West Hollywood - LAX - Serbia - Montenegro - London - Palm Springs

(Dubrovnik on the Adriatic Sea in Croatia is reported to be one of the most beautiful medieval cities.)

Do you ever have days when you seem to have been so many places it is hard to imagine that you'd done all of it in one day?

Today we had agreed to pick up a juror at the Los Angeles International Airport for the Palm Springs International ShortFest that begins tomorrow. On the way, (in order to avoid rush hour traffic), we thought we'd leave early and spend some time in Santa Monica. However, as we were driving through Los Angeles we gave our nephew a call and decided instead to spend some time with him in West Hollywood. We enjoyed an early dinner on Sunset Boulevard overlooking the city at a hip place called Clafloutis. It was great for people watching and the food was good too.

Then it was on to LAX; an airport I detest. Not only is it huge with lots of traffic and jammed parking lots, but needing gas before we drove back, there didn't seem to be any gas stations nearby. (We eventually found one by leaving the area.) The flight we were meeting was to arrive at Terminal 2 (Virgin Atlantic), but once we out to the terminal arrival area we saw that the flight was now going to arrive at the Bradley International Terminal. (Of course this was after calling Virgin Atlantic for flight arrival information.)

Back in the car, we paid a $3 parking fee, drove around the airport to the International Terminal where the traffic was bumper to bumper into the parking garage. Out of the car again and a long walk to the international arrivals where the flight was posted for a few minutes and then disappeared while hundreds of passengers passed us by. We stood there for a long time with a sign for our passenger from Montenegro only to learn, by overhearing a phone call, that the plane had used Terminal 2 after all. So, back in the car, another parking fee, and around again to Terminal 2 where after a few more minutes we eventually met our passenger; Dragan Milinkovic: cinematographer and research fellow at the Institute of Economic Sciences in Belgrade.

(Dragan Milinkovic is among a jury of five industry professionals who will screen films for the 14th Annual Palm Springs ShortFest that have been selected for competition in 18 categories .)

Before we picked up Dragan, we'd done a bit of reading on Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, and Montenegro. Yet we decided to steer clear of any discussions of the recent war there and see where the conversation might head. Diplomatic and funny, he regaled us with his life in London, Belgrade and Montenegro. He doesn't like London any more (too crowded and expensive), teaches in Belgrade, but loves his home of many years along the Adriatic Sea in Montenegro. Dubrovnik in Croatia is among his favorite cities and he was curious to know more about Palm Springs and the festival.

It was a long day; arriving back in Palm Springs at the Hilton well after midnight. Dragan had literally traveled from Belgrade to London to Los Angeles to Palm Springs, a trip of about 6,600 miles; while we in our two-hour discussion had reminisced about mutual visits to London, Athens, Istanbul, Beijing, and our love of film.