L.A. through the eyes of a bus rider

SINCE STUDYING French in high school, I’ve lost a lot of my ability to speak the language, but one thing I do remember is that the French have two different words for the verb to know: savoir and connaître. It’s a useful distinction that is lost in translation: Savoir refers to knowing a fact or knowing how to do something. Connaître refers to knowing a person or a city. Makes sense to me – knowing your multiplication tables is quite different from knowing a friend or knowing your hometown.

So I’ll say it in French because it hits much closer to my meaning: Je connais Los Angeles un peu meilleure grâce au l’autobus.

Yes, I know the City of Angels a little better thanks to the bus system. For my first three years of college, I didn’t have a car, so mooching off friends with wheels or hopping on L.A.’s public transportation system were my ways of getting around. I definitely got to know the city much better then than I have since I first brought my car here last summer.

Taking the bus forced me to learn the layout of the city because knowing the bus routes was key to not getting lost and not taking a long way home. When I’m driving and trusting my GPS to get me around town, the only part of L.A. I’ve gotten to know any better are the freeways.

Bussing around the city also meant more time walking around the city – from one stop to another, or just exploring for fun when there wasn’t the automatic tendency to walk straight to my parked car. Before last summer, I took the bus to internships in Hollywood and Santa Monica. I know those areas a lot better than I know Downtown, where I’ve driven to my current internship since September. You notice a lot more of what’s around you when you’re looking out a bus window: I had been driving to Downtown two days a week for seven months, and it wasn’t until last week that I took in my surroundings while at a red light and finally noticed that every one of those days I had been driving past a location from “(500) Days of Summer” and “Blade Runner”: the Bradbury Building.

I do still take the bus sometimes, when it has its advantages (taking the Big Blue Bus No. 3 to Santa Monica is a lot cheaper than paying for parking there). But I do wish I took it more – there’d be more opportunities to meet interesting people instead of sitting alone in my box on wheels, I’d see more of the city (watching the city fly by instead of eyes fixated on the road), and I’m sure I would connaîtrais Los Angeles a little more.

– Emily Rome

Photo: Riding the bus in Los Angeles almost always means riding a moving movie ad. Credit: Indianhilbilly / Wikimedia Commons

On the Radio

WHEN I return to my home state of Washington, one of the first things I do that makes me feel at home happens as soon as I get in the car of whichever family member braved the airport traffic: I turn the radio dial to 103.7. Also known to Seattleites as The Mountain (derived from the station’s call letters KMTT and the way all Washingtonians refer to Mount Rainer), 103.7 immediately tells me I’m home. I grew up listening to its blend of modern and classic rock, seeing its logo on beach balls tossed around by concert-goers at Pier 63, and expecting to hear the voice of host Marty Reimer over the car speakers every morning.

Thinking about how much listening to The Mountain defined my Tacoma and Seattle for me, I realize what may be missing from how I connect to my new home of Los Angeles. I don’t listen to the radio much here. I hardly listened to it at all before bringing my car to the city last summer. And even since then, when I’m driving, I tend to opt for a playlist on my iPod or Jack FM far more than tuning in to The Sound or KROQ. When I’m not in the car, it’s always my iTunes library or Pandora.

I feel that I might find myself connecting to the city more if I chose to listen to Los Angeles radio more often. Part of this would be about hearing the music that defines an L.A. radio station and getting to know the hosts. But it’s more than that: There’s something about listening to the radio that’s different from listening to a CD or an mp3 player – even if it’s the same song – it’s different when you know that a few thousand people are also listening to that same song at that same moment. Even if it’s indirect and somewhat abstract, I feel a little more connected to my fellow Los Angelenos when I know that I’m not the only one alone in my box on wheels, listening to it, and singing along.

– Emily Rome

Photo: I don't even own a radio aside from my car's – an antique like this one or otherwise. Then again, that's no excuse as long as all the radio stations keep up their active websites. Credit: David / Wikimedia Commons

Hollywood and Highland: Footage from the Fifities

THIS WAS up on Vintage L.A.'s Facebook page yesterday and made me very jealous. Boy did Hollywood look like a place you might want to visit because it had character and a certain elegance. The palm trees are pretty lovely too.

-- L.G.

Wow I'm Lost

GETTING LOST  is something that comes very naturally to me. I like to call it “directionally challenged.” When I came to LA, the first gift I got from my parents was a navigations system. They knew that for a normal person, LA could be difficult to get around, but for me, it is an absolute nightmare; I’m talking Boogey Man kind of nightmare.


The thing with navigation systems is that they don’t take into account how fast an exit comes up or how quickly a lane may change, and neither do the freeway signs. So, I was cruising down the 10 West in the carpool lane on my way back into the city when all of a sudden, without any form of warning, a little tiny white sign popped up to my left that says “Carpool Lane 101. “What? Since when?” I shouted as I was forced to veer off the freeway.


Panic immediately ensued. Why was it taking me this way? I needed to stay on the 10 West! I felt like the designers of the LA freeways were playing a practical joke on me.


I followed the lane like a small fish trapped in a narrow river with current that was too strong to fight. I passed next to the big freeways. I knew that’s where I needed to be, yet I couldn’t get there. I blindly followed the lane, as it took me through round-abouts that cut next to rusty fences along one-way streets, unsure of where this current was going to spit me out. Finally, I was launched into a sea of red break lights. “Oh,” I thought, “so this is the 101.” As I looked up, I felt like a helpless animal at the bottom of the forest floor. Giant palm trees and skyscrapers patch-worked against the sky. I was lost in the LA jungle.


As I inched forward, grey skyscrapers towered overhead, walls covered in ivy enclosed around me and the smog was as thick as the fog in the rainforest. Palm trees that sprouted between the buildings gently swayed in the light smog infused breeze and the sherbet sunset glared through its haze. It was eerily quite, no horns or people shouting. The cars around me slowly moved forward all together, aimlessly as if they were in a magical trance. But I knew exactly how they felt, for I suddenly became calm, as if I too was in a trance. All I could do was quietly inch forward like the rest of them. I felt frozen like an animal does right before it gets eaten. That’s what LA does right? Chews you up and spits you out.


BEEEP! It was the sound of my navigation system that finally broke me from the trance. It was signaling for me to get off at the next exit. Although I was scared that some larger animal higher up on the food chain was going to pounce on me as I broke from the rest of the pack, I knew I had to take my chances. The off-ramp took form in front of me and I darted out from the lane and took off out of the jungle.


Getting lost is a scary thing. But being lost in LA is even scarier. Its survival of the fittest out there.

Photo Credit: Google Images http://wallpapercavern.com/wallpapers/concrete_jungle_los_angeles_california_800x600-800x600.jp