LLWorldTour

On a crisp fall day, you can walk around downtown Chicago and often catch a whiff of cocoa-scented air making the trek to work just a bit easier.  Unfortunately, large cities aren’t known for their sweet smells. Often pungent odors like trash, urine, and exhaust fumes come to mind when we think of the scents of a city. But oh no my friends, not Chicago. The Blommer Chocolate factory, which is not too far from the loop, has been manufacturing that rich, chocolaty goodness for 70 years. Within smelling range of the factory, it’s nearly impossible to find anyone who doesn’t enjoy the rich, brownie-like aroma as they trudge to the office.

And I’ve always been flummoxed as to why the Chicago Tourism Office does not incorporate this amazing fact into their marketing materials: ‘Chicago - it’s the city that smells like chocolate’ or ‘Chicago - a city dipped in chocolate’ or ‘Sweet Home Chicago - we mean that literally.’

There’s always been a buzz about Chicago with its sparkling downtown skyscrapers, the year-round flower-scaped shoppers’ paradise of Michigan Avenue and the tourist-drawing public art filled Millennium Park. But, now more than ever, the ‘city of big shoulders’ is a thriving, sophisticated, cosmopolitan metropolis filled with young urbanites proud of their town and ready to share why.

Why is Chicago American’s hottest city now? Besides rivaling New York and San Francisco for some of the world’s best restaurants and most diverse neighborhoods, there are some new reasons. The Chicago Cubs - okay, dare I say it… they almost went all the way…again.  They have not won a world series in exactly 100 years, were number one in the national league and consistently stayed on top all season. Well, until they lost. “There’s always next year.”

The home to the world’s first skyscraper is breaking new records again. Just as Donald Trump’s new tower is being completed on the riverfront as the second tallest building in Chicago and North America, the construction of another momentous building is underway. Designed by world renowned Spanish architect, Santiago Calatrava, the new Chicago Spire, at 2000 feet and with 150 floors, will be the twelfth tallest freestanding structure in the world.  The Spire will surpass Chicago’s Sears Tower to become North America’s tallest tower.

Now that the Beijing Olympics are a thing of the past, all eyes are on Chicago as one of the final contenders for the 2016 Olympics-a campaign the city and mayor Daley are fighting hard.In the event of Chicago being selected by the IOC, the 2016 Games will be the first Summer Olympics held in the Americas since the 1996 Atlanta Games. The final selection will be made on October 2, 2009. Currently, Chicago’s rival cities for the hosting of the Games are Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo. It is expected that Chicago’s significant infrastructure and public transport system, world-class architecture, renowned skyline, multi-cultural, historical, and pop-cultural contributions will be positive factors as the Olympics bid is weighed.

And to top it all off, the Chicago’s home son, Barack Obama, will soon be sworn in as the 44^th president of the United States of America. No matter what your political affiliation or whom you voted for in the election, this is an exciting and momentous time in the U.S. and in Chicago in particular. Nearly 100,000 Chicagoans gathered in Grant Park on Chicago’s lakefront on election night in hopes of hearing a victory speech - and they were not disappointed. After 2 years of hard campaigning Barack Obama won the election by a wide margin gaining 364 electoral votes to John McCain’s 174.

The world was watching from Japan to Kenya and Iraq to Vancouver.  Now so many eyes are on Chicago and the Illinois Tourism Board is counting on it. In fact, the Chicago Tourism site offers visitors a glimpse of Obama’s Chicago. I was watching from an election party in France, where something like 95% of the population supported Obama. I was anxious and tired and the boring, very conservative CNN coverage (lest they fall into the premature projections like last time) was hard to keep the interest of my French friends. But then at 6am France time, we had a new president and history was made. The citizens of the United States had spoken and I felt such a pride that I have not felt in a very long time. The only thing missing was me…from Chicago.

I tailored the end of my France trip to coincide with the presidential election. In other words, I tried to be in a larger city so I could watch the results with other like minded people, expats and interested French folks (which was pretty much everyone).  I had sent my vote in weeks earlier by absentee ballot and now I was fortunate to join some fellow couchsurfers in Lyon, France at an all night election party. Since it’s a six hour time difference from here to New York…we knew we were in for a long night.  We were totally exhausted and the CNN International coverage didn’t help us stay awake - even with their odd ‘beam me up Scotty’ style of hologram journalism (a bit over the top for me) - but by 6am we were cheering and applauding with the crowds in Chicago’s Grant Park for a new United States and hopeful for a changing future.

I heard some great things from my friends back home in Chicago and wished I was there to bask in the positive energy of the city.

