Every city has its wonders. Every city has its own unique little areas, places that are hip, places that are dangerous but still frequented, places that are historical or monumental or just plain beautiful. As societies have developed and more and more cities emerged, they’ve gotten their own kind of charm, and no two are completely alike.

Los Angeles is a strange city. You have to drive almost everywhere – there is public transportation but it’s not the best and most people seem to own cars. The city is more like a cluster of suburbs surrounding a few small major areas. Many people hate it for that exact reason – it’s not easily accessible to everyone, and you can never just walk out of your house and walk a block to buy milk for your morning coffee.

However, as I’ve mentioned here before, Los Angeles is also a wonderful city, and I love it. One of my favorite areas is Santa Monica, which is technically its own city, but I can’t help but just include it in LA. It’s a wonderful little area – right on the ocean, buildings ranging from beautiful to ugly as sin, lots of shops and restaurants and theaters.

The best part of Santa Monica is The Promenade. It’s about four or five blocks of closed road – no cars allowed – and it’s like an outdoor mall, only no mall could ever feel like this. There are street performers, good ones, up and down the whole street. Today, for instance, in the space of half an hour I got to see three teenaged boys perform some of the best dancing I’ve seen, a violinist playing with extreme gusto and smiling as an oddly dressed man danced with him, and a few men giving salsa lessons to random women in the street if they wanted them. There are shops of every type everywhere, and about twelve different types of food you can eat. It’s a wonderful place, and the atmosphere is simply charming, lively and fun.