USA – Day 01 – Hollywood

Here we are!! We’re off to the Migus (Americans in Korean)!!! Alright, to be completely honest, we’re a bit anxious. Maybe not anxious, but it doesn’t feel like it used to. It’s been a long time we haven’t been traveling. Quickly though, everything becomes familiar once again and we’re excited to leave for other adventures. We’re just sad to say goodbye to António. Côme will tell us several times today “I miss him already…”

Going through the check in and custom processes at the airport is a breeze. As soon as the crew and custom officers sees us, they make us go through everything in priority (one of the rare perks of walking with crutches). The flight itself is long though (10h45), our longest flight yet and we can only choose between 6 Korean movies… So we play Uno, try to sleep and Côme watches a couple of cartoons on the tablet. When we land, it’s 7 am on the very same day. That’s six and a half hours earlier than when we departed. We travelled through time!!! 😁 That 24h time zone in the Pacific is so strange!! We end up having a 41 hour day and our phones order the pictures we’ve taken in the afternoon in L.A. before the ones we’ve taken in the morning in Seoul. That’s just bonkers!!

So here we are!! We’re in L.A.!! We’re in ‘Merica!! And it’s quite obvious right away. Everything is more… “loose”. Even the custom officer is chilled and start to chit chat and joke with us… It’s a stark constrast with Korea. But is also comes as a shock. Everything seems more dirty here and the people are… let’s say surprising. Alright, actually they just look scary!! In the subway they look either weird or completely high on something. Like cloud nine high… We have three subways to take and with each subway it’s getting worse. By the third one, we’re even wondering whether we’re on drugs too…

There aren’t that many people on the train. We’re in L.A., everybody owns a car. So we’re about 30 (max) in each car, but on those 30, there must be about 20 complete nuts!!! Doo is sorry not to be able to take pictures with his eyes because here, just with one traincar, you can create an entire out of this world portrait exhibit… There’s about 5 of them who are just talking to themselves (and no, they did not wear any blutooth earpiece), 1 was even having an intense conversation with the door. There’s 1 who’s bursting out laughter every 10 seconds. 1 who is dancing and moonwalking on his own. 2 homeless people who are just crashed on a bench and 1 just sleeping flat on the floor covered with a white sheet. “Oh look! A stiff!!” says Doo who’s trying to eleviate the heavy atmosphere – “He might just be so…” answers an anxious Julia – “Come on sweety! They wouldn’t have let a dead person just like that on the subway floor…” – “He hasn’t moved an inch since we’ve got on the train… it’s been 10 minutes…” – “Oh yeah! Look! He’s moving a toe…”. And the 10 other nutties are just looking like they’re far far far away from our galaxy… Côme doesn’t feel comfortable at all. In between the filth and people’s look he tells us: “I don’t like the United States at all… I’d like to go back to Korea…” – “Don’t worry Côme, you just got to get used to it. They are nice people you know. You don’t have to be worried. We’re in a country where people are just free to be who they really want to be, so they’re just… different.”…

Then, we finally reach our neighborhood: Hollywood. But it actually feels like skid row. Around our motel there are liquor stores, smoke shops, trash and zombies everywhere. The motel tenant tells us our room is not ready yet (it’s 11 o’clock and check-in is supposed to be at 2 pm) but we tell her that it’s 4 o’clock in the morning for us and that we would really appreciate it if we could rest for a while. So she kindly tells the maid to clean our room first and in the meantime she makes us wait in another room. We thank her obviously, but when we enter the room, we regretfully notice that it matches the neighborhood. There’s an old carpet on the floor, covered by stains and the room seems ultra dirty even though it’s ready to take clients in… “How much did we pay for the room by the way?” – “About 100€ per night…” – “Holly sh…t!!”.

While waiting, we turn on the news: single people are increasing in L.A., homeless people too, a snowstorm is forecast in two days (even though it’s sunny outside and 13°C now). “That’s just great!!” It’s noon when we finally get into our room. It’s actually quite nice (compared to the other): wooden floor and everything is quite clean. So we’re actually glad. We go straight to bed and set the alarm clock for 3 pm.

Waking up is tough. But we force ourselves to do so to try to get into the proper rhythm. Côme is grumpy and does not want to get out of bed but we force him out. We head out to eat a burger and walk on Hollywood boulevard. Groin comes with us. And there, we’re quite surprised (shocked is the more accurate term). Everything is dirty, there are homeless people everywhere (a lot of them in tents on the sidewalk). It smells weed every 10 metres or so (it’s legal here now). A lot of shops seem abandonned and when we arrive at the “walk of fame”, we sure see stars on the floor but a lot of them are filthy and we don’t see much interest in being here. We will hesitate but we will continue on and fortunately, a few blocks later, we will get to a part that’s worth seeing and we will compare our hands and feet to some of the most famous stars. Doo is actually quite happy to have bigger hands than the Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, Georges Clooney and Johnny Depp… 😁

Here again, the neighborhood is filled with… excentric people. A young woman (who seemed to be perfectly fine) walks by us and urges us to love Jesus. A man in a nice 3 piece tuxedo invites us to watch a “free movie” (read scientology propaganda). A jolly fellow is walking his pet goose (Julia says it’s a duck) and let people pet it. A woman dressed as catwoman greets us and pet an uneasy Côme. A man on a plastic box is just talking nonesense about listening to the Word of God while a passerby tells him to just “Shut up!!”. People are wearing all kinds of clothes, some looking quite stylish while others are looking just dreadful. Honestly, if we were then told we were actually on a movie set shooting a movie, we wouldn’t have had any difficutly believing it. The scenes are just unreal… Doo has no trouble blending in with Groin on his hand.

This whole day was rather unexpected… We’re looking forward to seeing what America has in store for us…

Today, Côme:
Did not understand: why people left their handprint and footprint on the ground.
Learnt: that people could live with blankets on the floor.
Loved: the landing.

Julia:
Did not understand: who were the two guys in front of our motel room door in the evening (“One was a dealer, the other a customer” said Doo. But they were really ambarrassed to see us arrive and very politely excused themselves)
Learnt: that they was immense poverty in a city with such wealth.
Loved: to have been able to see the Hollywood sign from the plane.

Doo:
Did not understand: why the stars on the floor were not cared for.
Learnt: that in Los Angeles, to be “uncommon” is common and to be “common” is quite uncommon.
Loved: being in the States!!! In L.A. baby!!!!

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