Miriam is, demographically-speaking, unlike any of my other friends. She's 20. Just about to start college. Age-wise, she's more likely to be one of my friends' kids than my actual friend. And yet, we have quite a bit in common.
I actually met Miriam at the theatre. In London. Seeing Shakespeare. And she was visiting London, too.
I get that. I was that. I saw Shakespeare in London when I was 20, too.
The similarities end at Miriam being from Germany.
Look, Shakespeare is a little hard for an American to understand, and we're all working with what is (basically) the same language. But to get Shakespeare, to dig Shakespeare, to go to another country to see a cool production of Shakespeare when English isn't even your first language, well that gets you a few points on the Impress-Sharon-O-Meter.
Miriam travels. She stays in hostels and takes public transit and does it all on the cheap so she can see the world. She's a vegetarian at home but not when she travels because she wants to taste everything, to experience everything -- and not miss out.
She came to L.A. She's here for all of two days on the way to visit a couple more cities, and we planned to meet up. She's staying by the beach and I'm working downtown and we figured the best way to actually see each other is for her to meet me downtown after work.
Many text messages were exchanged. She's too young to rent a car, so the actual logistics of getting her to downtown involved either a ride-share (which she couldn't easily afford) or a lot of Metro trains. (Three, actually.) Many more text messages were exchanged in trying to figure out what to do. And here, I have to remind myself that she's 20, and I was 20 once, and I sometimes confused "wanting to appear unselfish" with "refusing to make a damn decision." I offer multiple choice. She chooses the Star Wars VR thing.
I am secretly pleased. I would have taken her anywhere she wanted (what with being the guest in my country and all) but the Star Wars VR thing is actually on my 50 for 50 list. I make a reservation.
Miriam successfully navigates the Metro and lands a couple blocks from my office. I meet her there and we walk to my car. I try to be a good tour guide, but the most I can think of is that we're walking by the Metro exit that always smells of urine, and (seeing as I had intentionally sent her out a different exit), it didn't seem right to point that out. The best I could do was shrug and say, "Downtown L.A. looks a lot different from the movies."
I drive us to the VR thing, which is located in the Glendale Galleria. (I make Valley Girl jokes. They do not land. She's 20 and not from America.)
We go to The VOID.
Two things really impressed the heck out of me at The VOID. The first was the utter lack of instructions. I mean, they instruct you on your rebel mission (in character) and other than strapping you into your VR suit and telling you to raise your hand if it malfunctions, that's about it for instructions. No directions on how it works; no directions on what to touch and what not to touch; no directions on what to actually DO. It's entirely immersive, to the point of being "suit up and play."
The second thing that impressed me was how much I was actually into it. Don't get me wrong, there was not one second that I actually BELIEVED I was a rebel infiltrating an Empire base while dressed as a stormtrooper. But I DID believe, when I stepped on the moving platform, that it was a moving platform. This thing involved every sense but taste. It looked like I was moving -- I could turn around in any direction and it looked like we were flying over the surface of a volcanic planet. It sounded like I was moving -- I heard explosions which were getting closer or growing more distant based on the direction of movement. It also felt like I was moving -- not JUST the vibration of the platform; some genius had added a heat source so the volcanic bits warmed us. And it smelled like it too -- with a touch of sulfur in just the right places. Thinking about it afterward, I'm fairly certain we weren't really moving at all, just standing there in an empty room in our VR vests/helmets on a vibrating platform, but by G-d, it didn't seem like it in the moment.
And I wish I'd done that thing with a heart rate monitor. Because -- well, AGAIN, I didn't actually believe we were going to DIE when we were outnumbered and trapped by a bunch of bad guys shooting at us, but I felt genuine frustration. Fear, in places. I'd go so far as despair, in one. At all times, I was aware that I was playing a game with Miriam, but I also believed the game ENOUGH for it to make my heart beat faster when I realized we were well and truly fucked.
Conveniently, though, we weren't. You know how certain I am that the platform didn't actually go anywhere? I am equally certain that we would have (somehow) survived that thing no matter how bad our aim or how many times we got shot.
And, I mean, we got shot a lot.
Walking out, I pondered aloud whether we'd survived due to the high quality stormtrooper armor we were wearing. "Which would make more sense," I asked, "for the empire to make its armor strong enough to withstand its weapons, or for it to make weapons powerful enough to pierce its armor?" Miriam pointed out that the weapons HAD to be strong enough to pierce the armor, because we were shooting back at the stormtroopers, and we had some (limited) success at it. (She's smart, that one.) In other words, with the same armor and the same weapons, we killed them but they couldn't kill us.
Perhaps this was traditional Stormtrooper Bad Aim.
Or maybe there was a Jedi secretly backing us up with some Force.
Otherwise, I got nothing.
Plot holes aside, it was freakin' adorable. It was more proof of concept of commercial VR game than actual commercial VR game, but it proved it. And it proved it in an everybody-wins-everybody-has-a-good-time type of way. I mean, who doesn't like facing down agents of an evil empire with a good blaster at your side?
We actually got in and out of there pretty early, so we strolled around the mall a bit. (Miriam wanted to go to the candy store. She bought Pop Rocks. I approved.) We grabbed a bite in the food court. She wanted the food court. Said she liked all the "American food" there. I asked what she wanted. She said either Five Guys or Chipotle. I told her she was eating at Five Guys. No tourist eats at Chipotle on my watch.
We sat; we talked. I told her about my 50 for 50. She told me about her college plans. She wants to study Chinese and English/American Studies. Possibly go into tourism or international relations. She wants a house. She wants to plant trees at her house. She has seedlings now - just small stems and a coupla leaves. She showed me pictures of the trees-to-be in tiny little pots. She's got a long way to go.
But she's starting.
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