BenPaddon.co.uk

Since moving to the US my lifestyle has changed noticeably. My diet hasn’t changed quite so much but I haven’t done quite as much walking as I used to. It’s not helped by a large number of factors - for one, LA is a bloody huge place, and while I was quite able to walk from one end of Luton to the other (a two-hour walk, incidentally) I doubt I could walk from one end of Los Angeles to the other without a) falling over from exhaustion, b) falling over from dehydration, or c) falling over from exhaustion and dehydration. It also doesn’t help that a lot of the streets and roads in this area - Sunland - don’t have a sidewalk. This is not a city that was built for pedestrians. The heat is the worst part. It’s so warm here at the moment and I find it exceptionally hard to focus either my mind or body.

So yesterday I made a decision - I was going to walk. Just for the Hell of it. I decided I was going to talk for half an hour in any direction, and then walk back. That way I’ve spent an hour just walking, which is bound to be good for me. That’s pretty much what I was doing while I was working at NTL - walking for roughly an hour a day to get to work, and then getting a lift home. It kept me in a reasonably fit condition, and I see no reason why it would fail me here. So I put on some Factor 70 Sunblock, clipped my cell phone and my iPod to my belt and, to the lifting tunes of the Feeling, went out walking.

The last time I did this, I didn’t do it with exercise in mind. I also didn’t have my iPod. I just went out because I wanted to get out of the house, and I ended up walking for about five or ten minutes before I turned around and came back. I felt out of my element. This time, though, I was resolved. It was exercise, and it was enjoyable, and I was so wrapped up in the experience that I didn’t even notice I’d passed where I got to the last time until I’d passed another “landmark” further down the road. The landmark in question? A Burger King.

It’s a bit sad, and perhaps a little telling of American cuisine, that the only buildings I could really use as landmarks were fast food restaurants. I must’ve passed half a dozen of the things. And I did, in fact. I can tell you what they were, too. In order: El Pollo Loco, Taco Bell, McDonalds, Burger King, Jack In The Box, Subway, KFC. Those are, at the very least, the recognisable franchises. I know I passed at least two others but I can’t for the life of me remember their names. I also passed a Starbucks, but you can’t really call that fast food. They’re just as common as fast food joints, though.

I walked past all of these buildings and more. I walked past a park and a resturant, Cocos, into a retail park. That journey took me about twenty or so minutes, and I decided that was probably far enough. Any further than that and I wasn’t sure I’d know where I was, so I went into Ralphs, the supermarket at the far end of the retail park, and walked around there for a while before I bought a bottle of Fruit Punch Gatorade and headed out again.

I was warm, and I’d bought the drink because I needed it. But I couldn’t actually open the bottle. It refused to budge. It seemed as though the lid had been fused to the bottle, perhaps due to the outrageously high temperatures it became exposed to the moment I set foot outside. I used my hands, my arms, my teeth, but I couldn’t get it open. So I popped into Jack In The Box on the way home and picked up an Oreo Milkshake.

It seems I can’t go into a place like this without someone noticing my British accent and proceeding to talk to me. Not that I have a problem with it - I like meeting new people and hearing what they have to say. I spoke to three American teenagers who decided they were all called Bob. When they asked me my name, I told them I was Dwayne. Then I told them I was Not Dwayne. Fun times. I also spoke to an elderly American couple who had not long ago come back from a trip to Ireland, and a tanned, scruffy-looking chap from Glasgow who has lived in the US for 27 years. He seemed happy just to be talking to someone who wasn’t American, and he loved to laugh. He did. He’d laugh at anything either of us said, and that, to me, made him great company. Up until the point when he mentioned he’d been arrested a couple of times for having “a good time”. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, but he laughed it off so I laughed with him.

You really do meet the strangest people in this city.

My shoes didn’t enjoy the walk, though. They’re cheap - I’d bought them for £12 from Shoe Zone in Luton before my trip to the US Embassy in London, purely so I wasn’t wearing shoes that set off every metal detector in the place (and also at the airport a week later). They didn’t do much to protect my feet from the elements, and I think the soles may have begun to melt. Clearly, they weren’t designed with long treks in mind. I did consider, briefly, popping into the shoe store in the Retail Park and buying another pair, but I only had a $20 bill on me, and I’d invariably end up buying shoes of the same or lower quality as the ones I was wearing. Not ideal.

I got home maybe twenty minutes ago with my milkshake in hand. It wasn’t quite finished but because it was taking its sweet time getting up the straw I decided to dump it in the bin and go for something colder and wetter, and that would presumably put up less resistance to the prospect of passing through my system. I put the Gatorade in the fridge - that can be tackled another time - and pulled out a nice cold Pepsi.

Pepsi is not inherently nice, it must be pointed out. Colas generally aren’t, but I drink ‘em anyway. Who can say why? It might be the caffeine. I wouldn’t call myself a caffeine junkie, because I don’t need caffeine to wake me up in the morning and I can usually get through an entire day without needing a caffeine-based drink. Nevertheless, it would be unwise to rule it out as a good reason.

Since I got back in through the door, I’ve felt a lot more focused, both mentally and physically. I know where everything is. Thoughts and words are coming to me a lot quicker than they have done over the past week or so. It’s invigorating, and it’s a great sensation. I may see if I can do that walk or a similar walk on a daily basis, or at least as often as I can. Now, though, I’m going to relax for a couple of hours, and then tackle a game of Wii Sports Tennis.