Why I Will Never Ride The Train Again (The Sequel – Part I)

“Begin at the beginning and go to the end, then stop.” (White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland)

O.K., will do. Let’s see…the Beginning? Well, that would be when we checked into the hotel in downtown Los Angeles to spend the night at the “newly remodeled” Ritz Something-Or-Other. The name is not important unless you’re planning to stay there (and in that case please contact me for the name so you can find other lodging). It looked lovely from the outside and even from the lobby. The Very Reasonable Rate should have tipped us off. We’re from the midwest and we tend to give the benefit of the doubt, however.

Went up to our room on the eleventh floor. On a positive note, it did pass my “clean” test (and believe me, if you traveled with me you’d realize the enormity of that statement). It was recently painted. The bathroom was very clean. Basically, the room was just large enough for the bed. There was a shabby dresser perpendicular to the shabby nightstand but you couldn’t open the drawers because the nightstand was about two inches too deep. Not that I had any intention of using the drawers, of course. Obviously the remodel did not include the furnishings.

The telephone did not work. No dial tone. Went down to the front desk to report it. The desk clerk sent a young lady up with a new telephone. She removed it from its box and plugged it in. It worked.

There were little wires exposed between two sections of the internet cable. I was skeptical but bravely plugged it into our laptop. It worked. So far, so good. We doubt that these particular accomodations would have passed an electrical inspection as there were little wires running from the ceiling lights in the bedroom and bathroom. They were “disguised” with paint that matched the walls. Didn’t fool us, though.

Long story short – we had a good night’s sleep and caught a cab to Union Station early Friday morning. It was a very good thing that we had a good night’s sleep…

To be continued…