From an email of a friend:

“Yea, it is a little Obama crazy. It’s fun. It just really feels positive. When your walking down the street, and people pass you by, you can feel that positive energy coming off people. It’s like walking around on that first beautiful day of spring and everyone has this underlying sense of happiness. It is like we all did something REALLY, REALLY GOOD, that we weren’t supposed to do, and we got away with it. It’s a fun feeling.”

From another friend’s blog:

“I’m so proud of our country today. We might not have been in Grant Park, like many we knew were, but I think there was celebration no matter where you were in Chicago. At the bar people were cheering like crazy, cars were driving by blaring their horns. Everyone was so happy. The front door/windows were open because it was such a nice night and people were lined up on the sidewalk watching and listening to Obama’s acceptance speech. …I want to remember where I was and what it felt like when our country made history and finally made a positive decision for its future.”

Check out this amazing website with the headlines of newspapers from around the world on November 5^th.

It’s an interesting time in America and the rest of the world. Being abroad during this election season, is giving me a different perspective. Your first thought may be I’m missing something. But the US elections are huge news everywhere and just as important to the rest of the world as they are to us. Thankfully though I’m not inundated by media and lip-flapping pundits here-perhaps because most of it is French so I just can’t understand it anyway, nor do I normally have a TV.

Absentee Ballot

While in Berlin, I went to www.votefromaborad.org and was able to print out my absentee ballot application and a ‘write-in ballot’ and mail it in. The process was mostly painless, except that once I mailed that and they received it a couple weeks later, I then actually had to fill out a second more ‘official ballot’ that they emailed to me and then I could fax that from France to the NJ elections office (oh yeah, I’m voting in NJ where my current permanent address is at dad’s and NJ is inching a bit closer to becoming a swing state) and then had to mail them the hard copy. Thankfully there are no chads on my ballot–hanging, dimpled, or otherwise. So the process is either really accurate and careful OR I just voted three times.

One day I was hanging out at a café in Berlin called St. Oberhotz where a large number of laptopers and expats seem to hang out downing coffees and sucking in the free wifi all day. There was a guy sitting at a hightop table near the door with a small sign affixed to a clipboard that read: US Voters - Help. This expat American voluntary sat here once a week and helped overseas Americans register to vote and find the necessary links to be able to fill out their absentee ballot. I told him I had already sent my ballot in, but he continued to look up the name and phone number for me of the woman I should call at the NJ elections office to confirm she’d received my ballot.

Then a few weeks later I found myself in Paris joining a fellow expat New Yorker I’d met through Couchsurfing, at a ‘Democrats Abroad’ debate party. Since most of Europe is 7 hours ahead of New York, it’s hard to watch the debates here unless you want to tune into the BBC or CNN International at 4am. So the following night they scheduled an event for the many expats living in Paris who wanted to watch the Obama/McCain town hall faceoff. It was held in a lovely cinema-style screening room in Paris’ Cine-Aqua, a sort of Aquarium.

Proud to be American

I am more proud than ever to be voting in this election. During my travels over the last two years, I’ve gone from criticizing my own country, to defending it, and back again. It’s hard to be the one “American” in the room trying to explain all the aspects of being American-many of which I have come to appreciate more while away-but something else I just can’t do. I am American, but I am certainly not a spokesperson for all Americans or the United States government.
I am proud of where I come from and very lucky in many ways. But I think this is something hard to even appreciate when it’s all you know. It’s actually the foreigners that sometimes make me more aware of how fortunate I am to be free and have so many opportunities in my grasp. That being said, since I have never really lived in another country, how can I say the US is the best one? How do I know that growing up in France or Sweden wouldn’t provide the same opportunities or perhaps even more? I can’t say this. Who can - unless they’ve actually done it. Unfortunately, in today’s world, being an “American” has become complex and comes with many stereotypes and stigmas. I want to be proud to be an American because, of course, I love my country. But this does not have to mean I love everything.

Just please vote.

I rarely do rant posts…but here is a fun one.

I recently got a notice from my insurance company of, oh I don’t know 15 years or so, that they are NOT renewing my Condo Unit Policy. My company is the very well known giant of State Farm. I have had 2 claims at this property, four years apart. In 2004 my condo was burglarized and I lost a computer, jewelry and other things. I made some cash back from my insurance company but of course nothing could replace my grandmother’s diamond drop earrings. Then just recently as I returned from my world tour, I was dismayed to discover that my tenant had some ‘issues’ with the fireplace and there was some pretty bad smoke damage. So…I made another claim. Well, much to my chagrin I just received a notice in the mail saying that come October they will no longer renew my policy. What – no discussion, no phone call, no explanation? I was basically dumped with a “Dear John” letter.

