So written in retrospect it’s September 15 just 6 days from suddenly booking my flight and all accommodation on the Internet all through last Friday night…its finally my day of departure from Sydney to Greece.

I live close to Sydney International Airport so figure that it won’t take long. I still allow nearly 2.5 hours. It takes nearly 1.5 hours to get just a 15 mins drive.

I forgot that Sydney’s traffic congestion is now worse than New York City. Also that the City of Sydney is currently ‘making improvements’ to traffic flow around the airport. This always means there will be hellish delays before things improve. We’ve been a city in WIP (work in progress) mode for 30 years and we are still not built. Lol!

Anyway here’s me having been thinking a lot about what it would be like to live in L.A. a place which is the scene of the second book of my novel series (to be released!).

So I’ve had this fascination with Los Angeles, and everything Southern Californian or SouCal as it’s dubbed.

My Indian taxi driver in Sydney is from L.A., in fact, born and bred there. He went to Los Angeles High which is the fairly upmarket high school where Beverly Hills 90210 was filmed! Small world.

He told me lots about the city and how it has evolved. He said it is incredibly fake, far more superficial than Sydney. People only care about how much you are worth and your status. He said it starts at school. He said the city had gotten worse in this regard and there was no way back. He said ‘Sydney people look you in the eye’. Very interesting to hear him talk.

Also, he said that it was a very random, dangerous city. He had witnessed the best buddy gunned down (killed) for no reason (he thinks) when they are out in L.A. one night when he lived there. So he lived through the crazy 80’s and 90’s being about my age I would think.

We also spoke about the meaning of life, of grieving for parents. Very D & M but yet not sad at all.

Well, after all the traffic guess what my tax bill was – $78 dollars. There is a mad rush to get through airport queues since so many people flying out today from Sydney International. I don’t think the horrific traffic helped. Then no time to even sign my bag tags!

To speed the process up customer agents rushed us to premature advanced scanning of passports and bags which of course played up, causing us to put our hands up like dumb school kids in a classroom. the

Then sitting in the area near the gate for embarking, observed Sydney Airport is still being built!!

2016 vacation – Greece, Greek Islands & Tokyo – photos and posts to come very soon!