I lived in Los Angeles for 8 years and it was a blast. I loved that city and sometimes I dream of going back. What I loved most about the city was the sense of magic everywhere I looked. Every building has a story, every corner store is from a movie, every apartment building once hosted a famous face.
Since leaving, technology has advanced to the point where I can take a virtual walk through my old hood (Google Street View is awesome). I have to be careful because when I hear something about LA, particularly about a closure of a landmark from my time there, I’ll hop on Google and “walk” the area discovering the streets once again and looking for other nearby places that stick out in my head. It turns into a bit of a rabbit hole with me bouncing around LA and looking for all sort of things (I can tell you that the lady that bought my old house kept my curtains – they were a very particular color and you can still see them in the windows, she did however change out the front door which had this cool sculpted face on it – hard to explain but it was really cool).
As I see (or don’t see) familiar things, I’ll often google articles about it to explain why it’s gone or why it looks different or has a new name or just the history I already knew to remind me of how cool the place was to begin with.
I love LA and always will. It’s not for everyone, but when you’re young and ready to take on the world, I highly recommend it. Even if just for a short period of time…it changed me forever. It’s magic and like few other places you’ll ever see.
PS If you don’t know the song from the title, you should – it should be stuck in your head right now.
image courtesy of Christian Haugen
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