Days 29 and 30 - Travelling

On Wednesday it was time to start our journey home. Our flight to Los Angeles was a late afternoon flight which gave us time to have a leisurely breakfast, go to Mayfair to claim a tax refund on my shoes and then find Australia House so that Bev could vote in the upcoming Australian Federal Election.

All went very smoothly and my excellent navigation landed us at the correct station. We then had a nice walk to the Strand where the Australian High Commission is located. Bev did her duty and voted, then I got us to Temple, the tube station back to our accommodation, (much to Bev’s surprise, as she was expecting I would have another failure with my navigation).

We speedily collected our bags from the hotel and headed off to the airport. We were nearly the last on the plane due to not observing the notification board. The flight was late leaving due to air traffic delays but we still arrived in LA on time.

I had a decent sleep although Bev decided that by 8am I’d had had enough and woke me up. We had a hotel breakfast which was really sweet. I would get very fat very fast if that was all I ate.

I had never been to Downtown LA, and I was also interested to see the Civic Centre area as that is where the main character in Michael Connelly’s novels about Harry Bosch are set. We took an Uber and the driver asked if we came from NZ. We told him we were and he was very interested as It turned out that his fiancée was Tongan and she had family in Auckland where he wanted to visit. We spent the afternoon wandering around the Downtown area.

We were surprised about how quiet the streets were. There were no bustling cafés and hardly any cars or taxis. This is despite there being very large buildings all around the place. It is different to the European cities we visited, where there are a lot of retail shops and cafés where people meet.

There is an historic centre where there are some very beautiful buildings but many of them seem unoccupied, presumably because clients have decamped to the shiny glass towers nearby.

We had lunch in the Grand Central Market which is a place full of eateries. Most of them were Mexican or Asian. We had a rather nice lunch of very tender meat with some spicy vegetables. We had been given some to sample and it turned out to be so good, we decided to get a plate each. We probably could have shared just one, as they were very large portions.

In need of time to get off our feet, we went to a café for a coffee. The young man who served us asked us whether we came from NZ (I think the lettering on my cap gave it away) and then proceeded to say how interesting New Zealanders were. He is a fan of Peter Jackson and is about to start a 3D digital course which he hopes will enable him to work in NZ with Jackson.

After a visit to the amazing Whole Foods Market where we grabbed a couple of pieces of fruit, we headed for the Metro. It was an interesting experience. There was none of the bustle of the Paris Metro, the London Underground or for that matter even the Wellington train system. It is clearly a relatively new system and despite being near what I would have thought was rush hour, it was not that full and it was cheap. The car obviously rules in this city of motorways and wide streets.

It seemed to work well, but it was strange being virtually the only white face on the train. The rest were mainly Latinos or Black Americans. The other thing we noticed was that Spanish was often spoken more frequently than English, yet most people did speak some English. Bev was very concerned about delays and us missing the plane. I reminded her that we did have about three hours up our sleeve. One of the joys of travel are some of the interactions one has. A young African American got onto the train wearing this reflective band over his eyes (somewhat like the engineer in Star Trek used to be able to see). I realised I was staring a bit so commented to him about how “cool” he looked and he immediately responded that as a beautiful person with wonderful features he could wear anything. It wasn’t said arrogantly rather it was a matter of fact statement that left Bev and I smiling.

Our shuttle driver to the airport was Mexican but was in L.A. to make money as wages are extremely low in Mexico. So for him even a low paying job in the US was better than at home in Mexico where he could work 10 hour days and earn the equivalent of just $10. But it also meant he had to spend days away from his wife and son who remained living in Mexico.

One of the things that struck me was the low density housing compared to virtually all European cities and even Sydney where medium density housing is being encouraged along the rail corridors. That said, near Downtown LA, there were new blocks of apartments that were five or six stories high along with a few high rise, suggesting that they are also trying to intensify housing. It might also bring more life to the downtown area.

A few more hours of travel and the holiday will be over!

Below are some photos from our wander around Downtown LA.