dystopian stereotypes...

Up until the day before I arrived, LA was still basking in baking sunshine, certainly not a typical December for anyone from England. Unfortunately I landed to thick fog, and whilst not exactly cold, it wasn't beach weather either. Los Angeles is a strangely engaging place. I went there with two preconceptions. One: you have to drive everywhere. Two, it's a fake place. I think I can unreservedly confirm number one. You do indeed need a car. Luckily Fabio has a rented car, so he picked me up from the airport and chauffeured me around for a couple of days. My first day in LA did show some sunshine, so we took the winding roads up to the Hollywood hills in search of the Hollywood sign. And find it we did (you can't exactly miss it). We hiked intending to get as close as we could. They don't like you getting close and we were prepared for the possibility of a helicopter arriving and shouting us down. With no helicopter in sight we continued up. Unfortunately they patrol the hills in 4x4's too. Out of nowhere came the announcement; "It's illegal to hike where you are, please climb down or you will be arrested". Over to our right was a Police vehice, lights flashing, speaker on full blast. We looked around. Yes, that meant us. There was no one else. We slowly started our way back down, but hidden slightly behind a tree, took a couple more photos. What are they going to do from a distance, shoot me? Oh, well, yeah, I suppose they could.

Having been in New Orleans for the previous 7 days, I wasn't particularly in a party mood, so I didn't tend to any night-life or bars, but instead enjoyed the noticeable relaxed vibe of being on the west coast. We drove to Santa Monica and Venice, and met up with some of Fabio's friends. On Thursday I walked around the rather tacky and tourist trapped Hollywood Boulevard, then took the Metro into downtown. Unfortunately, whilst I took my camera, I left the memory card in my laptop, so no photos ensued. Certainly the people I came across didn't seem fake, I think it's more to do with the size and scale of LA that you don't get a sense of real community, at least in the short time I was there. LA is really made up of many different cities, all under the umbrella term 'Los Angeles', so there is no real central location, just a number of built up areas all spread out. There are also a lot of homeless people, and many of them crazy, talking to themselves, or more to the point, talking to people they think are in front of them, but in reality is just thin air. A lot of them push their trolleys around with them, full of all their worldly possessions. Blade Runner, made in 1982, represents a dystopian Los Angeles, and to be honest, I'm not sure Ridley Scott was that far off. Only another 9 years to find out...