LA

Wow, well where do I begin. After around 22 hours of security, flying time and transit I arrived in LA on Friday night where my friend Sarah picked me up. LA is huge – really, words do not describe the scope of this city.

I spent the majority of my time in south LA near the USC campus with my friend Kacey. This area has been known in the past to be kinda dodgy, and it was a complete change from the streets of San Pedro where I had been staying the day before – though it was nothing too crazy.

My first stop was the fashion district in downtown LA. The fashion district is a market of sorts (think Victoria Park Market) with millions of shops and stalls selling just about everything. Like the majority of places like this, the stalls got more repetitive as you walked through and many places sold similar kinds of stuff. Kacey joked that by doing this I could visit Mexico without paying the $140 visa fee, when I got there I realised what she meant. This is honestly, one of the few times I’ve ever been a part of the minority. It wasn’t anything I had necessarily paid much attention to, but I think I did feel slightly intimidated by it all – that along with the heat made for a pretty interesting morning.

In the afternoon we headed to Venice Beach, which is known for its crazies. The main street facing the beach is lined with bars, crafty stalls and people trying to sell their wares (CD demos and the like) – the atmosphere was awesome though and it was absolutely packed. After laying on the beach for a while we went and watched these awesome roller blade dancers dancing to cheesy 70’s music and saved Kacey’s friend Cassie who had a flat tyre.

That evening I experienced 2 of the best things in the world. Mexican and Yogurt Land. The girls wanted me to experience authentic Mexican rather than what they called ‘cali mexican’ so we went to the smallest, dirtiest, dingiest place we could find.

It. Was. So. Good.

Of course, because I am in America, the portion sizes were way to massive for me, I could only manage half my burrito before I felt like I was about to explode, but it was sooo good. I’ll be definitely be eating more Mexican while I’m here.

Then there was Yogurtland later that evening.

OH. MY. GOD.

Yogurtland in a nutshell is basically self-serve frozen yogurt. You choose as many flavours as you want and as much as you want and then they have all these dry toppings like Granola and chocolate chips and fresh fruit – pretty much anything you could imagine. They have all these crazy flavours as well and it’s all sooooo good, plus they sell it by the ounce so it can be pretty cheap.

On Sunday our lives pretty much revolved around traffic – we spent the day driving around and taking in the sights. First we drove through Hollywood past all the stars and the Kodak theatre etc before heading to Mulholland Drive which is pretty much were all the famous people live – unfortunately no stars were spotted this time but the houses were massive and the views of the city were amazing. After that we headed down sunset and went to this cute little farmers market which was full of amazing looking food including all these weird mountain mushrooms and this fruit that’s a hybrid of a plum and an apricot which was green on the outside and purple on the inside… I don’t know whether you can get them in New Zealand but they’re AMAZING.

After that we tried to head to Malibu and sort of did, but because it was a Sunday and because it was their first weekend of decent weather the traffic was INSANE. We were pretty much at a standstill for the couple of hours we were driving down the Pacific Coast Highway. I really loved LA but to be honest I don’t think it would be a place I could ever live. Mainly because of the traffic and lack of public transport, it really is atrocious.

That evening Sarah had a family dinner at home so I stayed with Kacey at her place where we got through a couple of bottles of wine and had a bit of a catch up which was really cool. Kacey doesn’t have power in her apartment at the moment, though luckily she does have a plug just outside her door – so it was pretty funny having to switch all the plugs over so we could get some light from a lamp/watch a movie on the computer/charge something. Of course, I was pretty jetlagged and I fell asleep at like 7pm (the wine may have also had something to do with that though…) but after I woke up Kacey took me for a tour of her old university, USC which is just down the road.

USC is a private university and from the outside doesn’t look much, but when you actually walk through campus it is quite beautiful – apparently USC and UCLA are generally universities that are used in movies when they need a high school/college location so next time I watch a movie I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled!

Monday was my last day in LA – both Kace and Sarah were working but Kacey works in the Beverly Hills area so she dropped me off there to explore Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive. This place is obscene in so many ways and I think it really personifies everything you imagine LA to be – flashy cars, designer clothes and mansions. The neighbourhood itself is very beautiful – if a bit pretentious. The houses are incredible though I did have a bit of an issue trying to understand how these people can actually justify living the way they do, so that made me a bit uncomfortable but it is a beautiful area. Rodeo Drive was much of the same, all I could think of the whole time I was walking down there was Pretty Woman haha but it was a really nice area – very scenic and great for people watching.

My last night was spent drinking and eating – the three of us hit a couple of bars downtown including this awesome rooftop bar called the standard which had amazing views of the city and water beds. After that we headed to In N Out burger which is this famous takeout you can only get on the west coast… iiiit was pretty damn good. The burgers were amazing, not too keen on the fries coz they were covered in fake melted cheese but the burgers were really good. It was pretty much a heart attack in a box if I’m being honest but it needed to be done!

That’s all to report from LA, I’ve been in Columbia for 4 days now so I’ll send out another one of these soon – maybe after I get back from Chicago.

Hope everyone is well and remember to check out next weeks issue of debate (I’ll be in every 2^nd issue until the end of semester)

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