It's a sunny smoggy morning in Los Angeles. I draw the curtains open to enjoy the view while I breakfast and then promptly close them again. I can do without looking at a hazy brown smog covered town.
I take the glass elevator down from the lofty heights of the 30th floor and the lobby is filled with Rotarians. I hear my first Australian accents for a while but there's also English, French and Indians here.
It's worthy to note that the elevator I have been using was the same one that was used by Arnold Schwarzenneger in the movie True Lies. In fact the hotel I'm staying at was where bits of it was filmed. have to see the movie again to recall it but I must admit, when I saw its set up yesterday afternoon when I checked in, it was a case of deja vu. I have been having lots of deja vu on this trip mainly because we see the sights in the movies!
The Rotarian at the stand tells me of the shuttle services to and from the hotels to the LA Convention Centre [LACC]so I board a bus filled with chatty people talking their language. Everyone is so friendly and excited with the anticipation.
Later...
When I got to the LACC, we were escorted to the registration area downstairs the size of the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. It was vast that you needed a bike or a segway to go from one stall to the next. I got my registration pack, blouse, tickets to shows and the program in the standard bag. Later on in the day i asked how many people had registered - 22 000 herealthough they would have preferred 40 000. That's a lot of people.
There are lots of Americans, there are the loud English [more about them later], Indians, Asians, Mexicans, French, Germans but I particularly love the Nigerians with their colourful dress. The men and women look fantastic in their traditional dress.
I spent the morning and early afternoon wandering the House of Friendship which had hundreds of stalls. The stalls displayed Rotary projects, community service projects, felowship groups and also sme vendors selling their products. Pins? Never seen so much glitter in my life so I bought a pin badge or two as mementos of being here.
I visited the Fellowship Stand for Rotary Editors and Publishers, an online group I'm a member of and met the people I email for the first time face to face. Mark Zober from RC Jerusalem heads up the group and boy, can he talk! "I'm a tour guide, whaddya expect?" he jokingly says to me while handing me his business card and tells me to get on one of his Christian Pilgrims Tour. "Yeah, one day in the very distant future..."
Regardless, I put my name down to help put at the booth tomorrow for a couple of hours but while doing so, I overheard a Greek couple where the wife was yelling out to her husband in Greek, "Oh! I've forgotten the word - how do I say it in English?" Naturally I piped up and said the word and they looked at me with alarm then we started talking. I think they are the only two Greeks here from Athens but I'm still looking for more. They both were hilarious. The lady reminded me of my aunt in Greece who's a riot and not afraid to speak to anyone whether she knows English or not!
I helped out Ricardo from Mehico [don't say the 'x'] on what to do with their website and showed him our club blog and how to create one. He was most impressed. It was his first convention too and what he was surprised about [like me] was how friendly everyone was. Rosita from RC Loyola Heights of the Phillipines also learned about our blog but she was quick to add that her club got the best newsletter of the district this year. Mark was just telling her to get on his pilgrimage tour real quick. Overall, our fellowship booth with these characters was quite loud. They seemed like exhuberant folks.
I attended the 'Meet the Stars' Recepton for drinks and nibblies. This was in a large auditorium and e were entertained by various groups. The Langley Ensemble was by far the best. A group of youths 14-18 year olds played the ukeleles and balaikas [spelling?] and also sang. You haven't lived until you've heard Tiko Tiko on the ukeleles...reminded me of Hawaii for a moment. We're surrounded by that instrument of late!
While there, they had representatives from all over the world and I stopped to chat to our District Rep Ian Riseley and his wife. I told him that we have more people floating around frm our district in amongst the throng of the 22 000. From there, I had the obligatory photo taken with the outgoing and incoming Rotary International Presidents. I also ran into Monty Audenart and his wife Liz. Monty remembered me as his panel sidekick at the District Conference in Albury. He tells me that he had the greatest time in our District and loved Australia.
The English are just having a ball. Wearing their Union Jack vests and large colourful hats, they are strongly promotng the Birmingham RI Conventon in 2009. People madly registered for this and lots of little trinkets were given away. I'm a sucker for freebies so now I have to figure out how to get it all back to home.
The Concert at Nokia Theatre was stunning. Steve Tyrell and Natalie Cole sang the timeless classics with the big bands behind them. Natalie sang the songs like Unforgettable and oters that were originally her father's. The show ended at 10pm but the thousands that streamed out of the concert hall into awaiting shuttle buses to take us back safely to the hotel was astounding. It was orderly and wel organised and even observing the immense scale of this convention is great. To move that volume of peple, to organise, to feed them, to sate their thirst, to entertain them...it's all huge. I've never seen the scale of something like this back home.
Luckily, people make it worthwile and they are in good spirits. I met many Canadians and now feel confident to ask questons about their country because I know where some of their cities are. However, this convention also shows to methat I need to brush up on my geography as many places I have no idea where they are in the scheme of things. There are many Californians here too and had the pleasure to meet a really nice man who I helped escort and direct to a welcoming session. He had a limp and semed to be in some pain. He told me he was retired from the motion picture industry and I had images that he was some famous director. He wasn't showy, wore jeans, jacket and a baseball cap but he had a 'presence' about him - a quiet knowingness that I figured he must have been good at what he did.
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