Hooray for LA!
I have been a remiss travelogue writer, it's true. Since the beginning of July, I have failed to write anything at all to the group about my two days in London, or my 6 days in Spain, or my three separate trips to New York -- including one to City Hall on the day after the City Counil shooting and also including one on the day of the historic blackout. Covering all that territory now would be too much even for me, so instead I'm going to tell you about my flight to Los Angeles today. I'm out here for Monday morning meetings with an expert -- an extravagance you might say, considering the astronomical cost of a last-minute airfare for direct IAD to LAX service on United, as well as the cost of a posh Century City hotel. Well.
As you all know (or should know if you read these d___ things), I LOVE LA. I truly do. I think the only two places I would ever move to inside the US would be New York or LA and chances are it would be LA because the weather is awesome and because, truth be told, I'm becoming sort of obsessed with the history and social dynamics of California. It would not be an understatement to say that I have become a Student of California during my last few years as a big firm lawyer. I have traveled to California more often than any other place, including New York. I calculated today whilst filling out a survey for United that since September 11, I have flown out here for work no fewer than 15 times. I have driven the entire length of the Pacific Coast Highway -- parts of it numerous times. I have favorite restaurants in both Los Angeles and San Franciso, as well as in various dog holes on the way between the two and in points north of SF. I have driven the length of the Central Valley, the San Joaquin Valley, the Napa Valley, the Valley of the Moon, and the Salinas Valley.
I have seen the coastal redwoods from close up and far away, and I've wandered among the giant sequois on the border of Nevada. I've slept in total dives, I've camped out under the stars (twice), I've stayed in posh rural resorts, and I've spent weeks in fancy urban hotels. I've even slept inside a fallen down sequoia tree (see camping, above). The only glaring hole in my California experience is San Diego and the road between it and Los Angeles. I was supposed to go there over Memorial Day but canceled due to the demands of work. Which means I still have a ticket valid for travel anytime in the next 9 months....
So anyway, back to today. I spent the day mostly in a prone position. The weather in DC last night was in the upper 60s with no humidity, so I slept with the windows open and the a/c off for the first ime in a long while. Everyone in my apartment complex turned off their a/c last night it seems. So when I awoke, the sun was shining through the open windows, it was perfectly silent out (no a/c humming), and it was the ideal sleeping temparature. I opened my eyes to find myself flat on my back in a sort of starfish position -- or a snow angel position. My white sheets were illuminated by the sun so they were fairly glowing. I experienced an overwhelming experience of brightness and quiet. The swimming pool outside my window was making watery reflections on the white ceiling. Kind of like waking up after general anethesia in an recovery room in a hospital. Or that scene in The Graduate where Dustin Hoffman is floating around on his inflatable raft with his eyes closed. It was wonderful.
I eventually roused myself from the white starfish position and immediately hit the pool outside my window. There again I lay face up in a star-fish-esque position, staring at the beuatifully clear blue sky, the sun, and the pine trees ringing my pool. Every now and then I turned over and looked at the reflecting white/blue sheen of the pool itself, and the white lounge furniture. I lay there for a long time without thinking a single thought. I lay there for three hours, I think, only changing my position twice. I napped. I snoozed. I tanned. Once I lurched out of the chaise longue and flopped into the pool. There I sank down into the water where it was also silent, and I stayed down there a long time too. There were no crazed children at the pool today -- just a lot of grownups lying side by side in total silent, drinking up the weather. It was warm but not hot. It was perfect.
Eventually I realized I had to go inside because I had to go catch my flight to Los Angeles. The drive was speedy -- a mere 30 minutes. My aircraft this evening was an old-fashioned 747. I was upgraded to business (for explanation, see generally above-mentioned 15 flights to California ). My seat was 13H. I got on the plane and saw that the seat rows jumped from 8 to 23. "Where's row 13?!" I asked. "Upstairs!" the stewardess said excitedly.
So I got to sit upstairs on the 747. I never sat up there before, although I remember once when I was very small my family and I were traveling from somewhere like Nairobi to somewhere like Amsterdam on a 747, and my Dad took me to upstairs to see the fancy seats and to see the cockpit.
That was so long ago that it seemed weird to think that 747s still fly -- and why would they use one just to go the 4.5 hours from DC to California? 747s were for major long flights -- like the 12 hour flight from London to Lusaka that we used to take, or New York to Johannesburg, or Paris to Canberra, or Chicago to Hong Kong, or something.
Anyway, the upstairs of a 747 is like business class on a 777, which is like first class on any normal airplane. It is heaven. It is also like your own private airplane, because you are completely separated from all the 40 some odd rows of economy. I actually heard someone say she was seated in row 50 (gawd). We had our own restroom, our own galley, our own exit doors, our own announcer, and we were only about 8 rows. Also, we got to interact somewhat with the pilots because the cockpit is up there. And we were so high up off the tarmac that we looked down on the rest of Terminal C at Dulles. All the other airplanes looked tiny. And when we took off, it was like gliding because we were already so high off the tarmac and so far forward that we couldn't hear the engines at all -- we just rolled down the runway and soared. The noise reduction headphones they give you in United Business probably helped, too.
So then I settled back on my seat that reclined to a full flat position and resumed my prone position from earlier in the day. I was completely flat on my back, flying along at 39,000 feet in an airplane so big you couldn't feel it moving at all. I thought about how my view had improved over the day -- first the swimming pool reflecting on the white ceiling of my bedroom, then the deep blue sky of the mid-day and early afternoon at the pool itself, and now the even deeper blue of the sky that is turning into space just a few miles above the upper deck of a 747. Ah.
I sat up to eat my in flight meal (which was yummy) and then I leaned back again and crossed my feet on the foot rest and crossed my hands and felt rather fat for a moment and smiled a stupid smile of total relaxation and realized I didn't care if I was fat because I was wearing my California standby -- the lightweight Patagonia pullover. I was warm inside my clothes from the sun at the pool. I felt like the Buddha. Then I thought that was pretty silly and started to giggle quietly to myself in my seat. Then I became afraid I would be ejected from the Peaceful Upper Deck for acting like a deranged bag lady, so I stopped giggling and resumed my nap. The only other time I sat up from my prone position was to observe that everyone on the Upper Deck was out light a like in a fully reclined position, so you could see out the windows on both sides with no problem at all. When fully flat, everyone is below the bottom edge of the windows.
Now I'm in Los Angeles, sitting on the balcony of my hotel , again mostly prone with my feet on the railing looking out across the LA Basin to the towers of downtown LA. I can see jets making their approach to LAX.
I can smell the giant ficus trees and the eucalpytus. I can see the moon. It is balmy and there is a slight breeze. I think I will sleep with the windows open again. I love it here.
posted by Anonymous @ 9:37 PM
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