It’s hard being English in Los Angeles. People keep trying to talk to you. You can’t avoid it. They ask questions, all the time. There was the supermarket checkout girl who quizzed me at length about my salad dressing (yup, it was zero-fat). And the barman who wanted to know why the Queen had been alive for so long (no, nothing to do with ashtanga yoga). They are chatty and inquisitive and go nuts for an English accent. And yes, they are a tiny bit exhausting.
Better, perhaps, to tackle it one piece at a time, and Santa Monica sounded like a good place to start – hippyish, laid-back, and you can’t argue with miles of golden beaches. I decided against a hotel. Rent an apartment, I figured, and I could pretend I actually lived here, pretend I was a local.
Living like a local meant talking to locals – what better way to get to know a place? And boy, do Angelenos like to talk. It started before we even left home, in the form of emails, lots of them, from Paul, my Santa Monica landlord. What did I need? Where did I want to go? Did I want advice on what to see? Links to supermarkets? Yes, please, and it meant that we arrived with a list of insider tips that I wouldn’t have found in a guidebook or on a website. What’s more, I was able to stock our fridge with basics through a local online shop in advance. How civilised not to have to mess around with room service after an 11-hour flight, and with two overtired children in tow.
A talker on paper, Paul turned out to be quieter in person. “Text me if you need anything,” he murmured as he let us into our airy, white-and-blue two-storey town house, tucked on a quiet jacaranda-lined street a short drive from the beach. Lots of calm space, and we didn’t have to share any of it. No bunfights at breakfast or territorial towel laying here. We barely even shared the communal driveway with our neighbours (locals, all of them, but curiously invisible. We hardly saw another soul on our block during our stay). The house was beautifully stocked – fancy coffee machine, fluffy towels and nice toiletries, but also several types of laundry detergent, six different herbal teas and a bottle of complimentary, rather nice Californian merlot. It was tempting just to stay put, lounging on our patio and gazing up at the swaying LA palms.
But we needed supplies, and the great thing about renting is that it forces you out, forces you to explore. Paul’s list was a gem, less about ticking off sites and museums and more about just hanging out. Top of his list was Main Street, a drag of quirky boutiques and cafés, where owners leant in doorways chatting to regulars. It seemed made for hanging out. Our first meal was at the Omelette Parlor. No tourists here, just families and lone locals hugging mugs of coffee and reading the local rag. The owner, a wiry bird of a woman who has been serving up fluffy omelettes for more than 35 years, handed out lollies to the children while I eavesdropped on the gossip. A mountain lion had been shot in someone’s front yard. “Yep, Santa Monica’s wilder than you think,” chirped the owner. This was what I’d hoped for: a proper slice of local life, wild or otherwise.
Children shouted, stallholders yelled, parents chattered and scolded. They don’t shop quietly, the Americans. At the larger Main Street market, a loud marimba band got the shoppers so excited that they plopped their shopping bags on the ground and danced around them. Britons would need to be drunk to behave like that; here, they were high on sunshine and wheatgrass juice.
Renting can be excellent value compared with staying in a hotel, especially if you take up all the beds and split the cost. When researching a house or apartment online, check what is included in the price (most landlords will include all linens, towels, wireless etc in the rental price – but some will charge extra).
Be sure to check the address on Google Maps before you book. Descriptions can be misleading and distances unclear, especially in LA – a few blocks from the beach or the supermarket, for example, is unlikely to mean that you can walk to either.
Start an email conversation with your host before you arrive (assuming he or she is willing) to learn as much as you can about what to do and see and where to eat and drink in the surrounding area.
By the time they had parked and reached the beach, the locals were friendly again. Miles of golden, groomed sand and glittering Pacific would put anyone in a good mood. We joined them, with the sunshade and cool box we found in our house, every afternoon beneath the pale-blue lifeguard towers, next to noisy Mexican families handing around roasted corn, salt-dusted surfers chatting up bikinied babes, old couples mumbling in deckchairs. An endless stream of power walkers and cyclists zapped along the path behind, jabbering into mobile phones. We loved it all – the people, the sea, the spectacle of it. So much more rewarding, and relaxing, than zooming around ticking off tourist attractions.
Most evenings we’d head home, drowsy from too much sun and conversation, glad to withdraw to our patio for a quiet barbecue. On our last night, though, we diverged from Paul’s list – for a very unlocal walk along tourist-thronged Santa Monica Pier, strolling past the gilded 100-year-old carousel, past cheerily gaudy sweet stalls, lone anglers, fortune-tellers, street artists and a man with parrots flapping on his bike’s handlebars.
It was packed and noisy, and no one paid us any attention. No one talked to us, or asked questions. At the end of the pier, a weathered hippie sat in frayed cut-offs strumming Hotel California on his battered guitar. We stood, nibbling on cotton candy and staring out over the shimmering Pacific, as the tune drifted out on the warm wind, swallowed up by the crash of the waves below. Living like a tourist wasn’t half bad either.
British Airways (0844 493 0787; ba.com) offers return flights on the A380 from Heathrow to Los Angeles from £616 per person, including all taxes and charges.
Seven nights’ accommodation in a two-bedroom town house in Santa Monica (reference 922276), sleeping six, costs from £1,401 per property, accommodation only. Available through Homeaway.co.uk (001 323 697 0484).
yummy.com is a useful online grocery shop, letting you order food before your arrival; whycookla.com offers online menus and orders from a range of local restaurants.
For more information, see santamonica.com.
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