From my vast collection of travelogues (one does need to have an addiction) and from talking with my fellow men who have been bitten by the travel bug, I've come to surmise that there are certain universal themes that baffle foreign visitors in the wonderland of California, and the United States in general. And I'm not talking about the big things, attitudes or sense of freedom, or any such lofty ideals and realities.
I'm talking about the proliferation of cupholders in personal vehicles of US make. The need to have an instructive 1-800 line number printed on shampoo bottles, as if Rinse and Repeat wasn't an instruction clear enough. How the taste of your average US candy bar approaches a particularly unpleasant shade of cardboard with alarming accuracy. The apparent love every US citizen has for white jogging shoes. The liberal scattering of warning tags and prohibition labels in all products imaginable, as if the average consumer was a cretin living in a Stalinesque state. The low price of petrol, and how the people grumble how high it is.
One of the theses I repeat often is, USA is a country designed for idiots. This is not to say that all Americans are idiots (only some of them), but USA is clearly a country of massive litigation problem...and a true understanding of what Customer Service is.
Like an idiot, I adore when salespeople want to know how I'm doing, even though their straightforwardness catches me off-guard often. I like having clear instructions, readable road signs, and announcements that leave no doubt in my mind. Everything is announced clearly at least three times, there is always a person in a uniform cap and fluorescent vest to guide you to your seat, train, plane or parking spot, and virtually nobody drives stick shift. If I dig out a map at a respectable neighbourhood, on average it takes about .3 seconds for someone to stop and ask if I need directions - in France, to contrast this, I would merely be sneered at and/or ignored.
This low threshold of acquaintance is something uniquely West Coast. I still get the willies when people look me in the eye and smile when passing me on the pavement. In New York, one would in all probability get shot, while in Europe you'd be labeled as a person whose medication needs to be adjusted a tad.
However familiar one surmises LA to be from the innummerable films and TV series it is featured in, for me it was a shocking realisation that it is very much an alien land to me, and to a bunch of other foreigners. But however unexpected it was, it was that in a pleasing way - the city had come around a blind corner and smacked me with its capability to surprise. And that, I believe, is the crux of my enchantment with Los Angeles: it has managed to totally blindside me, and its charm is that I can never be sure what to expect next.
A peaceful view high in the Hollywood Hills, a pastoral setting
in the middle of the city
I was originally distressed by my sudden wave of emotion regarding the City of Angels.
It is not a very fashionable thing to say that one likes Los Angeles - one risks being categorised to that group of dreamy people who move to LA in pursuit of a career in the film industry, and wind up as waiters and waitresses. But I'm not enamored by the dream that LA represents for so many, but instead, the reality that is known to so few.
