El Lay - it may be a clusterfuck but its our clusterfuck

[Taverner]

Flew in last night. I have to say, El Lay wins the award for making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Seen LA River lately? It's turned into a real, honest to god river. Ducks and swans, plants, no longer a concrete eyesore. And downtown? Wow - it gets better every time I come down here.

Driving it, well that's a different story. Trying to get back downtown from Alhambra was a pain because "the" 110 was hard to find from "the" 10. I had to circle around "the" 5 and "the" 101 several times.

[KitchenWitch]

1. Which part of the 110?

The really really old part is scary, with the 5 mph exits...

[Taverner]

2. I dunno - that clusterfuck where 101, 5, 110, and sometimes 610 meet

It was like a twisting mass of concrete and steel. With palm trees.

[KitchenWitch]

3. You mean the 710? Instead of the 610?

:)

And coming from Alhambra, you would have been on the scary part of the 110.

[driver8]

5. That sucks where the 5 goes to one lane before you go into the tunnel.

I hate the 5.

[KitchenWitch]

6. The 5 is evil manifest.

[kwassa]

4. that's known as the "floor level" that box of freeways around downtown

lived there 17 years.

[Kutjara]

7. If I didn't have my satnav, I'd have no idea how to get around here in LA.

I'm worried that, if the machine ever dies, I'll never be able to find my house again. I even use it for stuff that I've been to a hundred times, just in case I accidentally turn onto a freeway and am whisked away to oblivion before I know what's happening.

[Shakespeare]

8. I heart LA.

For all its problems (and what ginormous city doesn't have problems?) it's a beautiful, wild, hilarious, exciting place.

[Taverner]

9. Yes it is

I love visiting, because my home will always be SF

But yes, you can find ANYTHING in El Lay. You want a theater that shows only highbrow Latin movies? There's one right next to my hotel. You want to find a restaraunt that serves Tibetan-German Fusion? I'm sure you can find one in North Hollywood.

SF may have lots of cool things assembled in one small place, but El Lay, for all of its pitfalls, truly has everything. Except an NFL football team.