As of one week from today, it will officially be five months in my new home. In that time, I've:
- Put 4,000 miles on my car
- Started a new job
- Visited San Francisco 3 times
- Won a prize on a tv game show
- Had a handful of celeb sightings
- Averaged 4 workouts a week
- Celebrated my birthday over putt putt golf and board games in 80 degree sunshine (while struggling with a cold...)
I wanted to comment on a few things specifically, and how my sense of them is changing in the time I've been here....
Traffic
This is probably one of the least-appealing things about Los Angeles. As y'all know, I had a lot of difficulty early on in my new job, navigating traffic for the first time ever on my work commute (I always took the train in San Francisco and this is my first time actually being a car owner). While the commute end of things has improved a LOT since I started working earlier hours (now it's 50 minutes round trip, as opposed to 90), I still get frenetic and upset whenever I find myself in a sea of brake lights, as sometimes happens. My preference would be to take the train or bike for work, but that's just not a feasible or safe option, and for things like grocery shopping or other more day-to-day tasks, I walk as much as I can, but still I end up needing to get behind the wheel from time to time.
I do not like the fact that my carbon footprint has increased so dramatically, and the daily stress of driving takes its toll. On the other hand, I have been able to make and receive more phone calls than I used to (try making calls in a subway system and you'll know what I mean by that), and I do feel an increased sense of freedom or access to different places (tempered with the knowledge that the most desirable destinations are likely the most challenging for driving to them).
Smog
Without a doubt, it gets smoggy in LA. There have been days that I've been near tears over the color of the air and feeling like it's so dirty. Combine that with my being in my car and knowing that I'm adding some small part in that, and it does bother me quite a bit. That said, there have been many more clear days where the air is fresh and clean than smoggy days, and the bad rap that LA gets for its air quality, while deserved, is overstated. I've been to many large cities, and LA's air may be bad at times, but it's not much different than places like Chicago, New York, and Houston. Even more than that, were it not for typical weather patterns interacting with mountains to literally pin the air in place over the city day in and day out, people might actually laud LA for its efforts to improve its air quality and hold it up as an example of what other cities could do.
Open Space
I love the sense of space that I have here, particularly compared to other urban environments. In a matter of a ten minute drive, I can be at the base of Bronson Canyon, where I have already hiked up a couple times for over an hour round-trip to the Hollywood Sign (or at least as close as you can get to it without crossing onto private property). I've gone on a hike with a group that checks out a different hiking location every Saturday, and, with that and other hikes, I've been to a few different parks, all within 10-30 minutes' drive, where you can literally feel like you're no longer in the city and instead surrounded by hills and nature. While my immediate neighborhood lacks open space (something that local leaders are attempting to change), the accessibility to tremendous open space and hiking opportunities in this city is some of the best I've ever seen.
Sunshine
Y'all know that I wasn't too keen on living in a city where it's pretty much sunny and 70 every day in perpetuity. And I have had my struggles with it, especially this month of January where we had literally four straight weeks of sunshine and 75-80 degree weather. By this past weekend, I was feeling like a wrinkled, dried-up sponge pining for moisture. Thankfully we got a little over the weekend. Still, I'm finding that it's not so difficult to adjust to perpetually nice weather. Try as I might, I can't complain too much about weather that more often lends itself to shorts and flip flops than it does to sweaters and scarves. As I've watched the rest of the country dig itself out from snowstorm after snowstorm, I've found it hard to complain that I'm "socked" with sunshine and shorts weather practically every day.
Friendliness
For the most part, I've found Angelenos to be far more friendly than advertised. I was amused just the other day to see an article in the LA Times about how LA was ranked by some travel magazine as being the most rude city in America, besting long-time "titleholder" New York City. Honestly, I can't begin to understand where that sentiment came from, other than people who don't like to drive not wanting to get in a car when they go to visit someplace (which I can totally understand). Otherwise, short of the sheer self-absorption of a handful of aspiring models and actors, I've found Angelenos to be anything but rude. Perhaps it's the perpetually good weather or access to the outdoors or who knows what, but nearly everyone I've met so far, through my work, volunteer activities, hiking, and friends of friends have been super friendly to me and fun to be with. Frankly, I see that as more of a human trait than anything particular to my new home, but so long as random surveys will ascribe rudeness to Los Angeles, I'll just point out that such a survey may be seriously lacking.
Those are just some thoughts on a Monday afternoon between getting done with work and going to the gym. Feel free to comment however you wish, and thanks for reading!
