Hello!
In Sweden it's cold and snowy. In LA it's warm and sunny!
I travel really light and only bring a few clothes but lots of colored stockings, socks and accessories hoping to find some new things to bring home as well.
This is seven days in a row, clothes wise.

Pale but happy. Black dress and blue tights. In Sweden I get noticed when I wear these blue stockings. In Hollywood: not so much.
This is taken on the Hollywood street where we've been staying.

One day we went to check out Venice beach. I dressed appropriately with lots of hippie vibes.
Venice beach turned out to be quite boring. Too much tourists and cheap souvenir crap. But a few streets up we found some nice places. I'll tell you all about that later.

David had a meeting one day and I wandered around Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset Avenue for a couple of hours. In a vintage shop I found these sunglasses. Needed a pair of sensible and useful sunglasses to wear when I don't want to wear my heart shaped ones.
This was definitely the perfect choice...

In a vintage shop on lovely Santa Monica Main Street I found these sunglasses. Look: sensible!
Right?

One evening walk around the neighbourhood in bright orange tights and my Sergeant Pepper-jacket.

Same black dress as earlier. Different coloured tights. And new shoes that matches my socks perfectly! Ain't that a lucky coincidence?!
This is on the porch to the house we've been renting. Sweet, isn't it?

And yesterday, on our way to the amazing fleamarket Melrose Trading Post. The dress is from the same vintage shop in Santa Monica as the sunglasses I told you about earlier.

Big post about LA is coming soon. Maybe tomorow. If we're lucky.

Until then: Tjingeling!

On sunday David and I drove forty minutes from San José and ended up in a little beach town called Capitola. We were going to meet up with Jillian, a friend of mine who I've met through Etsy. She lives close by and she had told us the day before that she knew a nice breakfast place we needed to visit.

This was the place. Zelda's!

I had coffee. Of sorts.
Also ate some lovely breakfast food but was way too hungry to have the time to photograph it.

The beach view through the window and through the big mirror covering one wall.

After we ate we went for a stroll down the beach.

Surfers were laying low in the glistening water. Not many waves to be seen.

Turned around and walked back towards the town.

I call this one "Little girl with blue bucket and seagull".

I really really REALLY want one of these colourful houses. Any one of them will do. But especially the aqua blue one. Or the peach colured. Or the bright yellow. Or any of them really.

Bay and bridge behind a bridge.
I told Jillian that we don't really have wooden bridges like this in Sweden but since we grow up with american movies we've seen lots of them on films. Kind of weird that we know so much about american culture without ever having experienced it first hand that when we're finally here it's like "Yeah, I know about that restaurant" and "Yes, I've seen this place before. On film."

So pretty! I could definitely see myself living here. Yep.

Cute house!
Another thing that's really different from Sweden is the size of the streets. Even in a small town like Capitola the streets are so much wider than they are in Sweden. To us it sort of looks like a miniature town with tiny toy houses along the large streets. Like the entire place is just a pretty movie set.
Americans should come and see the teeny tiny streets in some villages in Österlen, Skåne. Their big cars wouldn't even be able to squeeze in.

Like sand castles for humans!

We walked under the wooden bridge. Such a cool structure.

Isn't Blue Gum Avenue the best name for a street!?!

We found an antique shop!

It was a lovely shop with millions of things everywhere. The lady who owned the place talked non stop about old customers from all over the world, about the history of different items and the reasons people have for collecting things. She was really nice and she let me take photographs in there because I asked nicely before. Usually she doesn't allow it.

Then we had to walk back to the car and say goodbye to Jillian. It was a really great day and it's so sad that Capitola is such a long way from Sweden because I would have loved to have breakfast with Jillian at Zelda's every sunday.

Came to San José last week for the filmfestival Cinequest where David's animated short documentary Ladyboy was screened.
We had a couple of days there and had some time to walk around the city in the lovely sun.
This is mostly photos from our second day in San José. I was too jetlagged to remember my camera on the first day.

Hotel window. Photo taken when waiting for the elevator to arrive.

Love that there's a tree popping up from the sidewalk.

San José Fire Department showed up. Look at the lady to the right; does gravitation not work properly on her?

San Pedro Square sign.

Pretty entrance.

Went to a pastry shop called Bijan bakery and café where they had A LOT of pastries from all over the place. Especially european baked goods.
David looks like an old man in this picture. Can't stop laughing when I look at this.

So many pretty cakes!

Made a friend.

Made another friend.

The streets are so wide in this country!

Colourful bunting by the used car lot.

In the evening we went to California Theatre for the award ceremony. This is one beautiful theatre.

The blurry man by the organ was not blurry in real life. He was playing film music, it was really cool.

All the film makers got to come up on stage for the award ceremony. Sadly David's film didn't win but the screenings were really appreciated and people seemed to love "Ladyboy" so that was fun.

After that David and I went for an evening stroll in search for a convenience store that sold real food. Not just chips, candy and junk that seems to be all they sell everywhere. We found one with fruit and vegetables and it felt like heaven!

And then we came back to our hotel and fell asleep by 8 pm and slept badly for eleven hours. Jetlag is a bitch.