Lalaland

24 hours in the city

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, yogis and yoginis, mamas and papas, hookers and pimps, Francky has landed in Hollywood. I arrived ahead of time yesterday at 4.50PM into LAX. Simple little thing that I am, I thought this would give me more time to get my luggage and rush to the little boys' tree before I met my friend at arrivals. Simple little thing I am...

I had not quite taken into account the master plan of the immigration services... After waiting roughly 20 minutes in line with a lot of Asians (flights from Seoul, KL and Singapore had just flown in) and a huge huge huge lot of Mexicans (it looked as if the population of western Mexico had just marched together as one man onto LAX at 5PM sharp), my turn came up to talk to the nice immigration officer. Now, I had had some issues in the past, so I had taken no chances this time: I had gotten myself a brand new passport with a brand new picture the week before, I had provided all my accommodation details, down to the room number to the airline, and I had even shaved, in order not to look too Latin/eastern/hairy/suspicious to the immigration officers. Well, that certainly did not suffice, as the officer checked my (empty and brand new) passport (which I had forgotten to sign until my turn was about to come up in the queue) over and over and over again, trying to match some stuff that came up on his screen. After clarifying that I had indeed lived in 4 different countries in the last 5 years and was not a yoga instructor who had just arrived in business class from Singapore on a French passport to attend a yoga retreat at a local spa, we realised there was a problem. He found one (I am not sure to this moment what the problem was), and I knew I had one (when he did not return my passport and asked me to take three steps back and wait for an other officer).

And there I go in an empty booth with the new officer, who looks nice but bigger, stronger, tougher and more armed than the first one. And there we go again... Where do I come from? (last city? where have I been in the last 3 weeks? last year? last 5 years?) What do I do? (my real job that I left or my dream job that does not look good on an immigration form?) What am I here for? What is a yoga retreat? Why do I practice yoga? Why do I come for a retreat here? Do I have proof of my attending the retreat? ...

Let's say it lasted long enough for the luggage of my flight to stop turning on the carousel, and for my bladder to be near the point of explosion. He then typed what seemed to be a long, long, very long, really very long sentence on his computer, and let me go. To be honest, I was dying to ask what had triggered this special attention to my little insignificant and imperfect person, but I thought I should not tempt the Universe, and just ran to my luggage and the bathroom, to empty my bladder, which had now reached the size of a small watermelon.

12 minutes of peeing later, I stepped out of the washroom to find my good old friend Nik waiting for me. We left for Studio City, had a quick dinner (Greek salad the size of a roof garden, 5.99, not bad but waste of food).

After 7 hours of sleep made possible by a double ration of Melatonin, I woke up - tired - and we started the day with a lovely breakfast at The Good Earth in Studio City (omelet tortilla the size of my living room, 7.99, not bad but a real waste of food - come on people, cut down on the portion sizes...).

Nik then drove me over to Venice Beach for a lovely walk in the sea, after which I checked into my hotel, which is A-MA-ZING!! I was upgraded to a kick-a$$ suite and there is a huge amazing roof top on the 4th floor, overlooking the beach. I am writing from there now, getting a nice sun burn on my caucasian's shoulders.

That's all for today, more stories tomorrow after the Teacher Intensive starts (6.30 AM, sharp).

Bye bye from Lalaland!

Imperfect Yogi