I have been in California for about a week now. As I write this, we're on our way to our next stop: San Diego. It's been real, Los Angeles. Too real. However, seeing as I am not there yet, there is nothing for me to write about regarding the former city. Why don't I tell ya a lil' bit about what happened in Hollywood? That's where shiz happens, yo.
I'm sort of our family's unofficial trip planner--not really at all, I just happen to know about the oddball shops/destinations that people tourists don't usually go to because of how much time I spend perusing da interwebz--so I decided to take us out to the Melrose Trading Post in West Hollywood on Sunday. It was a three-mile walk each way in the smoldering heat. Gotta love the desert, man: ridiculously hot during the day and frigid as soon as the sun goes down. Fabulous. Anoué, we got to Fairfax High School, the place where the flea market is held, and began browsing around the booths that we didn't have to pay to access (there's a section in which you have to pay a two dollar admission fee and get your hand stamped and errythang). By this point I literally had fourteen dollars and seventeen cents in my bank account and four singles in my wallet, so I wasn't expecting to buy anything at all while I was at Melrose. I'd only split the price of a seventeen dollar The Smiths CD with my mom a few days prior, and I was already broke. Solid. As I said before, I wasn't anticipating on leaving the flea market with a feeling of great success, until we stumbled upon a little booth called Vintage Redeux.
I wrote a whole Chictopia article on the store yesterday, so I shan't repeat myself. For those of you who haven't read the article yet or are too lazy to do so, I will provide you all with some basic background information. Rachel Quiles and Megan Balthazor started Vintage Redeux in 2010 to sell their reworked vintage clothing. They make old clothes into brand-spankin'-new, trendy, and unique pieces for extremely reasonable prices. It's kind of a party. There's a bunch more babbling on my part in the Chictopia article; I highly suggest reading it. While you're here, I'll show you a few pictures and such of the store itself and of my new purchase. Sounds fun, naw?
Photos by me.
Their cute little hand-sewn sign!
Look at all those hands, just snatchin' at all of the multicolored/painted/studded/intentionally destroyed denim cut-offs. Hold your horses, chicas. By horses I mean hands. Not in a let's-all-hold-hands-around-a-tree-kumbaya way.
They've got a pretty jammin' selection of shirts and all that jazz.
The proprietors themselves! That's Megan on the left and Rachel on the right. They were super duper nice and let me take pictures and gave us a slight discount because we bought so much. I just got a dress, but my sister went all out.
There are a ton of murals all over Los Angeles, especially in Santa Monica. This is one of approximately a thousandjillion that I've seen in the past week.
And another. I think I accidentally stalked that car (see previous photo). Sorry, bro.
Dress: Vintage Redeux (only fifteen darrah!)
Sunglasses: a place in the south of France
Socks: Urban Outfitters
Shoes: designed by me, made by Converse
I was just chillin' in front of the Gap store on Hollywood Boulevard after dinner, so my sister took a picture for me.
It's been a terribly relaxing and pleasurable week here in California. I even have the uneven
We went back to Venice Beach today (yesterday by the time this post goes live), and it was a beautiful experience. A new backpack, a bigass salad, lots of skateboarders and enough medical marijuana places to put the Rastafarians to shame. The best part of the day was when one of the guys wearing green scrubs with a cannabis leaf on the reverse side of his shirt looked at me enthusiastically and said, "If you're legal, it's legal!" Amen to that, brotha.
I hope you're enjoying your summer vacation as much as I am. You probably deserve it.
