I’ve been living in LA for almost four years now. It’s long enough to notice the ‘LA’ things that make living in this city so completely different and unique than any other (that at least I’ve lived in). I moved here sight-unseen for my job and had a whole bunch of east coast stereotypes baked into my initial mindset of how it was going to be to be an ‘Angeleno’.

Besides the lack of muggings, car break-ins and random acts of LAPD violence I’ve experienced, there has been one stereotype that’s matched to reality. LA is a super diverse city. Now I know people that live on the east coast in places like New York or Washington DC will scoff at a statement like that.

“All cities are diverse, duh.” — any city slicker back east

The diversity in LA is different. This is a place that whole heartedly has forced people of all colors, shapes, and sizes to live together — for worse, but mostly for better.

For me that point hit home most poignantly while shopping for groceries. I live in Glendale, a borough of LA near Burbank that happens to consist of mostly Armenian families. The Armenian community is vibrant and one of the best things about living in Glendale are the little Armenian markets that are sprinkled throughout town.

I recently (finally) found my way to what I think is the biggest Armenian grocery in the area — Golden Farms market. This place is like an immigration office meets a busy farmers market meets IKEA on a Saturday — and man, is it glorious.

As I navigated the store I passively watched the various people doing the typical grocery store banter — There was a old Persian grandma trying to explain in broken English that she was looking for glass bottles of Pepsi to a Hispanic store clerk who was trying his best to understand in broken English — once the word ‘Pepsi’ (global brands have somehow figured out how to bridge cultural divides better than anyone it seems) made its way into the conversation the clerk immediately understood and responded with ‘ocho’ and a big smile.

The grandma looked at him for a second and the clerk realized that while he knew he could help this nice lady get her soda fix, there was still a little matter of languages that was getting in the way. He gestured with his hands the number eight and pointed in the direction of where the Pepsi was kept. Big smiles were shared and the clerk went back to chatting with his associate in Spanish.

There was all sorts of this cultural mixing taking place — and people all seemed to be pretty content with the flow of things, even though it seemed like a zoo with people crowding over vegatables and creating cart traffic jams.

As I was checking out it hit me that this whole everyone-get-along-because-we-have-to effect is pervasice throughout LA. I know theres fantastic hyrbids of this effect all over the city, and I know I haven’t taken advantage of that at all.