Highlights of Life

Just recently on my travels, it seems I happen to meet people.  I honestly do try to keep to myself (out of pure fatigue usually), but somehow, I end up meeting some rather facinating people.

Recently, I was on a rather full flight across North America.  Being full, the chance of getting an empty seat next to to me was almost nil.  Although I did hope against all odds that I would have an empty chair beside me, as it would mean I would have more lateral personal space.  I quietly said a prayer, asking God to either give me an empty seat, or a nice little elderly lady next to me (instead of a large hulking football player of a guy who would squish into my area).  Yes I do admit that sometimes my prayers can be a little immature, tiny in world view and selfish at times . 

As it turned out, I was seated next to a couple.  Cutest middle-aged/elderly couple you could ever meet.  The type of people that just by their demeanor, you could tell that they were sweet, nice, friendly and honest.

They apologized everytime they had to make me get up (as I was sitting in the aisle seat), whenever they went to the washroom.  And to make it easy on me, they would get up to go to the bathroom at the same time to prevent me from excessively getting up.  I felt so bad for them, that I said it wasn’t any problem at all.  But they still continued to apologize and take their bathroom breaks together.

For most of the flight, we kind of kept to ourselves, me listening to my music and sleeping, and they, doing their sudoku puzzles and the wife even playing this electronic Yatze hand held game.  Anyways, one hour before the flight was to land, the couple apologized for making me get up again.  I responded that it was no problem at all, as I felt the need to get up as well.  I knew the movie being shown on the plane was going to end soon, and it was an ideal time for a bathroom break, or else deal with the line-up that would form for the bathroom once the movie finished.

So all 3 of us walked over to the bathroom area, near the bulkhead exit rows, where there was relatively speaking, tons of space to stand.  I was actually a little relieved that I had 2 people infront of me, as this gave me the excuse to stand and stretch my legs while I waited (which was a nice change).  As it happened, the wife started up a conversation with me, which then continued when I returned to my seat.

 Certainly made the last hour go by amazingly fast.  It turned out they were a French Canadian couple of a mixed marriage (Italian and Canadian), happily married for over 40 years.  They had 4 grown children, 3 or 4 lovely grandchildren (I lost count) and were now retired, and travelling all over the world!  It just so happpened this couple had been everywhere in the world you could think of.  From China, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Malasia, Singapore, Vietnam, Egypt, India, Switzerland, Italy, France, England, Germany, Russia, Turkey, and many many other places in Europe (which I lost count of).  They were currently on their way to Australia and New Zealand when I met them.

At this point, I had to ask them something.  I asked them, given all their travels, was there anything special or specific they learned from their vast experiences that they hadn’t known before.  The answer I received from them was two-fold.

1.  Don’t ever make a judgement about a culture or people group (negatives or positives) until you have visited the country they live in, and understand and experience the culture first hand.  The wife said that it wasn’t until that she actually visited her husband’s country of Italy, that she finally understood all his idiosyncracies that he had throughout their married life.  Basically, all the stereotypes we form, often come from not truly understanding a culture, and being ethnocentric in our world view. (this was advice from the wife)

2.   Sometimes a visting a country and culture can be very disappointing, especially if we have lots of elevated stereotypes and pre-formed conceptions of a culture or country.  (this was advice from the husband)

And actually I did get one more piece of advice.  The husband was actually a wine promoter before he retired.  He did mention that wine from all different parts of the country are different.  For instance a Reisling from California is different from one from France, and Canada. 

I guess wine from different regions are like the people from different parts of the world.  Unique.. yet similar.

Both solid pieces of advice… that makes complete sense.  I believe there is a saying along the lines of not judging a person until you have walked a mile in their shoes…

Is it just me, or are Californians (in particular LA residents) extremely happy, smiley, friendly and upbeat?  It’s like being in the twillight zone…

I guess I would be happy too if I had that heavy duty amount of sunshine bearing down on me all day for 365 days of the year…

But seriously, other than perhaps the Hispanics and the African Americans, everyone seems extremely perky.

 LA is a strange place.  It’s incredibly large as a city, and very diverse.  Traffic is horrible and you can potentially spend hours on the highway, being stuck in traffic.  That is of course, unless you have a Toyota Prius.  Apparently a few years ago, California state allowed Prius owners to drive in the car pool lane (without having to “car pool”).  Thus you can literally drive along the highway, and see a Prius zipping down the car pool lane with only a single driver in the car.  They have this special sticker on their bumper.

Unfortuantely, after a certain amount of time (a few months ago?), California decided that they would no longer dole out special treatment for Prius owners.  So, only the lucky few who happened to get that special bumper sticker before the bylaw was cancelled, can drive in the car pool lane (up until year 2010).  Almost makes you want to own a Prius, doesn’t it?

LA is the land of the diverse.  The extremely wealthy (i.e. multi, multi millionares), to the extremely improvished (homeless street kids who hang out at Venice beach).  The dichotomy in lifestyles is shocking really.  A drive through Beverly Hills neighbourhoods is breathtaking, where you see rather grand homes in beautifully landscaped roads.  You can see rows upon rows of majestic palm trees lining the neighbourhoods.  Nowhere in the US nor in Canada have I seen such unified beauty in landscaping a neighbourhood (except perhaps in Hawaii, in the 5 star hotel district).  Then you drive through the industrial part of town, where you are afraid to stop your car, and pray you don’t run out of gas, for fear of being a target of the crime in the area.  Incredible really…

Food in LA is a treat.  Everywhere you go, the prices are relatively cheap to moderately priced, and in general… very well made.  There is something to be said about immigration and the mixing of cultures in regards to cuisine.  And as I mentioned before, what is with all the very cheerful, helpful, friendly people?  Just a few days ago, I was standing in an Asian grocery store in LA wondering what brand of an item I should buy.  Being rather white washed, I was a little clueless, like a fish out of water.  Then up comes this middle aged Asian gentleman who says, “may I help you?”.  When I say I don’t know which brand is the most delicious one to buy, he then goes into a rather long but detailed explanation of each type of brand.  Very very nice, but I still ended up gussing anyways.

