Good morning!
(or afternoon, I’m a bit confused on the matter right now)
Here I am, in a very quiet and beautiful spot of Los Angeles. A bird woke me up. I swear it sounded like the mix of a rattling rattle snake noise and a sparrow.
Welcome to my mailing list (or as of new the blog), which will be what happens instead of my blogging this time. Mostly cause I feel more comfortable to give away my impressions here than I do publicly posting. Despite the fact Ameena, my Airbnb host, told me it’s not such a big difference in terms of data sharing.
If you don’t wanna be on this, just lemme know. If you’d rather have something in German, sorry, but it’s a mixed recipients list it’ll be English with all the American accent I can muster. Which you can’t hear of course, sorry about that. You know (midwestern touch).
The flight was better than I thought when entering my seat and getting a bit claustrophobic while trying to stick my legs into the Economy class. On top I had this weird neighbor who did not speak more than 5 words during the length of 12 hours, ordered a Wodka on ice as first drink and – inexplicably! – let the movie continue when he left his seat. Also, he gave up his window seat for two obnoxious young guys who decided to ask us if we’d switch so they could sit together. They lateron left a mess of garbage on the window side floor which I think to be really embarrassing. I sincerely hope they’re not German. They actually were. Apologies.
So given that the Wodka-guy won my sympathy.
Plus it enabled me to read one full book! Haven’t done that in a long time. Listening to Mozart and watching out of the window. The latter proved to spoil every movie I tried to watch. Actually it’s good the airplane sounds are so loud. I mean it’s not good cause it spoils Lalaland-listening-experience (after I recognized Griffith observatory scenery in L.A. and got real excited, I couldn’t follow the dialogues, didn’t want to volume up close to busting my ears – and fell asleep), but it’s good cause no one could hear my small exclaims of “ooh!” and “wooow” looking down on this planet.
When I tried to watch “hidden figures” – which was actually good – I got distracted as much. By about 20 times thinking I’m seeing Grand Canyon. I think we passed somewhere through Colorado anyhow mountains and desert and snow and canyons over canyons looking absolutely stunning. With such vastness. I can’t believe how ONE planet can be so beautiful in so many different ways.
I mean seriously. A lot of times I felt I was the only one with an undarkened window in our section of the airplane. I mean – it’s a miracle watching what’s flying by on the outside. How come people don’t care to look? I understand if looking out of the subway windows (which I love to do at times….) isn’t superattractive. But on a 12hour flight across the world? Germany, looking like a green-yellow (Rapsfelder in voller Blüte!) carpet, soaked with spring, before disappearing in grey clouds. Northern England, looking much less green, probably cause Brexit decisions delay spring, but fake news aren’t reporting about that. Then Barbara discussing with herself if those are really really huge waves – or icebergs. Once we reached the tip of Greenland (and I was waiting for that!!) I was sure they were icebergs. So the ocean, filled to the brim with patterns of water streaming, visible through icebergs. How cool is that. Literally. And then Greenland. And then – well, I think it was Canada. Snow. Ice. Mountains. Lakes. As if no human has ever been there, instead caught up in some weird illusion called “civilization”…….. And then the Missouri River. Huuuge!
Now I sound like Trump.
The dangers of easy spoken English.
The guy in the airport shuttle to rental cars / Alamo from Zurich working for Nestle currently living in Missouri told me they had serious floodings. So that’s why the river looked THAT huge. Disillusion at 2 o’clock in the morning. We only started talking cause – at 2 o’clock in the morning and after the bus driver had announced “get off for National Alamo at the station” – I got nervous thinking is there an INTERNATIONAL Alamo station as well? And am I not international and there’ll be rental car for US citizens and rental cars for the rest of the world? And the lady continues “for NATIONAL Alamo customers, get off here” and I get supernervous. So I ask “Zurich-with-a-baby” (the baby, as it turns out, being a world citizen with Spanish Swiss and maybe US passport options for the future) and it takes me a looong time understanding it’s two car companies.
Just relax.
Or as they say in Thailand: Leeeelaaax.
It just seemed to good to be true. Immigration waved me through. The dialogue did not repeat Atlanta transit 2 years ago (“YOU HAVE BEEN TO SYRIA???!!! WHAT DID YOU DO THERE!?”), but the guy actually did what I thought never happens with Homeland Security Officers – he asked me if I did bring food. I said no. He asked for sausages. I said no. He asked for Bratwurst. I said no and real sorry to report I don’t eat pork.
1:0 US humour vs scared German Barbarians.
I was waiting for an xray and a discussion on the health status of my inner organs, but scanning my eyes has seemingly been enough.
I had forgotten how professional line-waiting is in the US. It’s like Disneyland, all that’s missing is a “45 minutes waiting from this point on”.
