to become a tourist

May 24, 2025

Given the subpar nature of LA public transit, I'd never really been on the local buses and never really had a reason to. Yesterday, I made the spontaneous decision to go to DTLA on public transit; it was surprisingly less complicated than I'd made it out to be in my mind. Just one bus transfer at a station, then off to LA I went.

It felt like I was solo traveling again. Who knew it would be possible to be a tourist in your own city? Perhaps Los Angeles never really was my city, or I never spent enough time with it alone to adopt it as my city. I loved Prague and Vienna because of the European sensibilities in architecture, but I never thought I'd enjoy observing how the sun glitters off towering skyscrapers that casted proud shadows across the streets.

Maybe it was wrong of me to declare that LA public transit is "shit" if I'd never really bothered to take it. It's definitely not great compared to Europe, but honestly, going to DTLA for $1.75 isn't the worst.

Some updates:

• spent this week resting. it was incredibly necessary and even though i'm still not 100% satisfied with my brain function, it's a lot better than last week.
• i have an urge to apply to a Fulbright in Hungary. now, i think 1. the Fulbright might not be around by the time i finish applying, and 2. that even if the Fulbright remains, i probably won't get it, and 3. if i were to get it, i'd be a cultural representative between two, uh, totalitarian countries. somehow that makes the job...more appealing? because the work that i do is musicology-related. am i taking the biggest risk ever?
• got cheap rush tickets (this is why i went to LA yesterday) to watch the the LA Phil play with Jean-Yves Thibaudet in Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F, and Also Sprach Zarathustra. it was so good!! i wasn't all that familiar with also sprach (besides, y'know, the first minute), but even then, i wasn't aware of the low bass rumble before the entry of the first melody. i thought it was a percussion instrument; it was a double bass tremolo.
• started reading The Book of Delights!