Home Alone Style-e in the Streets of L.A.
Los Angeles, 3rd November 2001
We hauled on our backpacks and lumbered out to the nearest bus stop.
I'd already found out, from phoning the bus company, that in order
to get to the train station, we needed to change buses about half
way. No problem I thought. We hopped on the bus, and asked the
driver to tell us when we reached the junction where we needed to
change buses.
We squeezed down the narrow aisle on the bus, trying our best not to
knock out the locals with out huge bags. The tent poles sticking
horizontally out of Stinge's rucksack tended to be the main problem.
He almost impaled a few innocent bystanders when he turned round too
We all managed to squash ourselves into a double seat each, and took
the chance to calm down and look around the bus. It was then that we
noticed the small group of Inglewood teens sitting not far from us.
Normally, they would have been a little intimidating. They looked
like the kind of teens who could have the mafia under their thumb,
but they were so stereotypical of the street teens you see on TV, it
was actually a little comical. One guy even had the obligatory big
comb stuck in his curly, black afro. And as usual, the looks of the
people of Inglewood, California, were deceiving. They obviously
overhead our English accents, and along with our large rucksacks,
decided that we'd be worth talking to. After a few minutes we were
having a really friendly chat with the people we thought were the
kings of the LA underworld. We soon reached our stop, the driver
shouting out to us with plenty of notice. As we hobbled sideways
back to the front of the bus, one of the girls we were walking to
said "I feel really sorry for you guys, having to live out of
backpacks and all". She obviously thought that we'd ended up living
on the road due to some unfortunate events in our lives. We tried
our best to convince her that we were having fun backpacking, and
we'd done it out of choice, but she kept her look of pity on her
face.
As we stepped off the bus, I looked around for the 'bus station
across the road' that we needed. Unfortunately we were at a cross
roads, so there were 7 bus-stops 'across the road'. Great. We
hesitated for a moment, actually for a chain of moments, making a
few minutes. As we stood there, a friendly guy had jumped off the
bus as well and said he'd show us which bus we needed. We followed
him across a few of the roads to one of the bus stops. He insisted
this is the one we needed to reach the train station. He also told
us that he could get an alternative bus home from this stop, so
getting off the last bus wasn't a problem for him.
We waited in the dark for about 10 minutes, then the bus turned up
and we quickly boarded. As the bus didn't go right up to the actual
station, we asked the driver to give us a shout at the moment we
were closest to the station. He nodded in agreement, and we squeezed
ourselves to the back of the bus.
 The
journey to the station took a LONG time, and we started to get a
little worried, the train departure time was getting scarily close.
As we passed unfamiliar street after unfamiliar street we looked at
our watches in concern. We were supposed to be at the station at
5:45, and at about 6:15 the driver shouted out to us. A few moments
later he shouted again and the bus stopped, we hurried to the front
and asked which way it was to the station. He started reeling off a
list of directions more complicated that an Eastenders plot. We
nodded a lot, feigning understanding, and when we got off, I could
remember was "left at the thing, then right at the something-the
turning". Hoping I'd remembered more, I led the other confidently to
the left. Suddenly, we heard a lot of shouting and a loud honking.
We turned round and saw that the whole busload of passengers were
waving to us and pointing the other way. The driver was making the
biggest signals while simultaneously pumping his horn. Whoops!
Thanks!
We then spent 15 minutes rushing around madly, trying to work out
how to get to the station. After dozens of wrong turns, retraced
steps and asking locals, we eventually saw the huge structure that
is LA Train station looming in front of us. We half ran, half
trotted up to the big doors and quickly tried to work out where the
platform was. It was now 6:30, the train was due to leave in 10
minutes. After a bit of rushing around we found someone looking a
bit official, and he had a quick examination of our tickets. He then
looked up at us disapprovingly. He then explained that our Rail pass
(bought in England) had to be changed into an official Amtrak pass
before we could us it. This usually takes about half-an-hour, and
there was no chance we could sort it now. Great. We all started
making mental plans about how we were going to get back across LA in
the dark. It was really annoying to have travelled this far, just to
have to go back. He then looked at our frowning faces, and led us
off to the ticket counter to check for sure.
The official explained the situation to the ladies at the ticket
booth, who all simultaneously broke into expressions that defined
'disapproving'. I swear, if you opened the English dictionary,
looked under 'd' for 'disapproving' and saw photos of these ladies
faces, you would nod in agreement that it was perfect definition.
After taking a few moments to verbally discipline us for our
tardiness, they then started to type, print, tear and stamp. Trying
their best to process the passes in double time. All the while
muttering under their breath about 'stupid backpackers' and 'you're
not going to make it'. Not wanting to put them off, we all kept our
best polite smiles firmly on our faces. While this was all
happening, the official disappeared.
As soon as the last stamp was done, we an off as fast as we could in
the direction of the platform. Under our heavy bags, the pace was
quite slow, but still very hard work. We ran along the winding
corridors until we came to the final tunnel leading to the platform.
For some sort of cruel joke, the tunnel was on a steep incline, so
our final sprint to the platform was uphill. As we reached the
platform, I looked around for the train. I couldn't see anything.
But strangely, the wall seemed to have small windows high up. I then
realised that this 'wall' was in face the side of the train. Wow!
The train was huge, a double-decker steel behemoth! I didn't have
long to appreciate it's sheer size, we other pushed me forward onto
the train, and we ran noisily up some stairs into a low-lit, quiet,
luxurious looking cabin, and stopped to catch our breath.
 We
quickly found our seats, and threw our bags down before collapsing
onto the soft reclining chairs. The cabin was extremely tranquil,
and we realised that we must have disturbed the peace when we
trampled into the cabin. I looked around at the other passengers
who, luckily, didn't seemed to concerned. The train then began to
move slowly out of the station, and we realised that the other
official had held the train behind, just for us to get on. Thanks
for everything to the people of LA!
If you've seen one of the Home Alone films, you'll know how much
rushing around & almost missing planes/trains/buses happens in them.
Our whole adventure rushing around LA led to us calling it a 'Home
Alone Style-e' adventure!
Once I'd recovered from our mini-marathon, and almost emptied the
water dispenser, I set off to explore this amazing train. The whole
place smacked of luxury, the big soft chairs, the stylish decor, the
wide aisles and the whole atmosphere of the place. I also soon found
a dining car, a buffet car, a sightseeing car and a few other
interesting places. As I was wandering back to my seat, I started to
hear a slow and very soft singing over the train tannoy. As the
short song progressed, it became clear that the buffet car attendant
was singing to short ditty to get people to visit the buffet car and
buy some food. The song (and the style he sung it) was absolutely
hilarious, it was so good, I had to revisit the buffet car and
applaud him for it.
We all made ourselves comfortable and settled down for the overnight
journey. While we were sitting reading, the train conductor, making
his rounds through the cabins, asked if everything was ok for us. As
soon as he heard our accents, then noticed our backpacks, he started
asking us all sorts of questions about our travelling plans. The
guy, Irc Hirsch, was really friendly and spent ages chatting to us.
He'd been to India in the past and had some great travelling tales
to tell. He told us loads of great stories about his fantastic
experiences and got us really excited about our future travels!
After Irc left us, we spent a quiet hour or so just reading and
chatting before trying to get some sleep. At about 5:00am tomorrow
we'll reach Williams to continue our journey to our next
destination, the Grand Canyon!
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