Loony Los Angeles

On the 28th of July we finally left the big apple for our final destination, Los Angeles. Already on the plane we were exposed to the loony atmosphere of Los Angeles where the head sterwardess, Barbara around 50, said on the speakers "If there is anything you want just ask and we'll do it. Really anything at all.. (short pause) ..like, if you want me to dance I can dance, act, anything at all and we'll do it." Then she went on to explain all the cocktails she could make and how delicious they were using gestures and sounds like "mmmhhhm". It sounded like she was really really drunk or on drugs, and although it was very funny we were just hoping the pilot wasn't on the same stuff as well. Later on we however realized that this is just typical Los Angeles in the sense that this city is filled with crazy people, many of which originally came here with big dreams of becoming movie stars but ended up in other less demanding roles, such as for example being airline stewardesses. Even the girl sitting next to us on the plane, Andy a red-haired comics-reading girl, had moved to LA to become an actor. Perhaps she'll end up perfroming on the streets in front of the chinese theater with Freddy Kruger and Jack Sparrow, although I hope not.




We were glad to get out of the airplane alive. The weather in Los Angeles was nice when we landed, sunny and 25C, like always, much better than the humid 40C in New York. We took a taxi to the USC campus. We were shocked to see how dirty this city is. Although the freeways are huge typically 5-8 lanes in each direction they are often bumpy, littered, and of course covered with graffiti. It's obvious that this city is actually really poor. The per capita income in LA is only 20.600$ well under the average for USA as a whole. In fact more than 1/5 of the population here is below the poverty line. These are typically blacks and hispanics and these people live almost all in East LA (hispanics) or South Central LA (blacks and hispanics), and ironically thats where the USC or the "university of spoiled children" is located...

When we arrived at campus we were amazed by the stark difference between the surrounding neighborhood and campus. Unlike the surrounding neighborhood the campus was clean and very cozy. In fact USC was the cleanest and nicest university I had ever seen, completely incomparable with Copenhagen University. The picture is showing Dorte walking around on campus. Later when we then went to get dinner at the cantine we found a huge free selection of foods. Mexican, grilled brugers, pizzas, fish, meat, vegetarian, jucy tropical fruits, tofu, salads, cakes, deserts, you name it it was there. It was of course all you can eat. You people eating at August Kroghs cantine or HCØ really don't know what you're missing!! They have everything here from sushi to mexican or indian food, you name it you can find it here on USC campus. Anyways I'm hungry so I'll continue later..

Bjarni