And do you know why? Because I used my insurance company for what I thought I was paying it for—insurance. Some things happened, I made some claims, and because of that – they had to actually pay me money. So since that goes against their whole scam of cheating us all out of our money in hopes that nothing ever goes wrong – they dropped me like a bad mobile phone call. Oh, so what, Mr. State Farm—are you too good for me now? Are you above me and my vagabonding ways? I mean, ‘like a good neighbor, State Farm is where??’ No, you are more like a bad neighbor – playing your music too loud, three half-cannibalized ford trucks strewn about the front lawn, and two weeks worth of trash sitting at the curb.

I called my local Chicago agent, whom I like very much, and has always been there for me. She explained that the underwriter basically didn’t like the fact that I had 2 claims in 4 years, as the national average is around 10 years per claim. Do you think I wanted to be robbed or my condo to burn down? So, in other words, they didn’t want me as a customer because I used them for what they are supposed to be there for and in turn I wasn’t their ‘golden’ girlfriend anymore who just sends them bags of cash every year for nothing. This seems completely unethical to me. Is this even legal? Isn’t there some kind of regulating board that deals with asshole business dealings like this? Ya know, the ‘asshole business bureau’ or something like that.

Watch this and you’ll see what I mean:

State Farm said I could come back to them in a few years after I’ve ‘improved myself’, but, no shocker here, I will never date State Farm again. If they had a problem when I made those claims they should have told me then. Just like any relationship, you need good communication to make it work. And if they want me back in a few years…they can keep dreaming…because I’m on the hunt for a new insurer to keep me secure and snug late at night. And he will love me just the way I am.

Prologue:

Um, well, it turns out that it was very hard for me to find a new insurer since my record was so ‘tarnished’ so after a few phone calls and begging and pleading, my ex came crawling back and wants to take me back. Er, or is it the other way around? State Farm finally called and wants to get back together. I guess I still did have feelings for them (and the fact that all the other insurance companies I tried going out with were not cheap dates). So, I gave them back my key and are giving it another shot.  I guess everyone deserves a second chance.

I touched down in New York City with a slight feeling of sadness and worry. I was returning to my grandmother’s nearly empty apartment. But it wasn’t the stuff missing that was bothering me. It was that she was missing.

I worried if New York would ever be the same for me since this is the place I always came to be with her. And she was truly the glue that held New York City together for me. I never had to find a hotel when I came here. I never needed to search for some good bagels and lox…she already had it waiting for me.

So, after a four month stint in the sun and easy-life of LA, I was back in harried, frenetic New York City for ten days. I shouldn’t have worried. I loved it all over again and more.

In just my first five minutes walking on the crammed sidewalk amongst the people it hit me all at once how great this city is and what a contrast it is to Los Angeles. Even though they are two huge cities, New York really is a true city inside and out, uptown and downtown, down below in the subterranean jungle of the subways and high up above in the posh financial offices scraping the sky. I know this has been said before a zillion times. But I can’t help saying it again: it’s the stew, the pot pourri, that good old melting pot. I don’t think I ever saw it as clear as I did now after being in LA. You can’t help notice it as you walk down the crammed sidewalk. New York is a true coming together of all races, all classes, and all kinds - young and old, sane and crazy, filthy rich and broke and homeless, every race, every gender, ever class. People are walking alone and yet altogether in one massive sea of life. Wall Street tycoons in Armani suits ride the public bus next to Hispanic moms with three kids in tow next to gussied up teenage girls on their way for some cappuccinos.

I had just come in from a five hour flight from LAX and I was tired and famished. I thought I’d start my stay off here with a New York ‘must:’ a greasy, floppy, delicious slice of New York pizza. But unlike the old days when you could just stand in one place and do a 360 spin to spot the nearest pizza joint, now my view was crowded with Starbucks, CVS, and other chains. Then I spotted a guy sitting on a bench with the package I sought: a white paper bag, a white paper place, and that famous gooey slice. I walked up to him and asked where he got it. He answered in a garbled voice and I realized I was talking to a homeless man. I asked him again. And he said, “I don’t know. Someone gave it to me.”

It couldn’t have been more perfect. New York strikes again. Although often misunderstood, it’s not uncommon that New Yorkers are friendly and generous and very tolerant of one another. Many people chat up their local bums everyday and when going for a bite, often get a little something extra for that ‘guy’ they pass on the way home. Whenever My friend Mark would go buy himself a hamburger at his local fast food establishment he would get two and hand one to the guy that stood outside on the sidewalk holding the door open for customers. Better that then handing him a dollar he’d drop on liquor or worse. Although…perhaps the McDonalds’ burger was just as bad?

