My Valentine’s Day in Los Angeles

One highlight of Valentine’s Day in Los Angeles was speed dating along Metro’s Red Line. I’m not much for speed dating but couldn’t resist experiencing our transit system’s attempt at playing cupid. Kudos to Metro for its innovative thinking around the role of transit in a city. While the event itself may not have resulted in any love connections (or did it?), it did foster an amazingly friendly vibe on each train. It was so much fun entering and exiting each car as new riders were greeted with cheers. Seriously, when was the last time someone cheered when you entered a Metro train? Metro staff facilitated the great vibe with their whistles, encouraging couples to shift every couple of minutes. I met so many interesting folks in this 45-minute duration. While I hope Metro Los Angeles continues speed dating next year, my suggestion would be to host “speed-friending” as a way to build community among the transit-minded folks.

While riding home on the bus that night, I was inspired by the heart in the sky. I’m always thinking about ways to create common denominators in Los Angeles so that Angelenos have more to discuss besides traffic and…well, traffic. Hearts in the Los Angeles sky is a lovely common denominator for Valentine’s Day. People continued to crowd the #2 bus with balloons and flowers along with the regular accoutrements of life.  My own Valentine’s Day evening began later, with dinner at Pete’s Cafe in downtown’s historic core followed by what could be loosely-defined as a bar crawl with stops (and adventures) at Cole’s and Tony’s Saloon. I even spotted a Barbie same-sex wedding display along the way. But by far, the best Valentine’s Day story was the runaway camel, loose on the streets of north Los Angeles County. So as this holiday comes to a close, my heart remains where it always has — with Los Angeles. 🙂