The Fresh Princess of Bel Air

Having recently purchased new running shoes, I was excited to have the chance to break them in on my trip to L.A. on some sightseeing runs. So I ventured out for my first run this morning. I'm staying in Westwood village, right on the edge of the UCLA campus, so I figured that Bel Air would be a nifty running destination (originally I wanted to make it up to the Playboy Mansion, but then I realized it would be a touch too far--besides, isn't it more normal for women to run away from the Playboy Mansion than towards it?). I made my way on up north through the campus at a decent clip, feeling energized by the bright sun, blue skies, and deceptively invisible smog. Sure, there were a few hills...well, actually, running north in this part of town is pretty much all hills, all the time. Like, break-ass hills. Like there's a reason everybody around here is so crazy about yoga and pilates and all that jazz--it's because it's too damn hard to run anywhere. Particularly in Bel Air, which I found out has no sidewalks. I don't think residents venture outside the gates of their homes on foot. This morning, the only people on the road were me and legions of garden workers. I wondered if I might get thrown out by a security patrol for being on the street without a leaf blower in my hand.

An hour later and I was finally in sight of where I'd started, feeling very tired and keening for level ground. But the adventure was worth it. Bel Air, like most other locations in L.A., looks just as spectacular in real life as it does in the movies. What amazed me was that within a couple hundred feet of entering Bel Air off of Sunset Blvd., the noise of the traffic seemed to die away almost instantly and became replaced by the serene chirping of birds and hissing of garden sprinklers. The place isn't just a neighbourhood--I'm convinced it's a hermetically-sealed bubble.