After I walked away from my new pizza-eating friend, he called after me and yelled out that he thought the place was just around the corner. I followed his gesture up 8^th Avenue and around to 23^rd street. There it was – the classic New York pizzeria. It’s nothing fancy – just a few tables, that glass counter which gives you a view of the pies on offer – cheese, pepperoni, sausage, mushroom, and a calzone or two – a soft drink fountain, a brick oven and big, white cardboard pizza boxes stacked up ceiling high. I ordered a simple cheese slice and sat down to enjoy the delicacy. And here I saw it just like I had walking around outside. Every kind of citizen was coming in for a slice – the construction worker, the student, the ladies discussing interior design, the lawyer in a suit, and a mother and son. Here everyone eats a slice. Here everyone rides the bus.

It was New York…always there and always accepting. It was the same as it’s always been – except the slice was now $2.75, not $1.00 like it was when I was a kid. So I picked it up, folded it in half and took that first fabulous bite.

So in-between all the fun and L.A.ery, I was also working, writing articles and found a new career: house and pet sitter extraordinaire. I house sat for 2 poodles, Henry and Charlie, ran with a Sheeba named Ralph, dog sat another pup named Bruce (I get all the guys), and then got the plum assignment: a housesit for Boo the black cat in the Hollywood Hills at the home of a cool couple who work in Television.

I stayed up there in an area famous for its famous inhabitants and enjoyed my new neighbors: Jake Gyllenahal, Will Ferrell, Stockard Channing, KD Lang, Moon Unit Zappa, and sadly, the next-door-neighbor was recently deceased Australian actor, Heath Ledger. He had bought his house a few years ago from Ellen DeGeneres.

I spent many afternoons working and relaxing in their lush, peaceful backyard completely surrounded by towering trees, hummingbirds, and other critters while choppers flew overhead getting shots from the only vantage point of these mansions well hidden behind their tall walls and dense shrubbery.

The only thing missing from my new ‘live like the rich’ life was a pool. Yep, no pool—instead there was a playground for the kids. There’s something about a pool to make you feel like you actually did something with your day;

“What did you do today?’

‘Oh, I went and laid out at the pool.’

‘Cool.’

Even if you don’t go swimming and just work on your tan for a couple hours, it’s still as if you did something with you day, well, in L.A. at least that’s the case.

I definitely had fun house sitting even if I was kind of living a pretend life in my pretend house, with my pretend cats, dogs, and fish. It was all a bit surreal. My surreal life.

After all this star-gazing I saw some real ‘stars’ at the beautiful art deco, newly renovated Griffith Observatory.

And…finally I even experienced a good, LA-style earthquake. It was CRAZY!!!!!! Okay, not really, a few shelves, lamps shook for 10 seconds we felt the floor move. I ran to a doorway and Mark ran to the bookshelf (something is just wrong with one of our positions!) and then it was all over. The news went crazy with coverage and at the epicenter it was around a 5.4 on the Richter scale, but didn’t feel like much at least where we were—plus he lives on the ground floor. Now I’ve felt one in Tokyo and LA.

My last few days in LA were centered on my birthday where I partied like a rockstar (minus the drugs or suicide-like finale of guests like John Belushi) at Chateau Marmont.

My LA adventure has now come to an end and I guess I’ve experienced almost everything here…except the casting couch. There’s always next time.

My friend Mark lives in a great apartment complex in LA called the Palazzo. It has a huge pool ringed with plush cushioned lounge chairs, a clubhouse complete with a buzzy little business office and concierge for all your concierging needs, a bright gym and spa full of the tanned toned celebs of tomorrow, and beautifully landscaped grounds full of constantly pruned shrubs, bougainvillea covered trellises, trickling fountains, and swaying palms. And of course he has a fully appointed apartment…and he pays dearly for it. He personally has everything he needs.

And then there was…the toaster. This metal box lived on his granite countertop mocking us daily with its crappy features, non-dinging toast function, and all around crap-tasticness. It was the most excruciatingly slow toaster I’ve ever encountered in all my travels. You want your bread to turn brown and crunchy with just the right crust on top sealing in a chewy center? Good luck. It was uneven at best and ‘es’, ‘el’, ‘oh’, ‘double-you’ - SLOW. You want a piece of bad toast? Well, pull up a chair and wait about thirty minutes. The thing sucks at toast. And, let’s remember what it’s called. That’s right – a toaster.

SO, I took it upon myself to buy him a brand-spankin’ new twenty-first century toaster with all the bells and whistles and dingers. You want it light? You got it. Dark and slightly burnt – a little more your style? Not a problem. All was good in the breads and whole grains world once again.

