The Glamorous Los Angeles-Traffic

People who live outside of Southern California aren't too familiar with L.A. traffic. Well, I'm somewhat familiar with the traffic there. I was born in Los Angeles and when I was 7 my parents decided to move to Anaheim (right next to Disneyland). When I finished high school I went to UC Santa Barbara. To get there I had to go through Los Angeles. Even on the weekends there's traffic! I usually tried to stay away from L.A. if I didn't have to go over there. Recently I've noticed I keep driving more & more out there. What's weird is I can't pin point the reason for me to want to be in L.A. I'm in love with the city. I just think there is so much to do out there: museums, restaurants, landmarks, nightclubs, etc. It just seems like you'd never run out of things to do.

Yesterday I drove out there for an interview in West Hollywood. It took me 1.5 hours to get there. When I left I went all the way down Santa Monica Blvd. from West Hollywood to Hollywood, to reach the 101, the scenery changed. It went from nice, contemporary architecture and upscale stores to a crappy-looking area where stores had 99 cent advertisement signs on their windows (see pic below). This is the side that people don't see in L.A.

Just down the street from there you see another store that has a big posted sign that advertises their many 98 cent items (see pic below in the top left corner).

I took these pics while driving because I guess it never really occurred to me that regular people live there too. For some reason I just didn't think about the regular city-like features of L.A. My observations on this day brought those things back to light for me.

Traffic-wise, there was plenty of it. Cars go so slow, but what can you expect with only 3 lanes in a city that has 4+ million people? Traffic's always bad. It's actually either bad (which is normal) or horrible (which is bad):

Eventually I always go back. Tomorrow I have an interview in Sherman Oaks, so I'm sure I will run into some traffic (I know Sherman Oaks is far, the actual job would take place in Orange County). It took me 1.5 hours to get back home. So all in all, I was on the road for 3 hours.

It's hard to explain though, everytime I see the L.A. skyline, I have a weird feeling of separation. That's when I think to myself, Good Bye L.A. I'll be back. Maybe it's because I was born in L.A. and I have childhood memories of the place, or maybe it's because I somehow feel connected to the city. I don't know what it is, but I love it, except for the traffic-I could do without that.

L.A. skyline view as I'm driving away...