When I wrote the title of this article, I couldn’t stop myself from picturing some of you screaming: “What? How can you not like L.A.?!” I know that my statement might seem a bit snobby, but I’m not saying that L.A. is kind of has been and that somewhere else, like Ibiza, is the place to go. Let me explain what I mean.
To be fair, I was at first amazed by this city. After hours of travel, my flight landed quite late and the sun was just a thin ribbon of orange light behind the mountains surrounding Los Angeles. The city was in the dark and the only visible thing was this web of lights spreading across the valley, and that’s when I realized how huge this city was, it was almost scary. When we say that everything is bigger in the US, from the size of a portion of MacDonald’s fries to the size of cities, we’re not joking.
During my first few days in L.A., I realized that the place was everything I was expecting: the long and straight boulevards, the streets of Beverly Hills as clean and shiny as in the movies, the great beaches with palm trees and white sand just as in an episode of Baywatch, places where you may just bump into a celeb going for an early morning surf, delicious homemade burgers looking even better than on a Burger King ad, and bars where you can enjoy nice cocktails while your legs dangle above the sea. The only big disappointment was the Hollywood Boulevard which is in fact just a long grey street that isn’t really of any interest.
When I travel, I’m not only focusing on the good time I can have as a tourist, I also want to get to know the people, what it’s like to live there and find out a bit about the lifestyle. For me, this is an important part of my trip and it really influences my perception of a place. The magic faded away the day I went to the famous Santa Monica market. The evening before I watched a teen film (sorry I can’t remember which one!) including a pursuit in the streets. So, I was wandering in Santa Monica when suddenly I realized that I was in exactly the same street as the one in the film. I was in the location of a film and this shocking revelation changed the way I looked at the whole place. Yes, Los Angeles is like one gigantic film set, everything is a stage, everything is shiny, too shiny, and it’s frightening. Life here is too much like a film, it’s completely disconnected from the reality of the world, misery is absent or really well concealed, you can just avoid it if you want to. It exists in it’s own universe.
Did I have a nice time in L.A.? Yes, I can’t deny it. But what is hiding behind all the glamour and sparkles? If you take away the Hollywood glamour, what would be left? What kind of people would we find? More so than in any other place I’ve been, money and appearance seem to be the key.
Would I recommend L.A. for a vacation? Why not, but I would definitely not live there.
Photo credits: Wikipedia
http://filmdebate.co.uk/article/article-have-hollywood-blockbusters-chan…
http://twistedsifter.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/los-angeles-at-night-ae…