On my way from Thailand via China I had a 12 hour countdown
to my beloved country. When we crossed
the International
Date Line I looked out the window into the middle of the night and saw a
billion familiar stars that I hadn’t seen in months.
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| The International Date Line. |
A few hours later we were approaching the USA and I had the
joy of watching the sun rise for the second time in a day – the first being in
China. I noticed I was the only one with
my window shade up, the entire left side of my face pressed against the
freezing cold Plexiglas, my left eyelid precariously close to being flipped
inside out by my sheer will to see the sun shining on my hometown. Gawd I love LA and America. Here’s why:
I can let my guard down.
I don’t feel like I have to constantly watch my back or hold onto my
purse with a Vulcan Death Grip. I can
breathe and relax because the odds of someone ripping my purse off of my
shoulder while walking down Abbot Kinney are slim. I feel like my entire body has exhaled. According to my friend Christy Moulin, it’s
my Circadian Clock readjusting to my familiar rhythm. I won’t go into super specifics but being in
a different hemisphere with different people, food, time zones and just traveling
in general can mess with all SORTS of body functions and schedules.
I can go where I want when I want, because I have a
car. I no longer have to rely on a taxi,
tuk-tuk, scooter, motorcycle, bus, plane or boat to take me anywhere. I can hop in my very own Mini Cooper, open
the moon roof, roll down the windows, crank up the radio and go wherever I
want. I no longer have to worry about
getting on a guy’s scooter and wondering how much he has drank, if he’s a good
driver or not, holding my breath praying we don’t wreck. What a relief.
We have the BEST music in LA. I’ve heard Oz has a great music scene as
well, but my gawd I LOVE our music! We
have The Silversun Pickups, Of Monsters and Men, Awolnation,
The Neighbourhood, Mumford & Sons, Lord Huron, Youngblood Hawke, Imagine
Dragons and soo so so many more. Just
the music and the tacos alone will make you want to the star-studded sidewalks
in this town.
Being in houses. For
the past two months I’ve bounced around from hut to bungalow to homestay to
hotel to hostel and it’s nice to spend time in my friends’ homes, where they
live and cook and sleep every day. It’s
nice to know that everything in the house is there’s and it has only been used
by people they know. Just that fact gives
the places I’ve been staying a completely different energy than the places I
stayed in Asia (even if they were cool huts and bungalows). Being away for two months makes me feel at
home everywhere I go!
Freaking fast internet.
I can get through an episode of The Vampire Diaries in the actual 40 minutes it should
take, instead of 3 hours of load time.
Hot guys riding their skateboards down the street in their
Dodgers hats, Ray Bans, plaid shirts, designer jeans and some variation of
Chucks, Vans, or boots. Or maybe no
shirt, like below.
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| Typical dude in Venice. |
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