But what to do with the old piece of crap toaster? Only one thing of course – smash the hell out of it.

I had the genius idea of taking it out and basically clubbing it to death just for fun. See what happens when neither of us is working and we have too much time on our hands? Don’t tell the toaster-lover protesters. We don’t want them picketing outside or pelting us with bagels, slices of marble rye or, even worse, dense flax seed and multi-grain loaves.

Here’s how it all went down:

Operation: Kill the Toaster

• The Tools: One toaster, one hammer, one golf club, protective eye gear (aka swimming goggles)
• The Location: Ross Back Parking Lot
• The Motive: Years & Years of Shitty Toast

It was a total smash-for-all. I took the hammer and wailed as hard as I could at the top of the toaster. The metal buckled and clanged and plastic bits went flying everywhere. Now it was Mark’s turn. He took the 3-iron and did his best golf swing right into the toaster door. The glass shattered with a crunch and shards of glass went flying all around. Wooo! This was fun. IT was like a reality episode of “when toaster’s suck” or “when bad toasters happen to good people.” We were onto something. I know FOX will call soon.

I decided just to let it rip. I went ballistic and start pummeling the damn thing with my hammer shouting with each blow, “YOU STUPID NO GOOD TOASTER. I HATE YOU! SHITTY, STUPID TOASTER!!” Ah, it was cathartic and way cheaper than paying a shrink for the hour.

By now we were making quite a ruckus and I think other ‘would-be’ parking lot loiterers and hoodlums were possibly scared of us. I think I even heard a M63 gang member whisper to his comrade: ‘watch out for those toaster thugs—they’re ruthless.’ Just then a security guard rounded the bend. Were we some thugs wreaking havoc? Were we gangbangers out to get revenge? Were we drug addicts beating up a toaster to score some change to keep our habit going?

No, we were just two white whack-jobs with nothing better to do on a Thursday afternoon. But when the guard saw these two strange casually-dressed Caucasians get out our little dust pan and broom and clean up the mess we just made he turned around and went about his business. I think I heard him mutter, ‘stupid, bored white-folk.’

Just remember friends: Don’t ever take crap from your toaster again. You can have your toast and eat it too.

Go ahead, make my toast. Yippe-ca-yay mother Toaster.

And one more thing…wait for it….that toaster was…toast.

Mission Accomplished.

Yeah Toast!

Okay, so now I have my tan and am a size 0 (plus 6) so time for me to be an actress, right? Well, kind of. I signed up to be an extra. This is the easiest job in the world and yet you have to have ironclad dedication to actually get any work. There’s a hotline you can call everyday to see what gigs are available. Let’s just say it was a tad limiting. Here are some things I actually heard on the line:

“For an episode of According to Jim we need women in Sci-Fi costumes.” Yeah, left mine in storage.

“Hi Ladies. Today I am looking for very upscale women with designer clothes and luxury cars, not black, white, or red.” I left my Bentley in the shop.

“Hello there non-union women. I need a blond, size 4 or less, 5’8” or taller, gorgeous bombshell model types who will be riding bicycles in bikinis…” Oh, too bad I’m just not tall enough.

“Today I need women who can juggle.” Uh, no.

“We are looking for Hispanic looking women who look like they just came from Mexico, in fact you will be swimming in water from the border.” It was for my favorite show Weeds, but no can do.

“Hi Ladies. You must have the ability to de-bone and filet a fish…” Is this what they learn in acting school?

“Hi. We need a woman with lots of tattoos and lots of piercings…” Blast.

After wading through all these odd requests, they finally called me and I was booked for my first call to be background in a scene on the hit TV series “24.” Yep that’s right—just look for me in the November 24 movie: girl in the wool coat (even though it was shot in the 100-degree San Fernando Valley) standing behind the new president of the United States as she is sworn in at the inauguration.

Actually I was in the background with dozens of other extras. Extras are a strange lot. While I was sitting in the ‘extra tent’ awaiting instruction, some old lady with an air of Alzheimer’s about her came up to me insisting she had to do my hair. I think she was just another extra honing her sharp acting skills and she was playing the part of the ‘slightly insane bad hairdresser.’ First she started combing my hair. The she started teasing it. Now, bear in mind, I’d taken special care to straighten my naturally curly/frizzy hair that morning so teasing usually wasn’t a good thing at this point. Then just a minute into her work, without a word, she just up and left. She reappeared a few minutes later with a chair. She used this to place the comb down. Now that we had the important extra chair we needed more space so she asked the guy behind me to move. I said I could move, but she said, “No! You stay!” Wow. She was fierce. Then she proceeded to put my hair up into some kind of bun. I warned her that my hair was layered and that with one bit of breeze, pieces of hair would be flying everywhere making me look like a disheveled mess – not the coiffed politician I was today. Suddenly she just put it in a pony tail with a barrette I’d brought just for this very reason and walked away. I smell an Emmy.

