My Declaration of Love for LA.

Ah this, wonderful, open, hated, small, hot, trashy, awesome, claustrophobic, smelly, huge, often spat-upon, glamorous city. This miracle of a monstrosity of duality. This riddle that is Los Angeles.

How I hated you at first - I have to admit. When I came here for the first time in 2009 together with my good friend V and our traveling P.I.C.'s A & J I thought this was the suburb to hell on earth (which for your information is Las Vegas). I hated the fact that the differences between people were so clear, that you had, not two-three classes in society, but 6 or 7. I hated the fact that it was dirty, smelly, gritty, unsafe and completely segregated - because let's be honest it is.

It was the first time in my life where I had actually seen someone using hard drugs, and I saw it in the streets. Someone was shooting up, right in front of me, in the middle of the day. Me and my good friend walked down one block headed for the fashion district, we quickly regretted it and turned a corner up the next block. And that's where my disgust for the city really took speed. All of a sudden we're in glamor-ville, with big luxury brand name stores and the only litter we see are the homogenous hordes of rich white people and tourists.

It became so evident, the segregation and separation and my stomach turned. I wanted to, metaphorically speaking, burn every dollar, because money or the lack of it, was the source of all this evil. People lived, not in different parts of the city, but in different worlds. NO ONE paid any heed to the poor, to the abusers and users, to the street people, bums or the whores. The regard in people's eyes was full of contempt and disgust, the humanity was gone. I swore I would never set my foot here again.

Look where I'm at a couple of years later, huh? Fighting to stay here, with you, lovely Los Angeles. I see you as my home and have done for quite some time. It surprised me the other day when driving home from a friend of mine's how extremely familiarized I was with intersections, shortcuts, lights, streets and sights. It has never really struck me, that hard, before. But it was love.

Yes, I still hate the fact that it's segregated, that we have everyone from the dirt poor to the filthy rich. Yes, I still hate the air smelling of exhaust fumes - and your hair smelling the same - after a day out and about. And yes, I still hate the shallowness. But it's all part of it. It's an unperfect world, and Los Angeles, you with your glimmering tinsel surface and plastic personality you are unperfect too. You're the perfect example of a city who's grown way too fast for it's own good. You're not ripe, you're not mature - you're like the cities' version of a hormonal teenager with limbs going and growing in every single direction, that you for obvious reasons can't control.

I look at you, Los Angeles, not with pity but with humility in my eyes. I look at you, Los Angeles, knowing that I call you my home because of the way I've been welcomed by you. I look at you Los Angeles and have a hard time picturing myself anywhere else in the world at this point in time.

Once your acne's gone and you become a responsible, industrious, ambitious and hopeful mid-20s something, Los Angeles, you'll be perfect.

Don't be a stranger! Loves