5th April - Last day in LA then off to London

We both had a good sleep last night and it looks like the painkillers are working for Steve.

We walked back around to the market this morning for breakfast after packing our bags and leaving them downstairs in storage. The cold wind started as we left CitizenM and the temperature was only about 12° so we were glad to have warm clothing on but felt very sorry for many of the homeless people nearby had multiple layers of blankets but still looked quite cold. There seems to be a lot of mental health challenges on show.

We wandered back to the market and thought about Egg Slut for a moment until we saw the line was about 50m long. Even though they are amazing we just didn't feel like such a long wait so we decided to try out The Donut Man, as the donuts looked amazing when we went past yesterday. This place sells out of their strawberry donuts quickly so we decided to grab one while we could. Amazing - they look like they contain a whole punnet of strawberries sandwiched between about 1cm of donut above and below. 

I must say it was just delicious and not really that sweet after all. By comparison Steve's original glazed donut was so sweet even I couldn't eat any of it and he only had a few bites. The coffee to wash down the residual sugar was well and truly needed. Fueled up we headed off for a walk.

First stop was the Bradbury Building; an architectural landmark built in 1893 which is LA's oldest landmarked building. This is truly a magnificent building with a beautiful skylight atrium, wrought iron lift cages and sweeping staircases. The building has been in many movies including Blade Runner. We spent some time here just wandering among many others and finally we made our way back to the CitizenM to catch up on some work - one of their lobby booths made a great work station.

Lunchtime called and we headed back next door to Orleans and York - a cool little place that has been recognised for their po boys - we decided, after chatting to the lady about the size of the sandwiches and rolls, to just get one and were very glad we did as it was very large. The fresh carrot, beetroot, apple, ginger and lemon juice was superb and just what I needed.

More work back at CitizenM then we retrieved our stored luggage and called an Uber for our trip out to LAX. The freeways here are just crazy and we saw quite a few cars going incredibly fast and we waited for a black and white police car to be following with sirens blaring but nothing! Amazing!

The Uber driver was really lovely and was telling us that we stayed in Downtown and it is a good place to stop but go two blocks east and you wouldn't want to go out at night! He is moving to Barcelona as he can't wait to get out of LA. It is certainly a place I have no intention of coming back too. The last two items on our LA list have been ticked off now; La Brea and Griffiths Observatory.

He found the British Airways area and got a park right in front so it was a very easy transition from the car to the British Airways check-in and that was a very smooth process all round until we got to security. What a bun fight! People everywhere and staff constantly changing the lane ropes around and re-directing people. Shoes off, jackets off, computers out (with nothing on top of them), small bag of liquids, the whole time with people breathing down your neck. Through the top to bottom scanners then off to try to find your bags and hoping they would still be there! They all were so next job was to find somewhere to put your clothing back on and put everything back into the bags. Complete mess for such a busy airport. You would think that this bottleneck in the process would be looked at.

Anyway - up to the Qantas/British Airways lounge for some peace and quiet. The flight has been delayed by about an hour.