 And then, I was wondering around with my hands full, when this sales lady comes up to me, saying, “do you need a bag for that?”, and then puts my items in a bag for me to carry around.  Astounding behavior for Asian service people really.  Perhaps it’s the laid back atitude of Californians… but the contrast from grouchy sales service to Californian sales service is shocking.  No where did I see a person taking a temper tantrum on a sales person.

California beaches:
Wow.  Enough said.  Given the weather, the beaches, and the beauty of nature everywhere, it’s little wonder Southern California is bustling full of people, even with the nataural disasters that occur (fires, earth quakes etc).

How is it that one city can have so much industry?  There are multiple different types of industries in LA that make up their extremely robust economy.  It’s crazy really.

One really sad thing though, is that in LA’s history, there is a lot of racial tension that is ingrained into their past.  It has affected the development of various ethnic communities, and their city… and segregation seems to occur on so many different levels.  It’s quite sad really.  One thing that is not so prominent in other North America cities.

I don’t have much time, but since I’m still 3 hours ahead than local time, it’s actually 6am here, and I thought I would get in a little writing (if you can call it that).  I have to say, I absolutely love Los Angeles (LA) the city, and what it has to offer… our experiences here have been so much fun (for lack of a better word). 

The weather is absolutely wonderful.  It’s reminiscent of Vancouver weather in that you can smell the ocean in the air.  There is nothing fishy in the air as you would find in the east coast, but you can almost taste the humidity of the ocean as you breathe.  It reminds me of Vancouver in that way.  It’s better than San Francisco and Vancouver in that the temperatures are warmer and you often see people wandering around in shorts and and a T-shirt.  No wonder they are such good shape out here… there is no excuse not to go jogging!

The people that I’ve met are incredibly friendly.  We ended up in Beverly Hills the very first night of arrival, and went into this Pannini restaurant that happened to serve grilled souvlaki and rice.  The food was delicious, and to boot, the patron sitting next to us, striked up a conversation about how great the food was.  Nothing intrusive or prolonged (thank goodness), but rather informative and entertaining,  gregarious Iranian fellow who was dining out with his wife.  He was quite proud he lived in Beverly Hills, so I asked him how much the homes were going for in price.  (I was guesstimating that they were in the range of 2-4 millions dollars), but he said the range is actually 3 to 8 million dollars per home!!!

Well… that eliminates a lot of the potential people  in the buyers market in North America.  But the neighbourhood that we drove along (Camden ?road?, Rodeo Drive) was well lit, clean and quite pretty.  It was late that night, and so we didn’t actually get out and do any shopping at Rodeo Drive.  I have the distinct feeling Rodeo Drive stores would be incredibly snotty and rude, and actually don’t feel the need to go shopping on that strip.  However I did notice a lot of tourists wandering around shopping, dressed very casually. 

Going back to food, every experience we’ve had eating out was actually very good (except for the Hotel food).  Plus, there are parts of LA that remind me faintly of Toronto (more so than any other American city I’ve been to, other than perhaps Chicago).  I do believe it’s a habit Torontonians have, which is to use Toronto as a comparison point. 

Anyways, it’s more cosmopolitan than San Francisco (which happens to feel more granola as a city).  It’s just as sprawling as Toronto, and fairly gridlike in the set up of the city.  I think that I would like to move here eventually.  The only thing that slightly scares me is the potential of earthquakes, dangerous neighbourhoods, and their extremely fast driving on the roads here.  Other than that, it’s an ideal city to live in. 

(I am kicking myself for having forgotten to pack the digital camera.  Perhaps next time I’ll get to take pictures, if we visit LA again.)

Why is it whenever I visit Montreal, I get horribly disappointed.  We went for personal and business reasons.  We arrived, and all the car rental places had closed for the night, so we caught a cab to the Hotel.  On the bright side, we stayed at the Hyatt, which turned out to be pleasant surprise.  I actually found it more enjoyable than the Fairmount.

 One of the things I don’t like about Montreal at this time of the year is the temperature.  It was approximately – 20 degrees Celcius!!  Add a cold, plus tinnitus and baurotrauma, and you get one very deaf person who simply wants to stay in bed all day.  The lack of a car made getting around the city difficult, and we ended up using the taxi quite a bit.

 On the bright side, we achieved what we wanted to achieve in our visit.  As well, the hotel stay was really pleasant, and the food was quite good.  On the negatives, I never got to see any terrific sites, and because of the lack of a car, we ended up not getting any Montreal bagels.  That proved to be a disappointment, as I had bookmarked a few great bagel locations.

 Oh well.  As well, in the last minute confusion of packing, I left my fairly expensive and brand new moisturizer in the hotel room. 

One thing I hate is losing things. 

My ear drums still haven’t popped from the plane ride yet, and I’m getting a little worried.  Montreal is not all that it is cracked up to be.