An Englishman (& Friends) in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, 1 November 2001
 Palm trees. Lots and lots of palm trees! Protecting the streets in
regimented rows. This was the first sight that greeted us as we flew
into the city of Los Angeles. Well, actually, our first sight was a
small, grinning photo of President Bush as we sank down below him on
a small escalator in Tom Bradley International Airport. Hello Mr
Bush!
The traffic was surprisingly quiet, especially for the sheer volume
of it, punctuated with the common landings & taking-off of planes
behind us. I took a deep breath, glad to find an alternative to the
stale, recycled air on the plane. The air had a slightly humid taste
to it, a little like New York in the summer, but not quite as
intense. The palm trees that were oh-so-common, were covered in big
brown scales, and they reached high up into the sky, as if straining
to touch the sun. The leaves on top made them look like huge
pineapples on even huger sticks!
After flying out of the concrete jungle that is Heathrow, it was
amazing to find an airport littered with palm trees! I don't think
I've ever seen a palm tree in my life, never mind in an airport!.
Anyhow, enough of trees. After having our passports examined by just
about every official in the airport, then grabbing our bags as they
hurtled past for the third time on the baggage reclaim, we entered
the arrival lounge. I surveyed the lounge that stretched before us
and noticed a board headed 'Hotels & Accommodation' on the far wall.
Eager to find our first place to stay, I hurried over the sign, well
as much as you can hurry with a huge backpack clinging to your back.
After scrutinising the board for a few moments, I managed to find 2
suitable looking hostels, but of course, no prices. I looked
tentatively at the black phone under the board, then making an
educated guesstimate, I picked up the phone and punched in the big
black numbers next to the hostels.
After a rather strained conversation, where I was forced to
translate my English (with a heavy Portsmouth dialect) into
American, I managed to get the details I needed. (Whoever said 'the
Americans and the English are two nations divided by language' was
right.) We decided on staying at the 'LA Adventurer', a sort of
'hostel & hotel all in one' place. They assured us that our FREE,
yes FREE, shuttle bus from the airport would be with us in 10
minutes. So we heaved our backpacks back on, and stumbled out of the
airport.
After 15 minutes of watching spotty yellow buses and red & white
hotel buses pass us on ridiculously small loops, we realised we
didn't actually know what our expected bus looked like. So I dashed
back into the airport and phoned the hostel again for a description
of our bus.
I rushed back to the others with the description, a white bus with
bold yellow writing, and we waited with renewed vigour. This time,
we didn't jump up with expectation at every one of the 10 or so
buses that passed per minute.
Eventually, after phoning the hostel again to check the bus
definitely was coming to the right place, the bus pulled up before
us.
We sat down on the furry brown seats opposite two surfy looking
guys, (Quite common in LA, apparently) with their surfboards taking
up all of the space in the back seats. I tried to smile a greeting
to one, but it didn't really work and he just turned and spoke to
his mate in Spanish. Unfortunately, my Spanish is limited to 'See
Senior', so I had no idea what they were saying.
The bus took us through a maze of streets, all lined with the
signature giant palm trees of LA. We pulled up at the hostel between
a shining, black, stretch limo and a regal looking, traditional
Rolls Royce. Ooh-er, is this place really going to be in our price
range?
 They showed us a couple of rooms and the dorms, both were very nice
and, surprisingly, were in our price range. After a small team talk,
we decided that we were happy to pay the slight bit more for a
single suite for the four of us instead of using the dorms. It was
our first night away after all. Plus, it’s nice to have a bit of
privacy and be able to leave your stuff sitting around.
We did a little exploring around the hostel, finding a gorgeous
looking, steaming hot swimming pool, a pool table and a well stocked
bar - darn it, we're under 21 so we can't drink here. :o(
We then had a quick walk down the road to a McDonald's (yep, in the
US they're never more than 5 minutes away). We also had our first
experience of the amazing friendliness the Americans have to us
British folk. Everyone seems to be dieing to talk to us. They all
wanted to know about our travel plans and loved listening to our
accents! (Accents? Accents? You're the one with accents, not us!).
After chatting to the guy running the 7-11, he winked at me and let
me have my huge bottle of water for free! Some of the other
customers in the store, overhearing our story shouted, "Welcome!
Welcome! We hope you enjoy your stay!"
What really surprised us, was that we were really worried that we
were in a dodgy area of town. You know the feeling you get when you
don't feel quite safe. The dark, urban streets, the quiet alleys,
the unlit carparks. They all added up to make us feel slightly
uneasy, but all we met was openness and friendliness. Well there you
go, looks are deceiving!
After a short exploration of the neighbourhood, we came across a
quiet residential street which had something strange about it. I
soon noticed what it was, the windows were all boarded or protected
with thick iron bars. We decided that now would be a good time to
run back to the security of our hostel.
The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful. Due to the switch in
time zones we were all really tired and at about 7pm we all fell
into a deep sleep...
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