Numbers

Because my girls arrived on separate flights yesterday, I made two trips to LAX yesterday. I am always amazed by how international this international airport is (I mean, Gulfport-Biloxi is an “international” airport, but come on). There were flights arriving from places I’d never heard of, and I taught world geography for years.

But the sheer numbers of L.A. are mind-boggling all by themselves. Although Malibu is about the size of the town I grew up in (and the town I just moved from), it sits on the edge of sheer hugeness (like that word?). There were 1.5 million people at the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day. Can you even fathom that? I used to think 50,000 people at a Cardinals game was amazing.

And get this: there are 4 million people that live in the city limits of L.A. and 18 million in the metro area. The metro population is about the same as the populations of Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Oklahoma COMBINED!!! I live here, and I just can’t wrap my brain around that idea.

Further, L.A. proper would be the 27th largest state all by itself, and the metro area would be the FIFTH largest state in the country (just barely behind New York and Florida).

And just when I think the enormity lies at the far stretches of the imagination, I learn that metro Tokyo is about two Los Angeleses.

Okay, I have to quit – my brain is hurting.