Southern California

I was sad to leave the quaint city of Sacramento ("Old Sac" pictured to the left). I certainly see the appeal of living there. It lacked the hustle and bustle of the next city on my list. I will note here that the biggest drawback of California is that everything is so expensive, especially the food and the associated tax.

I flew into LAX and had the only flight on this trip that didn't have some sort of problem. After figuring out that my flight's luggage was coming up on a different carousel in the baggage claim than advertised, I waited for a shuttle to Long Beach. I eventually got on one with a frantic astrophysicist and had the sheer pleasure of sitting in the front passenger seat after realizing my undergraduate research advisor was sitting in the back.

I didn't see too much of Long Beach. The American Astronomical Society meeting took up most of the week. I did walk around the vicinity of the conference however. It was very commercial, but extremely pretty and well-kept. I was impressed, but then again, it was the area surrounding their huge convention center.

My stay in Long Beach included seeing a lot of palm trees and boats, walking in uncomfortable shoes to a lighthouse, eating far too much restaurant food, and sticking my feet in the bitterly cold Pacific Ocean (on a foggy morning).

On Thursday, a mid-afternoon trek to Los Angeles was in order. During this little trip, I was reminded how this area inspires people by seeing references made in songs that I listen to frequently. Coming from the girl that studied in Aix-en-Provence, France because it's in a song by The Decemberists, this shouldn't be surprising. The first reference I noted was on the ride to and from L.A. Both drivers took the 405, yes, they really do refer to it as THE 405. They do that for all of their highways. "405" is the title of songs by both Death Cab for Cutie and Eve 6. That was only the beginning. After my friends and I checked into the hotel there, we found a bus to get us up to Santa Monica (Everclear) via the Pacific Coast Highway (as referenced in Don Henley's "Boys of Summer", which was covered by The Ataris at the very least), which is also known as California One (The Decemberists). Aside from all of that, we walked around Santa Monica's pier, shopping district, and beach. A friend of mine that lives out there met up with us and showed us a little bit of the town.

Overall, it was a great experience. Naturally, the fact that my trip to California cost me next to nothing makes it even better.

I did have some fun flights home, too. The first one went into a 40-minute holding pattern while Chicago's O'Hare had an "emergency" that I never found out what it really was. People in the airport were told it was because of the snow, but no one seemed to believe it. Curious. After that, it was back to Allentown on another plane that didn't have potable water. I can't help but wonder if it was the same plane as on the way out. On both legs of the journey I had the whole row of seats to myself and some jerk decided to take that joy away from me by sitting in the aisle seats. Don't they know that I intentionally picked those seats because there was no one else in the row? As payback, I blocked their view of the window. It was cloudy, anyway.