A brief visit to LA

---

If you are looking for insight into Los Angeles you will not find it here. We arrived around seven thirty in the morning after a sleepless night at an large and poorly signed train station. I lugged two heavy bags to the wrong end of the place before having to struggle back again to the front of the building. Non of the members of staff seemed to have any clue where the taxi rank was. We found it in front of the main entrance.

A taxi dropped us off at a dingy and over priced Super 8 motel. It may well have been due to my lack of sleep but I found it extremely difficult to make the woman at the front desk understand that even though we had just arrived we had booked the night before so that we could check in early in the morning and go to bed. 'You checked in already?'
'no' I take a breath and try to explain again. My name is not in her computer. It dawns on my sleep stupid brain that I have a booking reference which I fish out of my bag and pass to the woman who punches it into her computer. Someone else checked into our room the night before using a different name and their own credit card. The booking still has my address and email. 'Can you book us into another room so we can go to sleep please' I plead.
'Yes, but I want to find out what has happened first' She is much more concerned about the mix up than me, I just want to go to sleep. After a call to her manager and some more computer activity we are no closer to unravelling the mystery. We are booked into the last room they have for a single night. Unfortunately it's a smoking room and then puff of air freshener that still hangs in the air does little to mask the stink of stale cigarette smoke. Never mind, there is a bed which I am great full for. We sleep.

We wake around three in the afternoon. It is raining hard, rivers run down the streets. I do not feel normal. We huddle under an umbrella and wander into downtown to find some food. The sky is dark and dangerous. We pass numerous launderettes, Chinese supermarkets and a bars before finding a cosy little bistro place called Mesa at Echo Park. It is warm and welcoming with candles on the tables and some great art work on the walls, which turns out to be by one of the guys who works in the kitchen. I eat cheese, mushroom and spinach crepe washed down with a glass of red wine. I still feel strange but a little better and we walk back to the motel to plan our trip to Las Vegas. Travelling over night on the Amtrak does little for my well being and although I have enjoyed my time on Amtrak and would recommend it I am pleased that I will not be catching another train for quite some time.

I hie a car online from Budget rentals it is $150 for a weeks rental including insurance and taxes with unlimited millage. It seems too good to be true at a third of the cost of the car hire we did with the same company, over the counter in Flagstaff.

The following morning I get some laundry done at one of the launderettes for a bargain $2 before we taxi to the train station and pick up our car which turns out to be a big Chevrolet. I get lost for a while as I think I know the way better than Lou who is directing. It turns out I don't and have to apologise before she finds our way back to the motel where we grab our bags and head to Las Vegas.

---