So I'm not sure if I've gotten into this in my blog, but one of the main reasons I came out to California was to see if this is where I want to end up after graduating in the spring. I know I've spoken about the mystique California held for me; I came out here with really high hopes and even higher expectations, but I have to say, as the weeks go on, its becoming more and more apparent that this isn't where I want end up. Its not that my expectations haven't been met; I have the constant sunshine I dreamt about and the gorgeous flowers and hoards of people, but there are things about Los Angeles that I wasn't aware of that have changed the way I view this city. I always pictured LA to be like a giant Chicago; a skyscraper-filled downtown plus a beach, to put it very simply. But LA isn't anything like that. The entire city is extremely spread out. Its like there's no center to it; no cluster of bustling business people and shopping and night life like Minneapolis or Milwaukee or Chicago have. LA has a lot of that stuff, but its dotted here and there around the greater Los Angeles area. You have Hollywood and Venice Beach and Santa Monica, all miles away from each other. And then you have Northridge, which even farther away from it all.
Now, this might just be a bias I have because of my lack of a car, but the fact that you have to travel so far to get from anywhere to anywhere else is really getting to me. I went to my first dive bar in the actual area around my campus a couple nights ago and it was a 10 minute drive. Maybe I've just been spoiled by having two bars across the street from my house in Minneapolis and Dinkytown a five minute bus ride away, but its so hard to do anything here without a car. If I want to go explore the city, I have to set aside two hours to get there and two hours to get back, which makes it impossible to spend just an afternoon in LA; if I go down there I will be gone all day. And I haven't even tried getting to a beach by myself yet, but I can take a pretty accurate guess that most of my beach day would be spent on a bunch of buses.
The other issue I'm having has to do with the glamor of LA; more specifically the lack of it. Again its probably my location and lack of a car, and I'm aware that it was childish of me to come here with even the tiniest expectation that I was going to be going to VIP clubs and having expensive drinks bought for me and spending hours and hours at the beach, but its hard to not hope for those things just a little when its been pounded into your head since you were a kid that this is what California is like. When it comes to my social life, I feel like I just jumped back three years to when I first moved to Minneapolis. And I realize that I've only been here for six weeks and when I think about it, I have done really well for the short time I've been here given my situation, but I miss having something to do every night, having my friends around all the time, and generally just having a sense of home.
I'm sure those of you who are familiar with LA are thinking 'Jesus Lauren, I could have told you all of that', but it wouldn't have been of any use. I needed to see for myself. This whole trip is a process of unlearning and relearning, and definitely of growth, and I'm grateful for how its changed me so far. However, the disappointment is kind of hard to just set aside and forget about. Which is why I'm unloading it all on you guys, haha.
Now, I don't want to just jump to the end and say LA isn't for me. That's not what I'm trying to do at all. I'm just saying, as time goes on, I'm finding more aspects of LA that just don't say 'home' to me. In my Intercultural Communications class, we talked about culture shock and, although I don't think I would go so far as to call what I'm going through culture shock, some of the stages seem applicable to what I've been experiencing. First comes the honeymoon stage. Everything is exciting and new and you're completely in love with your new culture (see this post and this post). Next comes the crisis stage. This is when you start to get settled in and realize things aren't exactly what you thought they would be. You start to miss your home culture and think its far superior to your new culture. I can see that this is where I am right now. Every time I meet someone new, its important for them to know that I come from the Midwest, and that the Midwest is fucking awesome. I feel proud to call Milwaukee and Minneapolis my home cities and I am offended when anyone makes an off-color comment about where I come from ("Do you have friends who live on farms?" "Shut the fuck up."). It feels really good to be able to look at this from a purely logical standpoint, especially because I know that the next stage is the adjustment stage, and things will start to get a lot more positive. I hope that comes soon, because I've defnintely lost that intital excitement and motivation to get out there and see everything, and I need that to come back (the lack of motivation might also be because its 97 degrees right now).
So, after all that heavy stuff, I want to leave you with this:
Also, my roommate Grace says "HI".
Until later! <3
(tl;dr: I like California and I'm having a wonderful time but its not exactly what I thought it would be and I'm not sure if I want to live here after college.)
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