I once had a very difficult conversation with a couple of tourists from the States about the whereabouts of downtown in London. We were on a train from Dover to London, late on a Sunday night, and they had come from the continent. On Sundays, the rail companies do engineering works, and our journey was interrupted by bus trips to allow for this. The mother took this personally, and did not understand about not interrupting commuters' journeys on working days.
She and her son had not booked a hotel in London, and wanted to know which one to go in downtown London. I asked them to define what they meant by downtown. The son said "You know, where it's at." I silently cursed Petula Clark. We never arrived at any sensible conclusion, as I tried to find out whether they wanted shops, theatres, historic buildings... And as for hotels...

Penny