Another Town, Another Train

26 November 2009

One last stop in LA, at Olvera Street. This is sort of Little Mexico, established in the 1920s for white people to come eat tacos and buy embroidered shawls in the comfort of home,  but is also one of the oldest Spanish-settled parts of the city. We ogled fun t-shirts and handbags, ate an enormous meal (god, have I mentioned how much I love a country that gives you free chips and salsa just for sitting down?), and wandered a bit. Apparently there was an adjacent themed Chinatown for a while, but now there is a freeway instead. Also, Odyssey people who may be reading this: those stupid Romanian 'gypsy' hats? You can buy them in Los Angeles too, where they are 'Mexican' hats. Truly, a global icon.

Brief sojourn in SoCal is at it's end, and we're on the move again. This time, we're off to Arizona, home to David's folks and Thanksgiving dinner with the family. Continuing the overland theme (devoted readers may have noted that we are only flying over the wet bits), we've opted for Amtrak. Amtrak is America's answer to rail travel, and is resoundingly unsuccessful as a commercial enterprise. But it's a romantic idea of ourselves that keeps it alive (and well subsidized)--19th century railroads shrunk the country and enabled the population of the west and cheap transport of goods and many country songs, thus making us The Greatest Nation on Earth.

Also, it costs $38 for a 9 hour journey. So here we are. 

We started off well enough, in Los Angeles' gorgeous Art Deco / Spanish style Union Station, last of the great American stations, built in 1939. It's got lovely courtyards and tiles and fab deco chairs in the waiting room. And crappy customer service, because that's how they roll at Amtrak. They made us take everything off our bags--this means a securely strapped blanket that has made it through four flights and six months on a truck with no problems, because it had suddenly become and Health & Safety risk. Also a towel nicely stowed in an external pocket of my rucksack. God knows what mayhem could occur there--wouldn't want loose towels running around attacking people. When I pointed out that airlines were cool with my rebel towel, the woman checking the bags told me "We don't do things like the airlines.' And proceeded to make us queue up once to print tickets; twice to check the bags; thrice to get a seat; and fource (is that a word? it should be) to actually get on the train. The train was also two hours late leaving, with no notice given and no announcement. No, Amtrak does not do things like airlines--this is why Americans do not take the train.

Anyway, despite all of this, the train itself--poetically called the Sunset Limited--was super comfy. Huge seats, power point, and a real restaurant with white tablecloth and silverware. We sat with two kids from Santa Monica College coming home for Thanksgiving; the boy is in an acting class with Taylor Lautner, so I reckon we're now practically best friends with Twilight stars. Ah, LA.

Wrote my Christmas cards out (I expect to get some back people, as you can mail them to my parents this year and forget the crap excuse that you don't know how to buy stamps for a foreign country), slept, and arrived in Tucson at 2:30am. The baggage cart at Tucson station is in fact a wooden-wheeled wagon, circa 1907. Charmingly quaint, or more evidence that Amtrak is genuinely 100 years behind the times? You decide. Kindly father in law came to collect us, and we were in bed by 4am. Awoke to roasting turkey and pumpkin pie courtesy of Sandy, and all is well on Thanksgiving Day in Green Valley, Arizona, where you can eat outside in late November.

David's sister Jennifer and brother-in-law Steve brought us the best bit of the day, though--our niece Nora. She is 3 and gorgeous and brilliant and clearly takes after me. She took to David after some initial hesitation and spent the whole day tying him up, ordering him around, and sort-of doing puzzles with him and taking pictures with our camera.