Thank goodness for admin errors!!!

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I am so grateful for the travel agent for messing up my flights as I have had such an awesome time in San Diego. It really is a great city and so easy to get to the beach as well, it has it all! Well, accept good public transport but this seems to be a running theme in America. I have been terrible at keeping my diary over the last 3 weeks so I'm going to have to just try and recap what I've been up to from memory.

When I last wrote I was going to Balboa Park which I believe is bigger than Central Park and home to lots of museums. Brogan and I managed to get into the Photographic Art Museum for free and it was amazing. My favourite exhibition was the one focusing on pictures from natural disasters, which sounds a little morbid, but some of the images were incredible. They had birdseye views of the Texas oil spill which looks horrendous from that perspective but really insightful to see how vast the spill was. We also managed to see another Art museum but it wasn't my thing as it was all portrait oil paintings which, although I appreciate the skill, it doesn't interest me as much as other art forms.

A group of guys from Bristol arrived soon after I did and they were staying in the hostel for 2 weeks so we all hung out together at various points and one night myself, Brogan, Jason and the boys went to a drag show at a place called 'Lips'. Jason, had been the previous week and recommended it, it was so funny!! The drag queens served us meals and then we had a diva impersonation show which included Amy Winehouse, Adele, Rhianna and Nicky Minarj. That week we also visited La Jolla, a coastal town where I suspect there was a bit more money judging by the houses that lined the coast. Lovely spot of beach and if you walked further along from where we based ourselves, there were a number of seals on the rocks. The bus ride was an interesting one, on the way there we had two woman walking their iguanas and on the way home a lady who was having a full on discussion...with herself.

The weeks I worked I also tried to do some running either along the harbour front or to the park. One of the days I felt like I'd be a local and do some sets up and down the steps to the convention centre, no mean feat! After 5 sets I then jogged around to the grass on the harbour where I was going to do some sit ups and for no apparent reason I fell over! Very embarrassing as it was in front of a lot of people and I managed to graze my knee, elbow and thumb which created an unnecessary amount of blood. After that I took myself home where I cleaned it up and continue to read my book which seemed like a safer activity. Along with running I also came to enjoy thrift store shopping. Kyla, who I mentioned previously, introduced us to thrift trader. A store where you take your clothes and swap them with other second hand clothes. So handy for me as I was over wearing the same old clothes! One Wednesday Hannah (another hostel worker) and I went to Ocean Beach for the Farmers Market and I managed to get 2 really interesting books from the thrift store there. I loved spending time with Hannah as we had some really cool conversations and she is a really interesting person and has given me a list of music festivals I have to go to in Ireland, which I will definitely do.

My food weakness in San Diego has definitely been Mexican food, nachos and salsa along with tacos followed by frozen yogurt seemed to be a staple. One of the hostel activities included a taco Tuesday night so we all went along as it was the boys from Bristols' last night and clearly because I am obsessed with the food and the night ended up in a Salsa club with me thinking I was a salsa pro. Pretty confident I was terrible but I really tried hard, definitely burnt off my tacos!! The hostel was pretty quiet without the boys so I decided to go in the hostel club crawl one night which was really good actually as there was a good group of us and we went to some awesome clubs in San Diego. One club had the DJ playing his set and a guy drumming to it. This was followed by a roof top club with a swimming pool, unfortunately (probably for the best) this wasn't open but it was still a really great time.

The following week one of the guys who worked at the hostel was leaving so I decided to go surfing with him at Pacific Beach. I had just missed a legend in the surfing world, the man who won the very first world surf tour. He regularly surfs the spot in the morning but I went in the afternoon. Was really nice mellow longboard waves and I used Sanders 9,4 board so it was very chilled. The highlight was when we were just waiting for waves and we saw a school of dolphins on the horizon, so beautiful. A well deserved Buddies burger and sweet potato fries, thanks to Brogan, was my reward. After this we had a quiet few days before we decided to embark on a spontaneous road trip to Hollywood to visit the boys from Bristol. Kyla and I finished work at 12 and then us plus Jason and Brogan headed up to Venice Beach to meet them, watch some of them skate and have some beers. The sunset that night was amazing and I sat by myself watching it in awe appreciating that I was there. We drove to their hostel via Skid Row, a well known area for homeless people in LA. Literally streets lined with tents and make shift shelters for the homeless. Crazy!! We arrived at the hostel and had some drinks and played pool. The highlight was seeing Kyle from neighbours there!! Couldn't believe it, I got a picture and he leant me a quarter for my game of pool. Nice enough guy, auditioning In LA I think. I was really embarrassing and asked him what was happening to Kyle and Georgia if he was here?! His response...'don't you worry about them everything will work out.' WHAT DOES THAT MEAN???

We had managed to tick off lots of the things Kyla had wanted to do with us so that we fully embraced California. I wholeheartedly disagree with her love for Bloody Mary's, when you add pepper to a drink, I just can't get on board! I laughed so much when we met her from uni and she drove us to see some frat houses and she explained how they all wore the same tshirts on specific days and the girls have the same bags with their houses on them. I completely get that this is part of American culture but I wonder how this whole concept would go down in England. Pretty confident it wouldn't stick! After this little tour round we headed down to Coronardo beach and could see the San Diego skyline which was really pretty. We were so lucky to have met Kyla as she is such a fun, happy person who mood didn't alter whether it was 6am or 6pm! She couldn't do enough for us and took us to some really cool places. I miss her excitable ways already!!

My final weekend In America was spent in LA where we managed to get LA Lakers tickets and I stayed with the boys from Bristol again and we headed to the Staples Center for the game. Was such an awesome game and the seats, although up high, were still really good and we got fully into it! $12 a drink was not ideal though. I headed to the airport the following day and began the process of getting to Peru via 3 flights and a 5hour lay over. I wasn't aware that you couldn't enter Peru without an outgoing ticket, so I ended up having to buy a flight (refundable thankfully) out of Peru else the lady wasn't going to let me on the plane that I had 45 mins to board. Stressed was not the word! Barged through a few queues and thankfully made it in time. And did Peruvian immigration ask for the ongoing information, of course they didn't! I was fuming. However, after 24hours with no sleep I just wanted to get to my hostel and sleep. So hear I am in Lima and I smiled when I smelt the air which had that humid, car fumed smell. Reminded me of Asia and immediately I felt like a proper traveller again! 3 months to explore South America, can't wait!

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