As extras we really spent most of the day sitting around reading and eating (junk food from Craft Service) and making small talk. There was a thin, kind of cute younger guy next to me that I started talking to only to find out very, very soon that he too was insane. It went a little something like this:

“Hi. I’m Lisa. Where are you from?”

“Oh, everywhere. It’s a long story.”

“Oh, were your parents in the military?”

“No, my family was in a cult and we traveled a lot and I hated it and I have put it all behind me now and I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

After he continued to talk for twenty minutes about ‘what he didn’t want to talk about’, I tried to change the subject. “What do you want to do?”

“Well, I want to take documentaries and make them into science fiction fantasy kung-fu films.” He said matter-of-factly.

“Are you joking? I mean how do you propose to take a documentary about, oh, say the Holocaust or starving children in some underdeveloped country and make it a science-fiction film?”

“Well, I know that only smart people watch documentaries so this way I can get people who don’t usually watch these kinds of movies to watch and learn something at the same time.”

Of course. I tried to pretend I was reading and slowly get away from this genius so I turned to the guy next to me just as he was spitting his chewing tobacco into a cup. Nice. I guess when you are doing a job that has no requirements whatsoever you are going to encounter some pretty ‘interesting’ people. That was the gist of my short-lived (one day) career as an extra.

One day we decided to join a friend at a place Madonna has made famous worldwide. No, not her crotch – the Kabbalah Center. We thought it would be interesting to see what it was all about. And I’m always open for new experiences even if just to learn a little something more. Well, let’s just say I didn’t learn a thing and the service consisted of an hour of singing really loud in Hebrew (I think), clapping, and well that’s it.

We learned that like in orthodox temples, the men and women are separated so I was left to my own devices on the ladies side. But not for long. Soon the recruiters were on me like flies on a matzoh ball. I met Miriam, a beautiful girl who had been taking classes there for quite some time. She was super friendly, if not maniacal, and answered every question I asked with wide eyes, a huge grin, and an extremely enthusiastic: “That’s a really good question!” She spoke to me in a sincere, albeit brainwashed, sort of way. She tried to explain some things, but I was too distracted by her stepford beauty and culty staring into my soul. At a slight break in the festivities, I approached Mark across the aisle and asked how uncomfortable he was.

“On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d say an 11.”

And with that we left. Shalom friends.

Other LA-type activities we did all summer:

• We strolled around the Santa Monica shops on Montana and Third Streets, the bohemian boardwalk of Venice Beach, and the public tide-line sand of carbon Beach in Malibu, aka ‘Billionaires Beach’, walking by the homes of the likes of David Geffen, Courtney Cox, and dozens of other over-paid celebrities.
• We sat in the audience at the hilarious Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Twice. It happens that the CBS Studios are right around the block from Mark’s flat…so why not? Plus I realized I knew the director as I’d interned for him back in my early TV days at my fist gig – “Late Night with David Letterman” in New York City. He gave us a cool tour of all the studios and I even got to ‘touch’ the famous Price is Right wheel. “Come on Down!”
• We saw the an improv/sketch comedy show at the Groundlings and Second City LA.
• We hiked to the Hollywood sign. which I later read is a high security zone complete with cameras and recording devices to watch your every move in case you trespass anywhere near the nine precious, big white metal letters. Want to check out the sign yourself? You can here - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• We went out to various bars and restaurants around town – from the fairly cheap and casual Hollywood staples like Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, the Farmer’s Market, and Astroburger to swanky ‘hotspots like STK, Bar Marmont, and AOC Winebar.
• We watched the Chicago Cubs beat LA and had overpriced dogs and beer at Dodger Stadium.
• I got to cruise Sunset Boulevard in my friend, Neal’s, cute little VW convertible, with the top down and the music up, actually giving me the feeling of being a real ‘Angeleno.’
• We caught a show at the beautiful landmark the Hollywood Bowl.
• I took a couple rock climbing classes at REI Outdoor Store.
• I had a Pastrami Sandwich at one of LA’s oldest delis: Canter’s.
• We ate Sushi on Ventura Blvd where there are no less than 50 sushi joints.
• We strolled through Barney’s New York in Beverly Hills where I tried on one $2000 spiky high-heeled Italian shoe. I sold my car for that same amount. I wonder if they were priced per shoe and the pair was really $4000.
• We made the requisite ‘run for the border’ and took a day trip down to Tijuana.

