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5 tips for riding public transit in los angeles

every now and then i'll get the skeptical person who completely believes living car free and riding public transit in los angeles is just simply impossible i understand why they think that way, but that is my everyday life and i had never not gone somewhere because i couldn't find a way and even though in the beginning it was very hard, after 5 years of riding, my perception has changed. moving around the city couldn't be easier for me if i owned a car just in the month of June 2018 31,541,377 riders used los angeles public transit (bus and rail) you can see more stats here so there is no denying people are using transit, even though the city as whole or more like the identity of this city does not want to acknowledge, a lot of people ride public transit now, i have to admit there is a lot of privilege in my way of living and the life style i chose. i ride transit because i can afford to choose where to live, where to work and what to do for fun. many people who
Recent posts

sunny days

where i live we have many sunny days sometimes even if the day starts gloomy, by noon the sun will come out to greet us i feel very lucky to live in a place like this where the weather is always allowing us to go about our day in good spirits. it does get hot, but i am very used to hot weather and i actually prefer it over cold sun on my skin always make me feel like everything is possible and so a few days ago when we were relishing a sunny saturday morning, ry and i decided to take a neighborhood hike in our walks we take advantage of our time and destination and always include errands, this time i had to drop off a dvd at edendale library and after that we wanted to go try a new cream ale at frog town brewery  because of the initial stop being in echo park we decided to explore the stairs in that neighborhood and we followed a "trail" from  this book we used to live in echo park but moved to silver lake about 5 years ago. i used to walk around all over the n

our walk to work

we walked to work today we haven't done that in a while. our place is 3.8 miles (according to google maps) from my office and although the route we take is not the prettiest to walk to, it is the fastest so that is why we always take it we do go through echo park lake which i love so much  here are a few of other interesting things i saw while on our way to dtla dtla skyline from the park an abandoned skate board  a pretty wall  this newish art on the wall of the bob baker theater  bob baker marionette theater   we passed the vista hermosa park another of my favorites that i never go to :(  the only flowers i saw on the way  and then we decided to get a bike to be a little faster because we didn't leave home on time  i got a fitbit for my birthday and then surprised ryan with this gem which i found at one of my favorite vintage/gift shops  in dtla it is a walk-a-matic pedometer it measures your walked miles

moments of awe

one of the things i like most about walking is that i feel so connected to the city when i first moved to la i was not working and i occupied most of my time in exploring the city, i learnt a lot from this, like how to move around or where to find the things i was interested in. now i don't have time to explore except for the weekends but now i don't wander as much as i would like. instead i relish in the small walks i take daily while commuting or when i go places after work. but even though they are small, they still have a big impact on my life: they make it better. the other day i was talking about this with ryan and he mentioned he had read an article in  planning magazine that he thought i would like because it was about the same subject. i am not a planner, i am simply a person who uses public spaces so i don't know much about it, but i do know how having an interaction with the city makes a difference in my life. the article was titled: planning for cities of a

one mississippi two mississippi

i know the name of this blog makes reference to walking in los angeles it even has la la on its name, but sometimes we walk in other places, so i thought i'd share our experience of walking in the deep south. when i was 17 years old i moved to gautier ms and lived there for a year as an exchange student. i was a senior in a small catholic school in pascagoula and it was that year when i met my now husband. i've been back many times ever since i was 17 but now that i am married to somebody from there i go every 2 years (sometimes more, every 2 years is not enough!) for the holidays. i always tell the story of how when i used to talk to my mom over the phone she would say "well you can just walk there" and i would laugh and then explain to her that there were no sidewalks. i think the cities there still have a long way to go (in terms of urban planning) you definitely cannot survive without a car there, transit is almost non existent and until this day not every neigh

take me out to the ballgame *stress free*

i really think the only reason why ryan decided to look for an apartment in echo park was because he wanted to be close to the dodger stadium... well maybe not the only reason, but i can bet anything it was a strong one. now we don't live in echo park anymore (however we couldn't move too far from it, only a few miles away in silverlake) in any case we are still very close to the stadium and we do go a few games each season. i am not a baseball fan, even though i grew up watching it. the mexico part where i am from does not do soccer, i know shocking. to be honest i am not fan of any sport, but i do enjoy going to the games, i like to drink the super expensive beer, people watch and have a crappy but delicious veggie dog. if you have been to a dodger game (or live in the area for that matter) you know how bad traffic gets. sunset gets crazy and just going up the now called vin scully ave. is a nightmare. driving your car to a game is a no no and not only getting there is the

we go places

we usually try to stay in our triangle area. we like to go places between home and our work offices (home being silverlake, work being DTLA) the reason i prefer to stay close to the neighborhoods we work and live is because los angeles is a very sprawling city and with that comes traffic... so yes it's hard to visit all and try to keep yourself sane. so i rather not push myself too much. however once in awhile we do venture a little further. a few weekends ago we went to north hollywood. our beautiful friend Hillary was having her short film premiered at the california women's festival. we were so excited for her and we couldn't miss it. so of course we rode the bus to our nearest red line station and took the train all the way there. we hopped off one stop before to go to this restaurant i have been dying to try and then took a bus to north hollywood to watch the show. on our way back the whole party (Hillary, her fiance and all her friends) took the red line to 7th sta