Jun 25, 2003 12:45 AM
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(Updated Jun 25, 2003 12:51 AM)
While visiting Los Angeles during one of my trips back from Europe to Australia, I had the unfortunate honor to be bumped out in Los Angeles by the Airline I was using (not going to tell you which one, because until then and since, they have always been fantastic, trying their best to accommodate my needs and wishes) because some seats were double booked, and “frankly my dear”(© Margaret Mitchell) I didn’t mind a bit the idea of spending a few days there, giving me the time to do more sight-seeing than I had the opportunity to do before.
The Airline reserved a room for me at The Ramada-Plaza Hotel LAX Airport South (great room, great service, great buffet in the Bar/Lounge during the Super Bowl. Thank you Ramada, Thank You also to the fabulous staff), gave me plenty of meals vouchers to use there, which resulted in a very cheap stopover for me, leaving me more money to spend (yeah, L.A. is full of temptations, and I succumbed to more than I wished I would have). I booked several tours from the ones available.
Our Tour Guide was “Fantastic Christina”. Nobody can wish for a friendliest, bubbliest, happier and more knowledgeable guide than Christina. The fact that it was Super Bowl day made the attendance to the tours very restricted… our bonus, we had Christina’s full attention. In the first one, we were only 4 guests (hehe, not saying Tourists, I can’t stand the idea of being a tourist even when attending a Tour) a newlywed Russian couple from Melbourne, Australia (yes, we discovered that we lived about 5 miles apart, curious how fate works sometimes), Dirk, a young German studying physiotherapy in Germany, and I. We had fun all the way. Before long, we were all the best of friends.
Our first stop was The Farmers Market, temptations started there, as it holds more arts and crafts than its name would make you think. After shopping for a while, we all decided that lunch was in order. Plenty of food to choose from as well, there. I decided, being in L.A., to go for seafood. The food surpassed all my expectations, it was so fresh that if it had been fresher, I would have been wiggling! It was excellently prepared and tasty to perfection, even the Tartar and Cocktail sauces were absolutely divine.
One funny thing, like most visitors in the US, I always forget that the prices displayed don’t include tax… it’s always $ + tax, so, here we were, it was Sunday, I had very little cash with me, and as you probably guess, people at The Farmers Market are not all accepting AMEX cards. So, I had made sure I would buy a dish for which I had enough cash to pay for…. Wrong, I had forgotten the subtle “+tax”. Can you imagine running to a table hosting 4 people you have met about 2 hours ago and asking if one of them could give you a dollar? Well, if I wanted my lunch, I had no other alternative but do that. In fact, Dirk was very happy to oblige, so I could savor one of the best seafood platter I have ever had.
Dirk is a fine young man, more about his trip in Australia later… but shall I say that he wasn’t sorry he lent me this dollar, as I introduced him to my family, and my son who was a flying instructor at the time took him on a flight in his acrobatic spitfire, as well as taking him under his wings (haha, for a pilot, it is easy no?) and inviting him to a BBQ party where he met Jacques and his then wife’s friends.
This was several years ago. Jacques now lives in Europe and is a Captain (Commandant de Bord, in French) for an Air-France subsidiary airlines, as well as a Pilot Tester, in Le Bourget Airport in Paris.
To read more about my tribulations in LA and other Cities around the World, look for my next book
101 PET PEEVES AND MORE
to be published this fall.