And of course this is the center of the entertainment industry so I was bound to bump into some celebs, right? Well, sort of. Besides seeing Craig Ferguson and his guests (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and some other actress I long forgot), Cheap Trick doing Sgt Pepper’s at the Hollywood Bowl, and the cast of “24” in person, I also ‘bumped into’ such D-list, third-string, second-tier celebs as Daniel Baldwin, Terrence Howard (literally running on the treadmill in front of me), Tom Arnold (shopping at the Apple store), Bruce Jenner (at a Starbucks), ‘The Office’ big guy, Brian Baumgartner, and the guys of the hit British sketch comedy show “Little Britain” (if you don’t know it yet…you will).

After traveling all over the world and now working my way across America from New York to Chicago to Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Vegas, Palm Springs, and finally hitting the Pacific Ocean, there was just one place left for me to go: Hollywood, baby. Sure, I’d been there at least half a dozen times and never actually loved it, but my good friend, Mark, had moved out there to pen screenplays and his couch was just begging me to come sleep on it.

I learned there are some pros and cons to this odd world of schmoozing, cruising, and boozing:

• Pros: It’s always sunny. It’s always warm.  There’s always a kind of ‘hollywood’ buzz in the air. If you are not from any kind of city there is a lot to do -  museums, beaches, cafes, shopping, and ethnic ‘hoods.

• Cons: It’s always sunny. It’s always warm. In other words, if you like any kind of ‘weather’ it ain’t here. L.A. is not really a city per se in the grander sense of the word. Unlike New York, Chicago, London, Paris or Hong Kong, L.A. has no thriving city center nor does it have great public transportation. Unfortunately, this is a place where a prerequisite is a gas-guzzling, air-polluting motor vehicle. And, as the smog attests to, everyone drives everywhere. L.A.  is not a walkable city. In fact it is more like one big spread out suburb sprawling out across the land with a schlocky amalgamation of shopping plazas and mini malls chock a block with 7-11s, donut shops, nail salons and ubiquitous hamburger joints dotting each corner. I don’t find it a pretty city unless you have a lot of cash to purchase one of the amazing homes here or you catch a glimpse of the snow-capped mountain views the ‘day’ of the year that the smog lifts.

As I mentioned, LA is home to some strikingly beautiful, if not enormous, homes. You can find any architectural style you like: orange-stucco, red-tile roofed, bougainvillea covered Spanish-Mediterranean villas; the clean lines and right-angles of a Mid-Century Modern party pad; the lovely wood-shingled, low roof-lined California bungalow homes of the Craftsman movement with their exposed beams, natural wood and stone materials; or a gaudy, comically-huge gated estate in Beverly Hills complete with gardeners and housekeepers to be your friends (in case you are a wealthy shut-in popping Prozac and other modern meds on a daily basis). Millions of dollars are just spent on landscaping alone. Everyday it seems the population of the wealthy enclaves of Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Bel Air, and the Hollywood Hills doubles as Hispanic landscapers scurry about trimming, cutting, planting, blowing, and edging the perfectly manicured gardens and lawns complete with trickling fountains, winding stone paths and fragrant gardenias.

Besides the gaggles of gardeners, there is a class of people here loitering about I like to call the Daytimers: moms, nannies, mailmen, joggers, and what appears to be half the population of LA; folks sipping lattes at Starbucks, chatting into the air on their hands free devices, texting incessantly, and click-clacking away at their laptops. What do these people do for a living? Oh, yeah, I’m one of them now.

Los Angeles is definitely a unique place where life revolves around ‘the biz.’ If you don’t work in the entertainment industry, then you are probably a gardener to someone who does. There is no avoiding the in-your-face marketing blitz for movies and TV shows here: a 7-story high movie poster draped over an entire building, ‘smoking’ billboards for the James Franco/Seth Rogen summer release of ‘Pineapple Express‘, buses wrapped in ads for the new ‘90210′ and even planes flying overhead with banners telling us to watch the oh-so-boring reality show, ‘Tori and Dean.’

But since I was spending the summer in Hollywood, I figured I better act like it and live the LA lifestyle.
So besides running and working out nearly everyday to get that size zero body that everyone here covets, I had to immerse myself in all things LA.

This started with working up a sweat poolside with the ‘affected’ crowd. Mark’s apartment complex has a very swanky pool and spa area so might as well take advantage of it while I was here and pretend to live the ‘luxe’ life. Any given day here you can see a microcosm of LA life.

