S I SAT in Stockholm staring at the Hertz web site, I wondered whether to go for a fixed-head Mustang or a convertible. But I was going to California, after all—the land of convertibles. It was a wise choice.
   I flew in from Chicago, with my flight delayed for over an hour due to safety reasons. As passengers waited in the lounge at O’Hare, we noticed United’s advertisements announcing that the airline—pre-Ted—was the most on-time in 2002. But no one really minded the delay: I boarded the plane to see the same stewardess beaming at me, telling me, ‘We really like Kiwis.’ What hour’s delay?
   The convertible made sense, given my 95 lb of luggage. I had found out in the midwest that the trunk was too small for what I had and the only way to get it all in the car was to put the top down, considering the seats didn’t go far enough forward.

The Avalon’s lobby area spoke of what I would expect: on the shelves were the latest issues of Wallpaper and Travel & Leisure

I put my Panos Emporio duffle bag on to the rear seat over the sill of the car.
   I was looking forward to getting to the Avalon Hotel, now that it was getting dark pretty quickly. Had I arrived on time, I would have had a chance to sample the Californian sunshine: my first time in the state (if you didn’t count LAX plane-changes) since before 9-11.
   Southern California has a huge history for me: my great-grandfather settled in this part of the state. And it is quite the antithesis of Stockholm, which has its one-way streets and half-millennium-old buildings. As I drove in the Mustang—which was just as I remembered it, with the addition of the Sirius satellite radio that Hertz had fitted as standard and new alloy wheels—I remarked how straight the roads were. And how, for the first time in my life, I began understanding the raison d’être of the automatic transmission and, God help me and my European sensibilities, soggy suspension.
   The Avalon in Beverly Hills is not hard to find from LAX given that there are not many different roads one could venture on. Los Angeles County has its Sepulveda Boulevard which stretches far north and south: following it would take me to Centinela Avenue. I had to hand it to the planners who had been here, probably my great-grandfather’s contemporaries: it is not a hard place to navigate, but for the absence of variety. Everything was postwar, and probably owned by Bob Hope. It fell into the stereotype of the region: new, clean, grand.
   Annoyed that I had not spotted Centinela Avenue, I asked a motorist in a Mercedes C-class if I was on the right track to Beverly Hills, winding down my window to ask. She replied I was, charmingly: it was the first of many pleasant experiences in a part of California I would come to adore.

HE AVALON was a welcome sight, as were its valets. Ivory greeted me: he with pleasantries and I with a warning that I was a nut with 95 lb worth of luggage.
   The lobby area spoke largely of what I would expect: on the shelves were the latest issues, for purchase, of Wallpaper and Travel & Leisure—in other words, publications that were concerned about style.
   After checking in, Ivory and I chatted briefly about New Zealand: it turned out he had basketball-playing friends there. The genuine conversation is standard, as I continued to find with other very cosmopolitan members of the Avalon’s staff. So much for the American who thinks the world is divided into four time zones.

CONTINUED

MAIN PHOTOGRAPH: The author’s suite at the Avalon. TOP: The cabana at the Avalon Hotel (photographed by Grey Crawford). CENTRE: Lighting in the walk-in wardrobe is circular to contrast the rectangular forms of the fittings’ designs .ABOVE: A welcoming sight after a long day: the bed at the Avalon.