Australia Proves To Be Like Home In L.A.
When I leave Los Angeles, go to another country and particularly halfway around the world, I want to feel as if I’m someplace other than home.
Yet when I went Down Under to Sydney, I pretty much felt as if I never left L.A.
The weather was the same (very nice, I must say). The people were the same (very nice also). The main beach – Bondi Beach – was pretty much like Santa Monica.
By comparison, I found Sydney to be a smaller, more walkable and cleaner version of Los Angeles.
All of which is quite nice, of course. It’s just that in the week-plus I was there (twice within my month traveling in Oz) I never really felt as if I was away from home. Not while I was enjoying late afternoons and sunsets at the awesome Opera Bar by the Opera House – and by the way, we have no such bar in L.A. – not looking at Harbor Bridge, not in the food, not in the bars, not even in the accents of the people.
Heck, I even ran into a group of ladies (at Opera Bar) from Los Angeles and one had a daughter who was a USC Song Girl. I did not follow up on that great connection as I should have, by the way.
The one area where I did feel like I was someplace else was riding the ferries. I loved them.
Several times, I caught myself wishing we had them in Los Angeles. How great it would be to jump on a ferry and travel from here in Hermosa Beach to Santa Monica. Marina del Rey. Or heck, even just up to Manhattan Beach on occasion.
Now don’t get me wrong. I liked Sydney. I would like to go there again, in fact.
It’s just that I would have liked it more had it been a bit more foreign to me.
Cheers!
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