The men are pumped up, bronzed, glistening and mostly gay or…just cocky. The girls are all actress-wannabees: plasticky, stick-thin, big-boobed, tiny-waisted and always texting someone. I guess those are the ones who learned how to do rebus puzzles in 2nd Grade: C U L8R. One day I even saw a beautiful starlet with super long flowing perfectly curled platinum blonde Playboy-bunny locks wearing her kitten-heels while she was lying in the sun as if she was on a photo shoot. Except she…wasn’t. Ah, Hollywood.  It’s hard to not try to get in shape here…either that or constantly compare yourself to these androids and lose all self-confidence, self-esteem, self-respect and bury yourself in your million-dollar-mansion and hope the gardener finds you somewhat attractive.

Now that I am back in my homeland of majestic purple mountains, fruited plains, and good ol’ amber waves of grain, I am amidst my American brothers and sisters–sometimes loud, sometimes big, but almost always smiley and friendly. After more than one year on the road, I feel I have taken a very unscientific measure of foreigners’ views of Americans and America. Many statements have some truth to them—although, of course, they are all generalizations.

Here are some of the most common things I heard about us from foreigners.

1. Americans are very confident.
2. Americans are all rich.
3. Americans don’t know much about the rest of the world.
4. ‘I like Americans but I do not like American politics or foreign policy.’
5. How come every American traveler I meet tells me they don’t like George Bush? How did he become president…twice??”
6. I traveled to the United States and was pleasantly surprised at how friendly and welcoming they were (I honestly heard this at least ten different times).
7. You are thin for an American (this was really said to me in Madrid by a British guy).
8. You’re American, and you know how to drive a stick shift (standard transmission)??
9. You’re American…so you have a gun, right?
10. I don’t meet many Americans—they don’t travel as much as others.

This last one is a much discussed topic amongst travelers. Roughly 20-25% of Americans have their passports and those that do are more likely to be liberal-minded, left leaning individuals. But even though I do travel and think it is a great experience, education and investment for me personally, I do not feel the need to ‘wear my passport’ as a badge or look down on others who choose not to. I also know there are many reasons why some Americans do not or can not travel outside the country:

• The US is very big and one can spend a lifetime just seeing the fifty states inside its borders. North America has just about every climate and landscape known to man and a wide variety of culture, cuisine and lifestyles. A lifetime isn’t enough to see everything.
• Unlike European countries, the US is very far from most other countries making it very expensive to travel abroad. A New Yorker may go all the way to Florida on holiday while the same thing for a Brit may be to fly to the Costa del Sol of Spain—probably the same distance but because of the small size of European countries, crossing borders is just more common.
• And in relation to the above, since the distance is so great, the flights are therefore very expensive and many, many people in the US can not afford to travel abroad.
• The unfortunate lack of vacation time given by the majority employers in the US.

The United States is a vast nation. With a total land mass area (exclusive of waters) of 3,536,294 sq mi (9,158,960 km²) the U.S.A. is the world’s third largest country, following Russia and China. Stretching more than three thousand miles across with nearly fifty states and nearly 300 million people in between, this is one diverse land. Like all nations in the world some people are good and some bad. Some are the nicest you would ever meet and some are complete morons. One of my biggest pet peeves is generalizations.

In the beginning of my trip, I was slightly excited to be thought of as a ‘cool’ or ‘good’ American. People said I was ‘different’ because I was traveling and seeing the world and not just holed up in my country watching one of 300+ channels on my TV or driving my big, gas-guzzling SUV on some big highway somewhere (these are obviously more stereotypes). By the way, I sold the only car I’d ever owned, a 1989 Honda Prelude, before my trip began. I only drove about once a month and hope to not buy another one since I normally use public transport anyway. I was happy to also defend and explain to people that all Americans are not created equal and we are all different just like the rest of the world. But, I have to admit, as time went on I began to get sick and tired of trying to make sense of it all and either defending or renouncing other Americans. I grew weary of debunking the negative stereotypes that I really can’t do much about.

A few times I did encounter the stereotypical “ugly Americans” (as well as other English-speaking nationalities that shall remain nameless) during my travels giving us all a bad name, but I still tried to give them the benefit of the doubt because of the fact that they still made the decision to travel and see other parts of the world in the first place. But I also met and know wonderfully kind and open Americans. Just remember also that the Americans who are traveling abroad are there to open up to new experiences and engrossing themselves in new cultures, but by making comments about these very visitors to your countries that open-mindedness can quickly turn to defensiveness. After all I’ve seen and done I am still an American and I like myself and most of my American friends. I was proud to represent my country as I toured the world. I’m not proud of all Americans or everything my country does but who said it was all or nothing? Now shut up before I shoot you…and then sue you.