Los Angeles/Hermosa Beach: Independence Day 2009: America - FUCK YEAH!

"Los Angeles is not a city, but just a conglomerate of suburbs." I got this description of LA from a Malaysian roommate at the hostel and I have to say I definitely agree with him (even though he snored like a madman at night). And I actually found out the hard way what it means to get from on of these suburbs (Hollywood) to another (Hermosa Beach). Asking the reception guy at the hostel for the best way to Hermosa Beach, I got the very simple answer "Get yourself a rental car. With public transit you'll need like three hours." Of course, I couldn't get a rental car, so with an all knowing European smile on my lips I walked to the next metro station. Those car-loving Americans, what do they know of public transportation, HA.... So, start in Hollywood: 4.10 p.m., a short walk to the metro station, take the red line to XY, change to the green line, change at XY for the blue line, get off at XY, change to the bus, and boom, you're there, no big deal. However, the clock didn'T agree with me: Arrival at the hostel - 7.15 p.m. Welcome to LA, you redneck!! ;-)
But why did I come here in the first place? Well, Lindsey and Melody, two California natives whom I had met in Thailand, had highly recommended this place for a classic American Independence Day celebration. And it turned out to be a piece of advice as good as gold: The beach was literally at the doorstep of the hostel, the latter filled with party-people from all over the world, bars as far as the eye could see, he whole bar and beach area already decorated in red, white and blue, perfect conditions for a kick-ass Fourth of July.
The actual Independence Day was a whole-day explosion in red, white and blue: Ballons, lights, flags, T-Shirts, painted faces, necklaces, swim shorts, sunglasses, beer cans, bikinis (at least the ones that had enough material to actually make out colours), even some dogs were decorated in the american colours, not to mention the guy in the full-body Stars-and-Stripes suit that I unfortunately couldn't get on camera. Everything was red, white and blue, everything was about stars and stripes. And all the red-white-blue I could muster was a scarf from Cambodia, a country the US 30 years ago had bombed back to the stone ages, what a nice little piece of irony. I spent most of the day lazing around on the beach with a funny bunch of english guys, which I thought had also a bit of irony to it: I was celebrating Independence Day with the people that America back then had wanted to become independent of and that had now returned as beer-drinking, joint-smoking mid-twenty tourists.
As some American friends had already predicted the Fourth of July seems to be mostly a big family thing with BBQ, Bier and not-seen-you-in-ages family members coming together again. And I was lucky enough to also enjoy that part of the tradition, even though of course not with my own family: Some American guys we had went out with the night before had invited me and some guys from the hostel to come join their family BBQ the next day. And so we spent a really nice and fun afternoon with BBQ, beer (or me, as the decadent European, with a bottle of red wine), making music (music seemed to be quite central in their family and there were at least three guitars around - brilliant!) and with beer pong, apparently THE All-American drinking game. Some of you may know it, for the rest: You basically have two teams which both set up a couple of cups of beer on their end of a ping-pong table. Then they take shots at the beer cups of the opposing team and when they manage to throw the ball in one of the cups that cup has to be downed. Quite fun to watch, but in order to also actually get drunk, I stuck to just watching and drinking my red wine. Downing half a cup of American beer every ten minutes really doesn't get you anywhere in terms of getting the party going ;-)
After a week now in America, I noticed that also language abilities were finally catching up with the geography of the journey. And so my English switched from the probably quite pathetic Wannabe-British/Australian/New Zealand-English to the best Yo-Fuck-Duuuuude-Waaazzzzzuuuuuup American English I can offer. "Cheers mate" becomes "Thanks dude", "Tha's brilliant" turns into "Duuude, that's fuckin' awesome", etc. And of course a little fuck, shit and some other occasional swearing extremely help the authenticity of your "Foreigner-English" ;-)