Thursday, January 28, 2010

Things I've learned after one week of living in LA

1. Left-turn lanes don't exist here. That combined with a lot of one-lane streets means a green light rarely means go. As long as you accept that "green" does not necessarily mean "go," your road rage will be greatly minimized.

2. Following that realization, in some cases it can be faster to make three right turns around a block to get where you want to go instead of waiting in line to make a left.

3. People look at you here. Everyone's constantly looking at everyone else. Not so in NYC--if you make eye contact with another person there, they might get angry at you. New Yorkers are very much into their personal space (probably because they're always unnaturally packed together in tight public spaces).

4. Never go to Costco on a Saturday...to any of their locations in LA. Just don't.

5. People honk in LA. Not as much as people honk in NYC, but more than people honk in San Francisco or Chicago.

6. You can get 3 mangoes for 99 cents in January in LA.

7. Strangers try to help you here. N and I tried to load a huge box that was almost too big to get into our car, and several people jumped in to help us out. That was weird.

8. People are deathly afraid of homeless, Hispanic, and black people here. Very, very afraid. I'm sure a lot of New Yorkers are also very afraid, but the fear strikes me a bit differently here. Probably because LA is more integrated...NYC is relatively segregated, in my opinion.

9. There's a lot of men walking around outside, and very few women. I think it goes back to that fear thing.

10. No one walks their dogs here, but I know they must be around. They must all live on pee pads inside? Stewie and I have only come across one other dog outside so far this entire week, and I can feel people staring at us whenever we pass by because we're the weird ones.

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