaded at, but now a days they are a popular part of Californian Beach culture and visited by fishermen, surfers and sightseers. The area around the pier in Venice was also nice, and the sunset and the clouds were gorgeous!

Even though it was already getting dark people were still out surfing and swimming, and we even saw a seal who tried to beg for fish from the fishermen at the end of the pier. I could tell that he had gotten some fish there before, because he had really developed his way of begging and looked us long into the eyes as he swam from person to person. I wish I had had some food for him! Sorry that the picture turned out so blurry.

Thank you all once again for taking the time to read my post, I really appreciate it!

Follow me for more adventures in California!

mialinnea