Union station is a delight, built in 1939 in Art Deco style, and completely unchanged since - this COULD be because they haven't got around to it, if it's anything like the service we received!
Eventually, though, we headed to the Pueblo de Los Angeles, one street away. This Mexican area is the original site of Los Angeles, and bursts with life, colour and music. It's a wonderful place, which we visited briefly last time we passed through LA, on a train, and couldn't resist revisiting.
As we headed back downhill, everything began to happen - A U-Haul truck screamed around the corner beside us, followed by four LA Police cars, 3 police motorcycles, an LA Police helicopter low over us, and news helicopters. Everyone was talking about it, and it was headline news on TV that night and the next day ... as a Mexican schoolbus driver told us ... That's LA for ya!
Mexican for lunch, Japanese for dinner - and then we slept ... for twelve hours! We were thoroughly refreshed then, though, to set off around LA on the tourist trail again. Macy's was first, as it's attached to the Sheraton - however we didn't stay long as it was so lonely - never have we seen a store with so few customers. We wandered the streets for a while, lunched at Ralph's, a 'fresh food market' that we'd love to take home with us, particularly the roast dinner bar, then back onto the Dash.
This time it was down to USC and then back to the Downtown area with the bus full of red-clad teachers, heading for a rally to protest against the imposition of compulsory 'furlough' days without pay, imposed by the Californian government as a cost-cutting exercise. We avoided the rally and headed for the Central Library (all six storeys of it) and then back around the streets, with a lengthy visit to an antique bookstore where John found a soulmate in Leonard, the proprietor ... LA was fun, because of the people we met.
