Day One: Planes, Trains and Automobiles

I can't believe I've only been here 3 days...I feel like it's already been a week!

THE FIRST DAY:
I landed (obviously lol). After collecting my bags, I called the guy with whom I'd be staying for the first couple of nights to get an address and ask if he could pick me up so I wouldn't have to find a way to lug my 3 bags and pillow all the way from LAX to Culver City...
Oh, by the way, here's a map link, in case you wanna follow my specific traveling. I don't know exactly if this will work, but if not, just go to Google Maps, type in "Los Angeles, CA" and center on the western side of LA where you will find Culver City, West Hollywood, Hollywood, Beverly Hills and LAX. Those are the only places to which I'll be traveling and thereby mentioning.
MAP!

So, I get a hold of the guy, and he's incredibly jaded (and possibly a little mentally ill?) and won't pick me up unless I pay him $50. Nice. Thank you, Capitalist Training 101. I have $240 with me for the whole 10 days, so I'm not about to blow fifty of it on a simple car ride. So, I walk outside after he chats my ear off and I come across a man who is dressed as if he works at the airport and says "You need directions to where you're going?" and I think "Oh God: thank you, you really do love me, you've directed me straight to someone who can assist me in finding my way around the city!" So I ask dude how to get to Sepulveda and Venice Blvds, and he says lost of stuff that I can't understand, and I think "OL, minus one point, God, because you gave me a slightly retarded (or homeless?) airport worker."

So after fishing out what exactly his words meant, I am still in mystery and am hoping that grace and intuition will put together his words and my circumstances in the most beneficial manner. So I start to leave with this hope in my heart and he turns and says "Now, maybe you can do something for me" and starts to tell me all about The Salvation Army or homeless youth or something charitable like that that I didn't pay attention to because I was still trying to record to my brain his previously mangled directions. And I think "Well, he told me how to take the bus all the way to Culver City for only $1. So I might as well give him a couple bucks, 'cause I'd be paying $20 for a taxi otherwise." So I do. And then I leave and find whatever bus I'm supposed to get on.

So. I get on the bus after a couple of chance mistakes, and I find my way to the apt in Culver. As I'm walking up to where I think it is at, I marvel at the beauty and cleanliness of the apt building. Then I randomly look up to my right and see the address I am looking for is actually on the building right before it -- MY address is placed on the dirty, creepy looking one. And NO JOKE, I stopped walking and looked over to the beautiful one, and then looked back up at the 2-foot address numbers staring me in the face and looked back over at the beautiful one like a puppy missing his master...and I almost continued to walk over to the beautiful complex anyhow, like I was in denial: "NO, THIS IS NOT WHERE I'M STAYING! I GET TO STAY AT THE BEAUTIFUL ONE, DAMN IT!!!" ran through my head and my body followed suit until I came back to consciousness and reluctantly turned 90 degrees to suspiciously enter the gross apt complex.

At this point, I've been traveling all afternoon, and I just wanna get my huge, heavy baggage into his place, and I look ahead of me and there's a humongous stairway to climb to 2 of the 5 apartments I see. Naturally, odds are in my favor that his apt is NOT one of the two up the stairs. So I search and search and search for the number 5 next to the doors of the apartments on the bottom. And when I can't find that this is the case, I sigh and start lugging my shit up the stairs.

So I get in, minimally set up my stuff, and meet him. And he is even more crazy and creepy in real life than over the phone. I am filled with sadness and regret. Lol. I meet a nice, VERY CUTE Polish guy that's staying there also, and I strike up some conversation before we leave in our own directions, and it reminds me of my time in Iceland and I'm in heaven momentarily. Then he says "Well, I gotta leave so I can make sure I get to Santa Monica in time" and I say "Oh, yeah, have fun!" and think "No, don't leave me alone here!!!" HAHAHA. So I decide "I'm gonna go out and search for jobs and get away from this creep-loaded area." At this point, I have not looked at any map of the city, FYI. Spoiler alert! Lesson learned: study a map of a new city before you venture into it.

I leave the house at about 2pm, and I know I have my Great Life conference call with my fellow coaches at 6:45pm. Oh, how easy! I should be able to get down to Hollywood, check out some jobs, and get back to my place so I can charge my dying phone by then, no problem! (Sarcastic spoiler alert right there...lol). So, I start walking the way I came by bus from LAX because I am under the impression that LAX is toward the center of the city, that Culver is North of LAX and that Hollywood and West Hollywood are South of LAX. This is the point at which it would have been AMAZING if I had a map -- and where I encourage you to look one up to follow me along my (fun?) adventure....

As I'm walking along Sepulveda Blvd for about an hour and a half, I start thinking "Why does everything here look so gangster, and very un-Hollywood-like?" I pass a sign from which I gleam that I am in Los Angeles proper, and think "Oh, okay, so I can't be too far from Hollywood now." Now, I've been walking for an hour and a half, and think "Okay, I've got basically no idea where I'm at, and I now have approx 3 hours to get to Hollywood and back before my call starts...maybe I should ask for directions..." so I go into a gas station and ask the desk clerk how I get to West Hollywood. He of course doesn't know (I say "of course" because SOMEHOW NONE of the gas station workers seem to know where anything is in LA, including themselves...), but thank GOD, the lady buying goods knows everything about the LA county map, lol. So she draws me a diagram in the air and basically tells me "You're almost to LAX now...which is not where you want to be" -- (GREEEEEAAATT....) -- "and you're still in Culver City, not in LA proper" -- (WHAT??? How is one dingy city so fucking big???) -- "and that it's only about twenty minutes to WeHo if I take Slauson [the street I was on at that point] to La Cienega North and then when that street splits into La Cienega and Fairfax, right after Jefferson, I continue on Fairfax and I'll be taken straight into WeHo." "AWESOME," I say. "Thank you so much for your assistance!" Twenty minutes, with all those directions, sounds a little short, but then again, I have the mindset that the LA area is not sprawling at all. Yeah, all I can say is hindsight is 20/20.

So, I'm walkin' down Slauson, groovin' to my iPod, excited that I only have 20 minutes to WeHo, so I'll for sure make it back in time to charge my phone and ascertain the conference call number and access code I'll need. As I approach La Cienega, I notice it looks kinda like an aqueduct, I think they're called?...the thing that the "good guys" and the bad guys" raced the cars through in Grease...it looks like one of those that was refurbished into a freeway system. And it doesn't seem to have much sidewalk. But why would this lady recommend that I walk down a street that has no sidewalks?? SHE can't be crazy too, she seemed so normal! And then I remember: "It'll only take twenty minutes if you follow these directions" and it's been about 10 and I'm just barely turning onto La Cienega. So, naturally, I ignore my intuition that says "Hey, you retard, she was under the impression that you were driving and not walking!!" and my optimistic Ryan thinks "Yeah, but I'm sure there's a sidewalk somewhere on this road. I mean, it is a road, after all." So with that, I groove myself down the on-ramp onto the street...disregarding that I'm walking down an ON-RAMP, meaning it's probably a fucking freeway...
And I plug on.

All of a sudden the shoulder ends...and the sides are covered by bushes...leaving my only option as walking on the very side of the lane, hugging the bushes...so I don't get killed by 60-mph drivers. I walk, and walk, and walk, still optimistically under the impression that this road will come to an end soon. And it doesn't. So at this point, it's like, 430 or 5, and I think "I am fucked. Please give me a long enough charge on my phone to hold for the entire conference call. And please let me get off this long freeway soon enough...and please don't let me die here while I'm trying to accomplish those other two things..."

TO BE CONTINUED...