So the big news is I have a car!!!!!! Oh and the other thing to tell you is I'm writing this on the bus. Where a spotty twenty year old has just asked for my number! Why oh why am I on the bus? Why do I put myself through this torture? So many things to say.
Firstly the twenty year old. He wanted to know where I was going, why I was going there. I was stand off ish and didn't tell him. He didn't give up. What is your job? So what did I say???? Oh I told him I was an actress. Again why oh why? Why didn't I lie? On the packed bus, in front of all those people. He asked me is there much demand for it here???? I said (again stand off ish) It's LA???? He then asked for my number. When I said no he said it was so I could help him be an actor. I told him to google it. At this point I was nearly crying thinking of my brand new shiny car parked outside my apartment!
So back to that. The car is amazing, so why aren't I driving the damn thing?
1 - Parking, part one.
Parking where we live is horrendous. I can be driving around for half an hour looking for a space only to abandon it on Santa Monica Blvd where I have to move it before 8am the next day. When I do get a space (like today at 715am) I don't want to lose it so I leave it there.
2 - Parking, part two.
Parking where you are going to is never easy. You need to get there half an hour early to decipher the signs. For example. Sign 1 - no parking 10pm to 6am (great, you think, it's 11am) Sign 2 - no parking on Fridays 11am - 2pm for street cleaning (great, you think, it's Wednesday) Sign 3 - No stopping at any time (is parking stopping????)
3 - Driving it.
Driving in LA (like lots of things here) is exhausting. I know this isn't just an LA thing but why can't everyone just stop on a red light? You can turn right on a red light but you have to give way to pedestrians crossing to your right, cars coming from the opposite direction turning left if they are on a green arrow (how do I know???) oh and not to mention the people behind you beeping because you're not doing all that quickly enough! Why can't we all stop on red and go on green?
Oh and the lanes. Pick a lane, any lane, stay in it, don't stay in it, overtake, undertake, anything you like really!
4 - Traffic.
This is another thing LA people complain about ALL THE TIME. How bad can it be? Oh it's bad. I've never seen anything like it. I've been in traffic on the freeway at 5am. Who are these people? Where are they going?
5- Other stuff.
This is on me not LA but driving for 20 years in one country is definitely habit forming. To be fair I've only driven on the left hand side once but how often (when I do drive it) do I go to get in the wrong side of the car? Hmm at least once a day.
The gear stick (yes I have one of those, as my dad pointed out no one will steal the car!) is on the wrong side! When the Scot and I picked the car up we couldn't figure out what the terrible smell was every time I set off at the lights. I was in third gear!
So today I didn't drive. I decided to give myself a break and chill out on the bus, where I couldn't move and was accosted by a twenty year old who prompted me to write about driving instead which ironically is just as exhausting as driving!
Taxi for luckylittlelady........ (Well Uber actually but that's another story)
