My Favorite Things #3: Santa Monica

3. I may be biased, seeing as it is my hometown, but what's not to love? Even our transients have their own smelly/crazy charm :)

"Oh Samohi, dear old Samohi, Queen of the setting Sun!"

My beloved city though somewhat of a trashy touristy spot in certain areas, holds an irresistible charm that can be found in the secret quiet places known only to locals and those who know where to look. My favorite thing about this city, is that though it is still considered somewhat a part of L.A., we are our own entity as a city, and even have a separate school district that is so competitive to get into, it drives real estate prices up. Santa Monica is relatively small; it stands at about a mere 10 square miles, with Pacific Palisades/Brentwood to our north, Venice to our south, West L.A. to our east, and the big wide Pacific Ocean to the west. And that is one of my favorite things about our city: it's a small town feel within the bigger picture of a larger metropolitan city.

Yeah, there are areas that feel more yuppie than cozy little village (Montana Ave., Main St., etc.), but there are those pockets of areas where you know that no where else in the world can you find a place like this (Palisades Park on Ocean between Colorado and San Vincente, the various British-style pubs you can find throughout the city, multiple farmers' markets that shut down streets throughout the week, etc.).

Another plus: During the summer, it's always ten degrees cooler in S.M. than L.A., and in the winter can sometimes have milder weather, because of the nearness of the ocean. We may have the marine layer at times, but it inevitably burns off by midday.

But most of all, its the place that holds the most memories of my life, and relatively good memories at that :) I think that's why most people, no matter if their hometown is a large city on the coast or a small town in the heartlands, get nostalgic when they think or talk about their hometowns; really, if you compared one city to another, you couldn't compare their benefits, because it's subjective to your own experiences. For instance, last night I was eating dinner at Sizzler with my parents and grandfather, but it brought back so many memories of coming to that exact restaurant and sitting in that same spot as a kid, and missing my grandmother and all that. You can find Sizzler in many other locations, and it's not that great of a restaurant anyways, but just the years of memories that location generated filled my mind and heart with a fondness that can't be replaced.