Los Angeles, California
Very few people would want to start their dream trip with several days in L.A., and I wouldn't either. Yet here I am, spending my third and final day in Los Angeles, a city for which I have almost no kind words.
My dislike for L.A. may have started as far back as the early-90's basketball rivalry between the Lakers and my hometown Chicago Bulls. After moving to the Bay Area, I spent my teenage years developing certain biases against the city that I considered so culturally different from San Jose. San Jose was peaceful and green, while L.A. was hectic and smoggy. In San Jose, you could meet someone multiple times and never ask them about their job, whereas in L.A., your profession and how close you were to "making it" seemed more important than your character. My distaste for L.A. flavored my choice of colleges, passing up the chance to go to USC or UCLA in order to leave California altogether.
These were the prejudices that I gathered over the course of my life, but because I have many friends from high school and college in the area whom I rarely see, I knew that I had to spend some time in L.A. As my friend Mike and I drove down I-5 Saturday, I felt those anti-L.A. biases creeping in. The first time we ran into minor traffic, I said that this was how it would be all weekend. When my friends wanted to drive the one-and-a-half miles from the restaurant to the bar, Mike and I looked at each other in disbelief that we would move the car over such a small distance, and once we got to the bar, I complained about how loud the music was and how expensive the beer was. When we got to my friend's girlfriend's apartment building, I ridiculed the building's extreme security system, which forced you to buzz security and identify yourself to open nearly every door. Although I didn't realize my mind was working this way, I most likely had an acute sense of homesickness; why had I left so much behind, if I was going to be miserable in L.A.?
Sunday, Mike and I woke up at Janet's and made our way (via freeway, of course) to Venice Beach. After walking up and down a pier, I took off my boots and Mike took off his sandals, and we walked in the sand, occasionally throwing a frisbee back and forth. Suddenly, I was enjoying myself. I turned to Mike and said, "I'm going to be able to do a lot of this on the trip." My smile grew until I was grinning from ear to ear.
Mike and I continued to the outdoor rec center area of Venice Beach, where we ate cheap pizza and watched a couple decent games of pick-up on the beach-side basketball courts. I could have gotten a medicinal marijuana card, too, but those are rather pointless if you don't smoke pot.
When we returned to Janet's, we started thinking about dinner plans. We decided to buy groceries and make dinner, including steaks that Ryan (Janet's boyfriend and my friend for the past 10 years) would grill on the roof of Janet's 23-story building. After the grocery store, we came back, and Ryan and I headed to the roof to grill.
The roof of a luxury apartment building in L.A. is not a place where I feel naturally comfortable, mostly because of all the privilege attached to it that I don't feel I, nor anyone else, deserves, especially when we're in our 20s. I was about to press Ryan as to how he could live like this, in this environment in this city with all of its affluence. Then, I told myself to shut up. My dislike for L.A., I decided then and there, was ridiculous. In my life, I had seen the wonderful sides of Chicago, San Jose, Boston, and large cities and small villages all over Europe; my prejudices, however, were keeping me focused on the bad in L.A., trying to convince myself that I wasn't having fun. So I shut up. I looked out at the setting sun, and I smiled. It was only the second time that day that I had truly appreciated where I was. I continued the conversation with Ryan, but instead of grilling him, I asked him about mutual friends, about his band, and about how the steaks were coming along.
The rest of the night went well, with a good dinner, good conversation, and good sleep.
Tuesday, I'll be heading to San Diego, and then I'll cross the border Wednesday. But in the mean time, I'm going to enjoy my time in Los Angeles, which isn't my favorite city by any means, but it's not the awful place that I had built up in my mind.
My dislike for L.A. may have started as far back as the early-90's basketball rivalry between the Lakers and my hometown Chicago Bulls. After moving to the Bay Area, I spent my teenage years developing certain biases against the city that I considered so culturally different from San Jose. San Jose was peaceful and green, while L.A. was hectic and smoggy. In San Jose, you could meet someone multiple times and never ask them about their job, whereas in L.A., your profession and how close you were to "making it" seemed more important than your character. My distaste for L.A. flavored my choice of colleges, passing up the chance to go to USC or UCLA in order to leave California altogether.
These were the prejudices that I gathered over the course of my life, but because I have many friends from high school and college in the area whom I rarely see, I knew that I had to spend some time in L.A. As my friend Mike and I drove down I-5 Saturday, I felt those anti-L.A. biases creeping in. The first time we ran into minor traffic, I said that this was how it would be all weekend. When my friends wanted to drive the one-and-a-half miles from the restaurant to the bar, Mike and I looked at each other in disbelief that we would move the car over such a small distance, and once we got to the bar, I complained about how loud the music was and how expensive the beer was. When we got to my friend's girlfriend's apartment building, I ridiculed the building's extreme security system, which forced you to buzz security and identify yourself to open nearly every door. Although I didn't realize my mind was working this way, I most likely had an acute sense of homesickness; why had I left so much behind, if I was going to be miserable in L.A.?
Sunday, Mike and I woke up at Janet's and made our way (via freeway, of course) to Venice Beach. After walking up and down a pier, I took off my boots and Mike took off his sandals, and we walked in the sand, occasionally throwing a frisbee back and forth. Suddenly, I was enjoying myself. I turned to Mike and said, "I'm going to be able to do a lot of this on the trip." My smile grew until I was grinning from ear to ear.
Mike and I continued to the outdoor rec center area of Venice Beach, where we ate cheap pizza and watched a couple decent games of pick-up on the beach-side basketball courts. I could have gotten a medicinal marijuana card, too, but those are rather pointless if you don't smoke pot.
When we returned to Janet's, we started thinking about dinner plans. We decided to buy groceries and make dinner, including steaks that Ryan (Janet's boyfriend and my friend for the past 10 years) would grill on the roof of Janet's 23-story building. After the grocery store, we came back, and Ryan and I headed to the roof to grill.
The roof of a luxury apartment building in L.A. is not a place where I feel naturally comfortable, mostly because of all the privilege attached to it that I don't feel I, nor anyone else, deserves, especially when we're in our 20s. I was about to press Ryan as to how he could live like this, in this environment in this city with all of its affluence. Then, I told myself to shut up. My dislike for L.A., I decided then and there, was ridiculous. In my life, I had seen the wonderful sides of Chicago, San Jose, Boston, and large cities and small villages all over Europe; my prejudices, however, were keeping me focused on the bad in L.A., trying to convince myself that I wasn't having fun. So I shut up. I looked out at the setting sun, and I smiled. It was only the second time that day that I had truly appreciated where I was. I continued the conversation with Ryan, but instead of grilling him, I asked him about mutual friends, about his band, and about how the steaks were coming along.
The rest of the night went well, with a good dinner, good conversation, and good sleep.
Tuesday, I'll be heading to San Diego, and then I'll cross the border Wednesday. But in the mean time, I'm going to enjoy my time in Los Angeles, which isn't my favorite city by any means, but it's not the awful place that I had built up in my mind.
posted by Peter Myers at
5:09 PM
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