photography | Nos Klatos

Let’s start where we finished last time…our last day in Los Angeles.

Sunday, July 1st. Euro cup finals. With two of our Nos Klatos members being huge soccer fans we had no other plans that day than finding a place where we could watch the game live. In our case, with the time zone difference, that ment at 12pm. An odd Mexican bar in Venice Beach seemed the perfect spot to do that. We had our predictions ready and after changing seats for at least four times we were more than ready to get our Euro vibe alive. Luckely, for some of us, we also had the X Games Street Skateboarding Finals on one of the television screens. With Spain winning the finals 4 to 0 against Italy, Klaas and Silke their day was already more than perfect and while Sheckler took silver in X Games we could leave LA with a good feeling.

Driving along the Pacific Coast away from Los Angeles we all got excited for the adventures that would come our way. And the change from a big city to a small town came just in time. Santa Barbara is like this really cosy, cool surftown just outside LA. The vibe that goes around in this city is one that goes straight to the heart, a feeling that we’re going to cherish. After 24 hours at the city of Santa Barbara we moved a little bit up to El Capitan Canyon (still located in Santa Barbara), a nature lodging campground. And as we drove past the entrance we accidentaly arrived at the El Capitan State Beach, which is up untill now the best thing that has happened to us. An amazing beach with zero tourism. Epic lightning and breathtaking views that filled our hearts with joy. While walking along the beach we saw wild dolphins swimming only a few feet away from us and with that some of us ended our stay at the beach with a sunset swim session. Although there were moments that we felt like Jack Dawson hanging on that door in the water, it was more than worth it.
While arriving at the campground none of us has ay idea what to really expect of it, but with a campfire, swimming pool and premade BBQ-meals we felt like we arrived in heaven.
And with late night evening talks around our fire we all agreed that the past hours were just perfect.

With a bit of pain in our hearts we left our little magic place the next morning to cruise along Big Sur to end up in Santa Cruz, where we would encounter our first couchsurfing experience. At the beginning we weren’t exactly sure if Klaas had really booked through couchsurfing or if he had mistyped and ended up at cocksurfing but all together they were pretty relaxed people that made sure we had a great place to stay at. July 4, 6 am, we were all planning on going to embrave to waves at Santa Cruz but with one of us feeling sick, the fact that it was raining and that the waves weren’t really good afterall, Antony ended up being the only brave soul going for a surfsession.

The weather over at Santa Cruz made it clear to us that there was no reason to stay any longer so around noon we said goodbye to our couchsurfing hosts and moved up to San Francisco – with a legendary stop at In-n-out Burger and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts – Our second place we booked through airbnb.com, a 2 bedroom penthouse with skyline views. And I have to say … gosh this place just looks picture perfect. So right now we’re kinda feeling like multi millionaires – or at least some of us. Knowing that the first day that we arrived here was the fourth of July we had one plan for that day in San Francisco : see the fireworks t the Golden Gate Bridge. The fireworks weren’t all that spectacular and the songs that went along with it were kinda nerve-racking but it still was a great way to start our San Francisco adventures…

Adventures that included the long hike over the Golden Gate Bridge, Alamo Square, The Palace of Fine Arts, Alcatraz… and back-to-back movie nights.