I’m falling behind with this travel blogging thing, partly because the fact of “having a life” has been a terrible inconvenience and gotten in the way, and partly because I just wasn’t sure what to write about LA.
The truth is I didn’t want to go to LA. It seemed like it was going to be motorised, excessive … and let’s face it - crazy shit happens there.
My first impressions of the city lived up to these expectations as I sat in a bus and stared out into the endless motorways, palm trees and box-like buildings in plastic colours that lined the streets, each attached to a grey parking lot.
How strange and perplexing, I thought, that the good folks of LA would let their city be dominated by such distant and cold streetscapes and such hideous, temporary-looking buildings? Why not invest in architecture and public transport that could become more iconic and lasting?
But of course, there were thoughtful public spaces and attractions in LA too: the Griffith Observatory, high on a hill in vast parklands minutes away from the urban hustle and bustle, so perfectly melded together science and aesthetics; the Getty Center, perched on another hill, was a nirvana of artworks, landscape and nature. Each room was flooded with natural light, each compound faced out onto a plaza, or endless lawns where people sat, ate and socialised instead of being forced to walk past endless paintings and sculptures with sore feet.
From then on, LA seemed to swing between extreme tackiness and extreme elegance; excessive richness and poverty lurking in the cigarette fumes of homeless men. Coldness and warmth.
The final saving grace in LA was of course the people I met, fellow bloggers and blog readers. Thanks to Twitter, we live in a strange world where we often get to know what someone had for breakfast, how they did at school or how drunk they were on Friday night well before we ever put a face or a voice to the personality.
“How do you know they’re not all kidnappers?” Mum asked me as I told her my plans for the trip.
That, folks, is called a generation gap.
On my final day in LA, I went to LACMA, which was surprisingly huge with a fascinating collection.
As I walked out of the compound, tourists were taking photos next to the “Urban Light” installations on the street front. Kids were playing hide and seek in between the chess board-like set up of the lamp posts. The sun was setting and casted a golden haze from the West over the city. It was the kind of goldenness that reminded you of stereotypical films about California where beautiful people ran in slow motion across beaches and smooched each other with the kind of intensity not seen since the fall of Nazi Germany.
Right there and then, how could you not feel incredibly happy about life?
Thank you, LALA Land. I do think we’ll meet again.
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