What a feeling, to zoom over one of LA's boulevards and see traffic signs to places I've pouring over on the map for a while now! Marina del Rey, Santa Monica, and Thousands Oaks, because that's where I'm going to stay. I've been picked up from the airport bij Charlie, my host for this week while I'm giving five guest lectures at Loyola Marymount University. The flight was beautiful - I got the chance to see Iceland, Greenland and Canada from the sky - what a lot of ice and snow. It made it even more striking to then land in sunny California and see orange trees everywhere. I got to pick my own orange from the tree in the garden here yesterday, it's waiting on my bedside table for me to enjoy!

These first days have been a mix of trying to shake off the jetlag, expose my skin to the strong sun bit by bit, some sightseeing and quite a bit of work I wasn't able to finish in these very busy weeks before I left. The sightseeing included going to Carpinteria beach on a beautifully sunny day (which apparently is most days here, but for me it's still special). Now you might imagine the typical Californian beach experience - sun, sand, beach volleybal - and I can say that two of the three elements were present. It appears that in spring the fogs here are very common at the coast, they roll in from the sea (there are even trees specifically fit to live from that moist as it's so dry the rest of the time) and that's it, no sunny beach. And the funny thing is that a couple of hundred meters inland, the sun is at its best again! This morning I'm looking out of the window and the fog has even reached Thousand Oaks, about 25km inland. Hopefully it will be burned away soon by the sun!