LA, Irvine…on the move

Now that I'm done setting up Carlo in his new single apartment, which is a loft in an old industrial building in downtown LA, Arts District, with about 1,500 ft.² space, I'm heading back to Irvine to do my own. I don't know exactly when I can move in but I know what I need to feel comfortable, so just one trip to Ikea and one click to Amazon and all is well.

LA is great and very different from Irvine as it is filled with small individual shops, bars and cafés instead of Irvine Company buildings with shopping centers that are all the same (which is nice too, as you can get all you need and you know where you can buy stuff). The "Urth Caffe" (spelled exactly like that!) is one of those great individual restaurants in the Arts District where you can buy funny things like "Green Tea Espresso" but also very good organic food, like scones, tasty sandwiches, cereal and all you can imagine for lunch & breakfast. If you ever go to LA, do not miss the opportunity!!!

We also visited a few bars and clubs in the evenings. One of particular interest is "Room 5" which is on the 2nd floor of a restaurant in West Hollywood. It is a room of about 600ft.² with a bar and a small stage where two or three bands perform each evening. The interesting part of this is the fact that University of Southern California students with a major in "anything music" make out the biggest group in the audience and also on the stage. The performances therefore are quite enjoyable. You should stop by there if you should come to be in LA. Maybe you'll see Carlo play! 
Interesting was also the Arts District itself. Carlo had not been out much there yet so we explored the ground around his appartment. We already knew the "Wurstküche" where you can get German beer and all kinds of Bratwurst, from the original to rattlesnake & rabbit meat sausage (I tried Alligator and it was good!), so we walked around a little further in the district that we would compare to Prenzl.Berg in the late 90s...a developing mekkah of arts and individual stores. The district borders on Little Tokyo, a very Japanese area where we got Frozen Joghurt on our way home.


In the inner city, West Hollywood, where Carlo stayed in a friend's apartment, there are many great clothing stores with a wide variety of fashion. I got a decent pair of long jeans for $9.99 and 2 short ones for 19.99 each (Urban Outfitters). Also, I finally bought a decent guitar so I am a little closer to starting my new 10-months-life at Irvine, OC…now how to get all that back to Irvine by train…

Anyway, David dug up another living opportunity for me to check out, it might be a little more expensive, but from what he says it is also a lot nicer than the place I was going to move into, so we'll see...also I could move in earlier. The guy from the other apartment called me and said that he does not want to move out until October 1^st which would be complicated because school starts 26^th already…well, life becomes even more exciting…!