The Complete Religious Nut's guide...

... to travel in Los Angeles & Environs.

a) Drive all the way to Hollywood / Santa Monica Pier / Ocean Highway on a Friday evening.
Spending three hours driving 50 miles will teach you the value of staying home watching TV evangelists, instead. And if you do end up going and getting stuck in the traffic, spend your time with your eyes closed in prayer, and The Lord might let you move ahead an inch or two. If you sneak peeks at the Pacific Ocean fringing the highway, no matter how big and gloriously blue it is, you will surely suffer The Lord's wrath - you will not have time to stop at the beach when you get there. (Yes, this was my fate. Yes, the Pacific is BIG and gloriously, gloriously blue.)

b) In fact, you should stay put in your hotel / home / whereever you are staying.
Do not set foot anywhere near Universal Studios, Sea World or any of the so-called 'tourist attractions' which seek to mire you in inane worldly pleasures and make you forget your true purpose in the world: to suffer in the name of The Lord.

c) Drive with less than two people in a car.
L.A. has a carpool lane for vehicles with two or more people in them. The other lanes have, on average, six times as much traffic and will add at least 20 minutes to your hour's journey. A free chance to practice avoiding the Sin of Wrath! Yippee!

d) DO NOT visit Las Vegas.
The city of sin and debauchery will mesmerise your senses and as everyone knows, that is surely a bridge to depravity built by the devil himself. This is such an important point that several sub points are necessary to completely address the issue:

(i) DO NOT visit any of the themed casinos.
These monuments to greed are extravagant, ostentatious and opulent beyond your wildest dreams. The Venetian, for example, recreates the Grand Canal indoors- complete with fake blue skies and cute little bridges over the canal and gondoliers singing O Sole Mio at every turn. Aladdin's indoor landscape in that of a desert - mud houses (sinful little designer botiques in disguise) line the fake-sun drenched streets. Ceasar's Palace reaches new depths of vulgarity with its gigantic fountains and Roman sculptures and ornate marble carvings. These monstrosities are obviously financed by the mob (actually, this is true). Honest people must not be enticed into supporting gangsters.

(ii) DO NOT eat at any of the brunch buffets
The road to the Sin of Glottony beckons as cheap brunch buffets financed by the depraved gambling dens come on offer during the day. All the way from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., guard against the temptation of sneaking into one of these feasts which are truly lavish beyond belief. Most of them offer free flow of champagne - imagine!

(iii) DO NOT play Blackjack
If you must go to Vegas, and if you must gamble, at least do The Lord the courtesy of losing money. Play the slot machines, gamble big money on the craps tables - or better still, play the games your hotel offers in the restaurants and in your rooms... you know, the numbers games with impossible odds. Lose some money, learn a lesson, and make the people who didn't succumb to the temptation to have fun, look good. Stay clear of the Blackjack machines, where you might actually win something. (Funny story: Saurabh put in a $10 note, intending to play only $1 and get change for the rest. Then he accidentally pressed the button that says 'Place Max Bet'. All of his money was bet on that particular hand! Well, the incredible moron actually won, and made $10 from that blasted machine.)


Disclaimer: All opinions - including ones about religion, and, specifically, 'Complete Religious Nuts' - expressed on this blog are all my own, and I make no apology for them. HA.

All at once

Oi, good news first. Sold a couple of stories, am about $100 richer. Also, novel's almost done and so is planning for a multi-chapter HP fic. :D

So exams are done and I'm in LA for a week, staying with the boyfriend's sister and doing touristy things like squealing at the sight of the 'Hollywood' sign on the hills while we were driving to their house from the airport - embarrasing, because my sorry eyesight played tricks on me: the sign actually read 'Rose Hills'. LA is wonderfully sunny and warm... lovely, after weeks of freezing weather, when I couldn't step out of my apartment without being bundled up in mufflers and coats and whatnot, resembling a multicoloured ball more than anything else.

On the agenda for this trip: going to see the real Hollywood sign, touring Universal Studios, perhaps a stop at Disneyland (boyfriend's sister's husband used to work for Disney and can probably get us in for cheap, too!) , and a weekend in Vegas. You should now imagine me rubbing me hands in gleeeeeeee.

But all is not well in my head.

1. There's this christmas party I will be going to with the boyfriend. It's going to be full of proper grown-ups talking about proper grown-up things and behaving in general grownuppy ways. I'm freaking out.

2. The boyfriend's sister has just given us our wedding present. Never mind that the event itself is like 5 months away (YIKES). True, it makes sense to give it to is when we're here and not in India, when we'll have loads of luggage to lug back, but... you know.

3. The present is this humungous set of kitchen stuff. Pots and pans and silverware and knives and that sort of thing. What happened to the days when I used to get earrings and books and wonderful silk scarves (:D NMKie's bye-bye gift, thanks Divya)?

I'm comtemplating getting a jazzy new hair colour to compensate for all this sudden growing up. Please vote on:
(a) Blue highlights
(b) Black and white bands (Indira Gandhi style)
(c) Orange