a few thousand words

Am proving to be more and more useless as a blogger - irregular updates, not much to write. Just to compensate - here're a short travelogue. Having lived all my life in India, am used to train travel. So used, that other modes of long distance travel sometimes seem a bit odd. Out here, in the U.S. trains are expensive compared to travel by road for short and intermediate distances and to air for long distance- so less crowded. Long distance travel by train is also very time consuming.
Anyhow, i decided to 'try out' amtrak - the largest U.S. train carrier. (Or is it the only one?). This was a short trip from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara. There is a choice of two trains - with each running multiple times during the day. The coastal starlight (often dubbed the coastal starlate - since it it often late) and the Pacific Surfliner. Reservation is easily made online and you can pick up your ticket prior to travel at the station itself (and save yourself the hassle of being around for the delivery)
I landed in LAX - which, given that it was thanksgiving morning - was very crowded. People were sitting on the floor. I was lucky to get a Flyaways bus right outside the airport terminus. The bus costs only $3 to go all the way to downtown LA - a distance of 22 miles that would usually set you back by $40 in a cab. Another bus, ferrying passengers to a parking lot, passed by - it was carrying the advertisement of the parking company and reminded me of the 101 dalmations (except for the color). Here it is:


Then came into view the spaceship like control tower of LAX: