Los Angeles city of angels

Feeling quite tired today. It's quite tricky getting around this carland on public transport. Although the buses are fun and you see some amazing characters on them. There is a massive class divide here, which is really represented on the buses. Every journey takes quite a lot of planning.

Went to the Natural History Museum yesterday, and spent hours looking at all the amazing things. They have one of the world's largest ever quartz crystal balls. I looked into it but couldn't see my future. I also liked the meteorite from Mars which landed in LA county in 1999.

At night we went out downtown (in Andrew's car, which means you can go to areas that are no-go for someone like me on foot, like a voyeur). Downtown turns into a complete shanty town at night (parts of it are by day too). There are hundreds of tents on the streets and people just lying on the paths. By day you see lots of people pushing trolleys full of plastic bottles they have collected. I think you get money from the recycling plant. You also see a lot of people with limbs missing sleeping rough (often with US flags on their wheelchairs if they have them), and people holding up signs explaining in great detail about an operation they need to have. It will be interesting comparing Costa Rica, "a third world country" (apparently), to this.