While thinking about my water supply for the next days, I remembered there’s water fountains everywhere and how much I used to miss that back in Germany. That hasn’t changed – just I forgot of course there’s two at size grown-up and at size kiddie. That was one of the first signs that reality around me REALLY is back to being in the US.
Oh and guess who had the most focused, concentrated and darn-serious look on his face during the whole immigration process? THE SECURITY DOG. It wasn’t as cool as the Australian version who had this uniform saying “SECURITY”, but I watched it and dearly wished to have something suspicious in my bag to see the dog in action. Not barking, mind you, but waving his tail, sitting down and watching his female human supervisor quite intently. Followed by an not so exciting dialogue which went “is there bananas or apples in your bag, sir?”. Am I a bad tourist thinking of taking a banana back home? Are you allowed to feed bananas to border control dogs in the US?
Anyhow. All of a sudden I was outside L.A. airport, and the air was sooooo mild. Palms… And then having to choose a car at compact size. I made friends with a small version that will look hilarious to every American I know. So if my prejudice is true it’s the perfect insurance against burglary (not to talk of all the insurances it DOESN’T have, as the young woman from the car rental happily pointed out). Plus it has a USB slot so my smart phone navigation system won’t stop when most needed – one of the things that made me nervous… To make up for that much perfection, my GPS decided to only start working by surprise when I stopped in a parking lot trying to figure out how to get to my destination using my brains and notes from my Airbnb host…
Going through L.A. rush hour is an experience of its own, unclear whether horrified or numbed if you manage to live through it at your personal time-feeling of 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning. I got honked at by a school bus. And couldn’t help but feel that’s supercool. An all American yellow school bus, not the party bus in Munich……….. I got honked at by a few more other cars, and got real cautious about switching lanes. To do so, it takes more than blinking and then driving over instantly. You blink. And blink. And blink. And wait. And wait for – well I think it’s waiting for a gap – and then you do it. If you enjoy watching the palms and blooming trees and the cemetery and the Spanish dentist advertisement and signs reading “Isis Avenue” and downtown skyscrapers and then a gap but taking it would mean you will not be overtaken by the i8 BMW and of course you want to see the driver (no one I knew) – well then you better stay on the right lane and enjoy.
Ouh and I feel much better about Schellingstreet in Munich now. Road holes? People in L.A. seemingly don’t drive on the right lane on normal avenues cause there’s more road holes. You can drive faster there (yes, legally so) but it’s at a risk of road holes and having to overtake temporary parking vehicles. Then you HAVE to switch lanes – take the gap in front of a school bus.
It took me forever to get to my Airbnb, to make a long story short. And I love it. I’m one block from Sunset Boulevard, apart from distant ambulance sounds I’ve heard nothing this morning but birds, and it’s cold at night, which is somewhat nice. Giving me an excuse to stay in that mountain of an American bed (kingsize, queensize, no idea, never got that, but I’ll pretend it’s queensize for I am lying in it so it sounds right) writing lengthy emails.
The wlan is called Philarmonic cause the other half of the Airbnb couple that’s hosting me is a German conductor. Whom I’ll meet at the end of my trip. Cool, huh. Ameena is supernice and kept making excuses for chaotic parts of the apartment that she called untidy. She sounds exactly like me and the “untidiness” is making me feel at home. And she’s currently reading Harry Potter in German and she’s read “the cursed child” and she didn’t like it. I couldn’t feel more at home actually.
I do feel like an elderly woman who has stayed up too long last night, so I’ll take things slow now. It’s getting close to 8am local time which means breakfast places are opening. I bought bananas yesterday but somehow – I mean it’s 5pm German time and I haven’t had breakfast-lunch-coffee-time so maybe pancakes would be a good option after all (or donuts. Or potato chips. Or goodness just now the full memory of all great American sandwiches I’ve EVER seen let alone eaten are kicking back in – help!).
Will there be water without ice cubes? Will I start drinking coke again? Or 7up?
Will Hollywood’s walk of fame be like I imagine? Pretty much the scene from Pretty Woman where a few crazy people walk around loudly citing something about dreams in L.A. … Will I find a parking lot (((of course, for my car fits in everywhere given American size-thinking, ha!))). Will I be able to enter the Chinese theatre? Will I find an ATM? Will my GPS work?
And will there be more Jasmin bushes smelling so lovely I feel I’m like I’m back in Aleppo (AND WHAT DID YOU DO IN SYRIA? Smell Jasmin, sorry guys didn’t know America’s so great you can do it here as well).
Plus I forgot to ask Ameena – where can I watch HBO and John Oliver right when he’s airing on Sunday night?
Missing David Letterman is not as bad as I used to think it would be. Thank goodness.
I’ll go see my theatre piece “building the wall” tonight. Will drink coffee before. And report if it’s true all coffee here has cinnamon on it.
Now I start remembering lines from Dr. Seuss childrens books – oh the places you’ll go…!