Made it safely

Few skyscrapers
Originally uploaded by framboise.

And I'm back online... In dribs and drabs. I have access at work as well as in my temporary accommodation. I even bought a new PAYG mobile phone today, one which works on the odd frequency of 1900Hz, which the Americans insist on using, even though the majority of the world's phone manufacturers are based in countries using 900 or 1800Hz. This means I now own, or have owned, six different models of Nokia phones, starting with the banana that was popularised by The Matrix, working my way down the price scale to my baseline, bog standard 2115i.

I've only been here a couple of days, and boy is the culture shock setting in. It doesn't help that I'm here on my own. The surroundings are not as alien as I feared, and I'm slowly getting a hang for the money. What I need now is a wallet with different compartments for the notes; they're all green! The next step is to learn how to use public transport without annoying the bus driver with my slowness at picking out quarters from the other coins. Side note: They have four denominations of coins here: quarters ($0.25), dimes ($0.10), five cents (self-explanatory) and one cent. The odd thing is that the dimes are much smaller than the five cents, which confuses me when I'm digging about for change. I guess it's similar in the UK, where the 20p coin is smaller in size than the 10p. And apparently, five states release new quarters every year, which makes them collectible.

A few first impressions about LA, Westwood in particular, since that's the only area I've been in so far. There are far too many lanes on the roads. Really, the best way to keep cars off the road is to make them undriveable, like in Edinburgh! If you start out with good urban planning, then all you're going to do is encourage people to get in their cars. Any US city wanting to reduce its traffic problem would do well to look at medieval European cities: winding roads, cobbled to kill car suspensions, only two lanes per road with parked cars on both sides, potholes (also targeted at suspension systems), bus lanes, potholes filled with loose gravel that pings up from the road and smashes your windscreen... The list is endless. But I guess it's too late to reduce the number of lanes here. But there's always that killer application: road works! ;)

So far, it looks like most of the drivers in this neighborhood are pretty good to pedestrians, even stopping at "Stop" signs (which they're supposed to). In most parts of Europe, even zebra crossings aren't always a guarantee of a safe road crossing. Here, even though drivers are allowed to turn right even on a red light, they respect the green man (or as the Americans call it, the "Walk" sign). But on the downside, you can get ticketed for jaywalking here, something that another newcomer (from Poland) warned me about. Even if there is no traffic at a junction, if the "walk" sign isn't on, you can't cross the road. I wonder if that should be broadcasted on European flights to the USA, along with the video they now show about the fingerprint and photo-taking procedure at the immigration checkpoints.

The weather has been pretty constant since arrival, with a little fog/smog/mist this morning. Apparently, this is their coolest summer in a while (good for me), but things should get hotter soon (not so good for Miss Made-in-Edinburgh-Blubber). Amazingly, they have what look like deciduous trees here. I thought California, LA in particular, had a desert-like climate. But it turns out that there's an army of gardeners in trucks here, who attach their hoses to the water mains at midday to water the odd patches of grass and green leafy plants. Even I know that it's pretty useless to water plants at midday, but I guess you can't really ask them all to work in the evenings only.

I've also had several astonished responses to my announcement that I've sublet an apartment in Venice, as it seems too far from UCLA for my co-workers. Perhaps I've made a mistake here... It seems that most of them live around Westwood, and mainly within a 10 minute walk or short commute from work. I used to live very close to my work place in Edinburgh, and it wasn't very good for my real life. Whenever I left the flat, it loomed in the near distance, nagging me to go in and do some work, which meant I could never really relax and enjoy myself. But American labs are known for their workaholics, so maybe that's a sacrifice I'll have to make once my lease on the Venice flat runs out. On the plus side, I've met the person I'm subletting from, and she's really nice and full of advice on the things I should do and see while I'm in the Venice area. She's even offered to put me in touch with some friends who are in the know about flat rentals.

On the food front, I can see why a lot of people don't cook much at home. Those who live in apartments probably have tiny open-plan kitchens. But even if you had a huge stainless steel-clad stove, you'd probably be too tempted by the very many food outlets here. Perhaps it's just Westwood that's blessed with a multitude of cafes, burger bars, food shacks (oh yes, I was tempted, but I'll leave it a few days before I subject myself to possible food poisoning) and posh and not-so-posh restaurants. This won't go down as my most exciting culinary experience ever, but I had an "In-N-Out" burger last night, after watching a movie with my co-workers. It was pleasantly surprising to find a decent burger, with chunky slices of onion, verified tomato slices, and crisp lettuce leaves between two bready buns. (It'll never compare to my favourite burgers from Bell's Diner, who have an American-inspired menu, but top it with decent burgers made with recognisable pieces of meat. As it should be.) Quite how Micky-Dees gets it so wrong, I'll never know. My next piece of culinary experience will be to try an LA chilli dog. Something tells me my stomach will rebel, but for the sake of research, I'm willing to take the risk.

Now that I'm a little more settled, I'll try to take some photos. For now, here are a few shots of the LA that I've seen. Westwood looks a lot nicer than these shots show. It's been patchy today, with sunny spells breaking through that smog. It was also fairly pleasant this morning, with some sun and some breeze. And my desk at work is next to the window, which is a real bonus on the eyes. I won't be posting shots of my workplace, or writing about it, mainly because I don't know what their policy is. Learned my lesson about not having my camera with me at lunchtime when I walked past the Westwood Farmers' Market on my way to Radioshack to get that mobile phone. The number of peaches, nectarines, apricots, berries, figs, and so much else, astounded me. I could not make my mind up over what to get. And I had to remind myself that I had to eat everything I bought, without my "rubbish bin"/pet pig to help me scoff it all. Photo of weird peach that I bought will follow shortly.

Obligatory freeway shot	Smog	Korean dumplings

Anyway. I'm here now. And while it's going to be all work-work-work for my time here, I hope to be able to sample the delights of LA. On the food front, I think I'm really going to enjoy living so close to producers of fantastic fruit. It won't last all year, but that's part of the fun, eating seasonal produce. (Unlike in Scotland where nothing is exciting from the seasonal perspective, apart from strawberries, raspberries and bramble.) If we're savvy, when P gets over here, we will be able to afford somewhere between work and fun (for fun, read the beach!) that has a decent kitchen to cook some of the amazing veg I saw at the market. And if we're lucky, and careful with our money, we'll be able to take advantage of being in the city of the LA Philharmonic and their conductor-of-the-moment, the gorgeous Finnish Esa-Pekka Salonen!

:D

01 Jul '05 update: Uploaded photo of planetary peach on Flickr. And as for cars stopping at "walk"/stop signs, I saw my first case of pedestrain rage yesterday, when a car tried to bully its way past a bloke crossing legally on a "walk" sign. He slapped the car. Shame it didn't blush with embarrasment.