Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Just returned from: Los Angeles

I just returned from Los Angeles. Impressions:

  • LAX is just a terrible airport. Everything is miles from everything else, there's pretty much no place to buy anything, and the parts that aren't claustrophobic are uninspired and drab. And even after you've walked the country mile to get to the baggage claim, you still have to wait around forever before your luggage actually arrives.
  • Highways. We don't really have highways in Canada I think. Highways in California have at least 4-6 lanes in each direction, and average speed is about 120-130km/h. While scary as hell, I get the impression this vastly reduces the number of impatient, idiotic drivers. "Me before anybody else!" is the prevailing attitude in Vancouver, but I didn't see that as much down there, presumably because everybody's already going stupid fast. Note: you could drift into another lane pretty fast at that speed.
  • The air in LA sucks. Vancouver's not great, but at least the rain cleans it out a bit (yay, the rain is good for something!)
Overall I give LA a C-, mostly because I got to drive Really Damn Fast in a Relatively Legal Fashion. No, I did not buy an "I *heart* LA" t-shirt.