Hitting the TWENty

Good morning, Hollywood! Sure enough its too late again to have a regular breakfast, so its again Starbucks at the pool. The Three Teenagers and me feel sooooo america doing that. ME actually reading a newspaper this morning and even in LA there are still discussions about the desaster in Duisburg (we were in Trinity, TX, when we saw the news online). ME watching The Three Teenagers splashing in the pool cannot imagine that its actually possible that you wave your kid goodbye because its going to a happy and friendly just a little crazy event and never comes back again. But then again you can't pin them to your bellybutton, right? Hopefully they have enough common sense to stay out of trouble BEFORE it even occurs. The sixth sense so to say.

Okay, because we missed the big A&F shopping yesterday (Why would everybody wanna go there: The clothes are average, the shops too damn pitch dark and icy cold, the music deafening?) we look for the nearest shop and find The Grove. Turns out to be another beautiful shopping center with a little tram running in the middle of the inner street, looks like a filmset to me!

We park the car get out of the parking garage and get stucked in the first shop. The customers, a huge amount of customers, are making phonecalls. The whole hour The Three Teenagers spent in there to explore the latest gadgets a chinese guy was obviously talking to aunt Simsungsang or something, presumably in Shanghai. The Three Teenagers and ME sent text messages around the world.

While the kids have their fun ME getting a cup of coffee, sit down on a bench and - yes, sorry folks- light one of the very few cigarettes I smoked in the US. It's almost nowhere allowed anymore, in Santa Monica they draw an imaginary 25 feet around each window and door on the pavement where you are not allowed to smoke. In my head I have this picture of businesspeople in the middle of a highway, cramped together on that one foot green and smoke during coffee break because there is nowhere else to go. I'm not saying I don't like those rules.

Finally we hit the spot of desire and now I get the picture. Half naked boys are swarming in and out of the shop, attracting customers to come inside. Now is that prostitution or not? SHE gets a heartattack and a dress, No3 had her share in the kids store where there is no ten year old with a bare chest thank god.

Even happier than yesterday, we leave ths tempting city-in-the-city and walk to the supermarket across the street. We want to get some take away and eat in our hotel room. The supermarket is one of those healthy ones, not healthy for your budget. But the stuff is great and we enjoy the cosy dinner.

Something we haven't done either is go to the movies! They are almost playing 24/7 so we do not bother to look up the starting times. The film we want will begin in 45 minutes, plenty of time for the very last shopping adventure, where HE thinks HE is in wonderland but gets tired of looking at all that stuff after about 30 seconds. Now is that a good or a bad sign?

We watch "Dinner for Schmucks" and its worth every penny. We laugh endlessly, and with puffed bellys from too much puffed popcorn The Three Teenagers and ME walk back to our hotel, ME trying to smoothe the corn with a gin tonic before going to bed. I call it a day!