Arriving in LA - 8 Hours Late!

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We finally arrived in L.A. Union Station around 6:10 p.m., ten minutes after the Hertz Car Rental place was supposed to close -- we had already called them to cancel our (now second) reservation for a car. But what luck! -- as we threaded our way towards the baggage claim, we saw that the Hertz guy was still at the desk helping someone else. Terry dropped his bags and raced over to the counter, and the young man was so very nice to stay and help us get the very last car available at the last possible minute. Then after picking up our bags and spending some time getting directions to the Westwood area, we carried our bags downstairs to pick up our car -- which was completely blocked in by other parked cars! Terry ran back to the Hertz counter, and thank goodness, the guy was still there, and came to help us extricate our car!

It took us awhile to make our way across town to the motel where we had booked a room -- the Stars Inn in the Century City area, just blocks from Terry‘s father‘s place. The Chinese guy who checked us in gave us not the room we thought we had booked for $60.00 a night, but he took it upon himself to move us up to an end room for $90.00 a night. Probably the right thing to do, though, since the rest of the hotel clientele we saw didn’t look too well-heeled or trustworthy…The hotel was very pretty on the outside - beautiful courtyard and bougainvillea growing over the entrance -- but kind of funky on the inside, with ugly mismatched furnishings, though it turned out to be perfectly serviceable and comfortable.

We finally made it to Terry’s father’s an hour late for our dinner reservations, and Madelaine greeted me with many kisses on the lips (!); then they whisked us out to Pastini's, a great little Italian restaurant not too far away, where I had a fantastic seafood and pasta dish, and Terry and I shared the most amazing chocolate souffle dessert. Afterwards we went back to the house to hear his father's stories about Terry as a boy. But we were quite tired, and I had to beg off to go back to the hotel to sleep long before Terry's father was ready to let us go.