Wanderlust Heaven!

I’m already falling behind in my postings…or perhaps my inner demon is overly tormenting me to get things accomplished.  I should embrace life’s distractions and my own general apathy – it’s just that if I consistently followed my base instincts I’d be a walking hard drive of amazing experiences without any system backup.  Perhaps I’d be able to share those experiences with others far away; perhaps my memory would fail under the influence of strong drink and I’d lose the thoughts forever.  Thus, this “slog” and my desire to keep it going.

Several of you helpfully pointed out that I laid it on a bit thick with my ‘join Skype now’ exhortations in my first posting.  After re-reading it I tend to agree with you.  But I did manage to get a few new Skype addresses and calls, so no regrets.  I also appreciated the various comments that flowed in…keep ‘em coming!

On May 31 I finally got going, flying from Boston to Los Angeles.  I spent the week beforehand pacing about, taking care of last-minute chores, and packing my backpack.  Things were pretty crazy before I left – my sister and her family were moving house, and spent several nights at my folks’ place, relegating me to an odd invention known as the “Air-Bed” (which should instead be called the “Floor-Board”).  But everything got done in time and I managed to shove off on schedule.  Checking in my backpack at Logan Airport, I thought back to the summer of 1992, when I headed from Boston to Bombay, India with my old pack, duffel bag, and not a clue about what I was about to get into.  At least now I’d be 14 years the wiser and with more money to lose.

Los Angeles is an engaging place.  I could live there…wait, no I couldn’t.  Things I like about the place:

-There are dozens of roadside Iranian/Persian diners all over LA.  You’d probably actually have to be Iranian to distinguish these places from the usual kebab and curry type joints…but I do think it’s cool that they’re around.  And while I didn’t have a chance to duck into one, I somehow doubt that anyone in there is talking about enriched uranium.

-When I was a greenhorn management consultant on my first project, I was based in LA and used to eat a couple times a week at a timeless place next to my firm’s Santa Monica office known as Bob Burns Steakhouse.  The chief benefit was proximity, but the place did have solid steaks and stiff martinis – and one night an ex-actress (more likely, an XXX-actress) asked if she could move in with me.  That hasn’t happened since.

-The best thing about LA is that you don’t see endless cohorts of Gap-clad dorks sporting light-colored khakis and Polo shirts.  There’s nothing worse than having to shield your eyes in Boston or NYC from guys wearing cream-colored pants – you know what I mean.  In LA people have an edgier sense of fashion, and generally look cool.  I wouldn’t be afraid to enter the average guy or girl in LA in a Global Fashion Contest – an Italian or Aussie might take first place, but the LA entrant would put up a fight. 

-A related point:  I’m not sure I believe in any sort of afterlife, but if I do, my conception of heaven & hell is a relativistic one.  In other words, my version of heaven features good music, good coffee, decent threads, people who speak proper English/other languages, and various X-rated aspects you can probably work out.  But for someone else, they might care much more about sitting around gossiping, having 24/7 hair salons, driving a Hummer, etc.  If there is any sort of heaven out there, then there might be 6.5 billion of them…otherwise, it wouldn’t really be ‘heaven,’ would it?  And tying this back to my previous point, I could imagine a heaven much like LA where I’d be pretty happy most of the time.

I had a 9-hour layover in LA, which I characteristically loaded up with activities.  I rented a car and drove to Santa Monica, where I had my share of (mis)adventures 9 or so years ago.  I met my B-school friend Amy (Eiselman) Ritz for lunch and caught up with her.  She’s quite busy raising her 2 kids and working on projects when she has a moment.  I walked around Santa Monica pier and studiously avoided the junk-food stalls and rickety carnival rides.  And I strolled through the lobby of the Miramar hotel, where I stayed when working in LA all those years ago.  The ghosts of many bottles of California cabernet Sauvignon called out to me as I walked by the lobby restaurant.

I then met my friend Joan Chu for dinner.  Joan was my first boss at Monitor Group and showed me how to ‘do consulting.’  We ended up working together for the better part of a year, and I was sad to leave her and the LA office to return to Boston and the cream-colored pants squad over there.  Joan brought her adorable son Conor and a buddy of his – we dropped them off at a child-care center (sort of a romper room) and had a nice Italian meal in the sunshine.  I think that Joan embodies the LA sense of cool – she never seems stressed, has an incredible sense of humor, and is good-natured beyond belief.  We sat around telling jokes and drinking wine…it felt a bit surreal, given that I soon had to hop on a flight to Melbourne.

Driving back to LA Airport, I recalled the time I had to fly from LA to Boston on a redeye that departed LA at 10 p.m.  I was late leaving Santa Monica and didn’t have time to waste.  The kicker was that I had to return a rental car, and the roads/signs around LAX were so confusing that I drove around for precious minutes trying to work out where the damned Avis lot was.  I finally found it, flagged down a cab to race me over to the terminal, and made the flight with about 5 minutes to spare.  These days, that wouldn’t happen – you’d still be removing your belt and shoes in the X-ray queue while the flight was taking off.  And speaking of X-ray queues, I’m always fascinated by those signs listing airports that are deemed insecure.  Years ago I always saw Murtala Muhamad Airport in Lagos, Nigeria listed at Logan Airport in Boston.  I think that Athens also made that list.  I don’t know who decides the list, but whoever they are hit the nail on the head with Lagos – you’re lucky to make it out of that airport with your baggage and all of your limbs.  This time, in LA, I noticed that Bali’s airport, known as Bandarah Ngurah Rai Airport (naturally) was on the shit list.  I’d been there and didn’t see any real problems, although at the only ATM in the building I inserted my cash card and waited at least 7 nervous minutes while the machine decided what to do…eventually spitting out scores of grimy Indonesian rupiah which I gave out to nearly everyone I met over the course of several days there.    

When I checked in for my flight to Australia, the counter lady surprised me by telling me I was going to Auckland, New Zealand.  Turned out that my Melbourne flight had a brief stop there which I didn’t know about.  These cheapo award tickets always seem to include every possible stop before you get to where you want to go.  If they could have routed me through Tonga and the Solomon Islands they probably would have done so.

On the flight I had a weird dream about various types of luggage tags I had seen and/or used over the years.  I also thought about the fact that I was ‘losing’ June 1 – when you fly to Australia you pass over the International Date Line and you usually jump to the next calendar day.  Kind of like when Pope Gregory (or was it Julian?) deleted a few days from the old calendar to get the days aligned with the sun.  Anyway, those were pretty boring thoughts and I think I’ll stop this posting right here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 7th, 2006 at 3:47 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.