The buses are awesome but regular Americans don’t ride the buses, apparently only ‘Mexicans and mental folks’ use the service according to one rather obnoxious person who advised me to avoid them. Strangely that comment made me want to go the buses even more, so I did.

The first step is finding the buses in your area; they are very well hidden so the Metro website is a must. BUT…the problem is…the website is very complicated to work out. Finally I located a bus stop near the house where I was living. There is no real info on the bus shelter, so you do have to stop every bus and ask the driver for help with your trip, which annoys people and I did get in the way of the Mexicans and mental folk who pushed me about a bit. But, I was determined so I finally boarded a bus with the intention of going to Santa Monica beach. It would take about 2 hours, as there are no dedicated bus lanes in Down Town La, so you get stuck in the traffic all the time.

The next obstacle is that most of the bus info is written in Spanish on the buses, how racist is that? Even the TV that plays on the bus is mostly in Spanish and it made me realise there is a real class divide to contend with. You see in London LOADS of people of ALL classes ride the public transport, in LA that really doesn’t happen.

Then there were the poor mentally affected who seem to LIVE on the buses full time and the sheer numbers of them startled me, it was atrocious that these poor folk just wander the streets with gigantic balls of rags, bags of cans wrapped about their bodies, usually accompanied with voices and various facial ticks. I have never seen so many of these damaged people in my entire life. EVERY single bus had at least five shouters, screamers or body pickers.

The scary thing is, you can’t help but watch them. One wee Oriental woman dressed in three sweaters and no shoes had a particularly awful affliction she seemed compelled to bend down and touch a spot on the bus floor in a certain pattern. The bus kept shunting her about and she had to start all over again, people were getting pissed off at her as she pushed them out of the way till she reached her ‘special touching spot’ beneath their feet.

On that same bus one big black man who smelled like a bad kebab screamed and pulled the wire to stop the bus every five seconds, this in turn drove ‘touch the floor woman’ to distraction and they had a wee scream at each other.

Just when they got off a young blonde female in her early 20s with a scruffy young guy climbed on board. She was wearing a cropped top and kept pulling it up and sticking her tongue out and dancing provocatively.

The girl was so beautiful but looked damaged and was overtly outgoing to people. We all ignored her, but she got more outrageous and started to talk to strangers, the young guy with her giggled but looked embarrassed.

A big homeless grizzly bearded bloke climbed on board and the girl made a beeline for him. She wiggled her bare tummy at him, he in turn screamed at her.

“That’s one Pandora’s box she shouldn’t even begin to open” I whispered to a Mexican woman beside me. The woman nodded at me and we both looked at the girl with concern.

Just then the blonde girl made eye contact with me, sniggered and said “Do you know any titty bars in Santa Monica?” She looked at me challenging an answer.

“Do I look like the kind of woman who frequents titty bars, or runs titty bars or knows anything about them?” I laughed.

She didn’t expect me to take up the challenge, but smiled back at me. She was staring at me cautiously and I could see she was trying to work out the accent and the vibe.

She then explained to me that she was 19 years old and she was living on the beaches on LA and was homeless but did ‘anything’ to make cash for her and Todd her boyfriend. He smiled and nodded as he stroked her back. I told her I was Scottish and visiting LA.

“Are you married?” she shouted over the bus engine noise.

“Yes” I replied, rather perplexed at the change in conversation and the level of intimacy she was aiming for in this short exchange.

“Are you happy?” she asked.

“Yes I am, why?” I asked.

“Well, I was going to say you could give up Scotland and come live with us on the beach, we can steal you a bicycle and we could live in LA till the winter came along and then we could move South, what do you say?” she shouted. Todd thought this was a great idea and nodded furiously as he picked scabs on his hand.

I obviously took too long to answer this as they both leapt up excitedly and hugged me. “Come with us” she screeched.

“It sounds fabulous but I would miss my daughter and husband” I smiled.

“Do you love your daughter?” she asked me.

“Yes, very much and I would be devastated if I didn’t see her again” I answered.

“She is lucky, my mother hated me” she said.

She then lapsed into silence and stared out of the bus window, she didn’t speak again for ages. When the bus reached Santa Monica harbour we all got off. They got their bikes off the front of the bus, hugged me, laughed loudly and pedalled off into the sunshine. I felt so sad for them and couldn’t quite shake off the depressing feeling it left me with all day.

The beach was awesome; I got some food and a cold drink and sat by the ocean deep in my own head, just listening to the wave’s crash on the sand. The heat was stunning, I had to completely lather myself in sunscreen as I burn in a minute.

The day past quickly, I loved the place and wandered about aimlessly watching the families, the homeless and the well heeled all enjoy the sunshine.

My beach day didn’t end there; I have heaps to tell you all about Venice Beach and will do so in my next blog.