There is a sad truth in my life: I can’t travel all the time. Having returned from a wonderful trip – which hopefully you’ve enjoyed reading about – and not leaving town again for a few weeks, I instead turn my attention to the huge sprawl that I call home: Los Angeles.

Fortunately, there always seems to be something new to explore, something old to revisit, or an exciting cultural event. Yesterday, I was invited by my best friend and her family to join them on an outing to Long Beach to attend a Polish festival.

We took the Metro, LA’s fledgling mass transit system, from Pasadena: the gold line to the red line to the blue line. That in itself was kind of fun, and took us through Union Station, which offers a wonderful view of downtown.

Arriving in Long Beach, we walked to the festival site, only to find it wasn’t quite set up. On the plus side, this gave us a wonderful chance to walk through Long Beach, past the Queen Mary and the Convention Center, a building covered by a Wyland painting.

The festival itself was tiny, smaller even than the Korean festival we attended last month. There were dancers, food from the only Polish restaurant in Southern California – the potato and cheese pierogis were excellent – and some other fun activities: we left as the Polish spelling bee was beginning.

All in all, it was a beautiful day to be out exploring the city I call home. Score one for a staycation!