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Published: August 4th 2008
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We rolled in to San Diego late, Ocean Beach to be more precise. The OBI seemed awesome, sometimes things aren’t what they seem. We were pleasantly surprised to be sharing a room with 2 blonde Swedes, but that wasn’t enough to make us like this hostel. We were woken early to get up and change rooms, change to a room that we subsequently had to vacate for maintenance for 3 hours. So we headed beachside quicksmart.
I thought a king crab had ripped my foot in two, but I was surprised to see only a spot of blood when I lifted my foot. I’d been the first sting ray victim of the day, one of 10 on hot days apparently. So I spent the next hour with my foot in boiling water to apparently slow the chemical reactions of the sting ray toxins. It felt as if my foot was now a throbbing brick. A fat Italian sub soon dulled the pain.
After finally getting access to our room we met the Mc’s all irish girls, and had all you can eat spag bol for 6 bucks. We soon discovered that we’d have no luck getting into the bars
around town so we stopped by the bottle-o for some brews. A hostel is meant to be a place for like-minded travelers to mix and mingle and share great times, unfortunately OBI thought that a hostel was another name for ‘boarding house’. No beers after 9, in bed or out by 11! Not cool. The next morning we got woken up by the fat maintenance man, who burst through the door while Ciara was getting changed and told us to get out for cleaning. Rude prik, shit place!
Nonetheless we spent another night, this time watching Swedes dance like frogs on the longest pier on the west coast. Drinking beers bought from a pharmacy, 11 bucks for 12 quality Mexican beers. Value. We were finally out of there, Sabrina picked us up and we were on our way to the San Diego Animal Park, another awesome host! The animal park was amazing, I could never get tired of wildlife, especially watching rhinos and giraffes roam around the hills, and petting some deerish lookin things. We headed back to Sabrina’s new apartment and relaxed poolside, ahhhh the serenity.
We figured out the public transport and went downtown to the
The Prayer
Jake's Signature move world famous San Diego Zoo. Not too different to Melbourne, yet a fair bit bigger and very dense bush. It was amazing to see that a Cheetah and a Golden Retriever were best mates. The Pooch was the butch. The baby Panda was cute as can be, and I had a moment with a huuuge hippo. After more poolside tanning we met Reno, the everything man. Another half a day of relaxing and we went downtown to Lucky D’s for the last 2 nights. More our style.
Reno took us out to a great Mexican place where I demolished chicken fajitas like never before. We were quite surprised when we walked into a bar to see everyone silently staring at a projected image on a wall. Fi would have been the only one to understand the short films, I sure didn’t, but everyone cheered like they did. We shared pints of new beers and a wonderful stout. We went out to Balboa Park afterwards to see the Casa de Balboa by night. Apparently all fake buildings but they still looked magnificent. Reno had a great story to tell about every street in his city, including the In and Out
The Albatross
My Signature Move where we found late night satisfaction.
After being amazed at Kinko’s ridiculous printing prices in the morning Reno again picked us up for part two of our San Diego tour. We drove across the bay bridge through thick cloud, as if we were going to emerge in another country at the other end. But Coronado was where we ended up and enjoyed an awesome view of the city and saw some of it’s massive naval fleet, a couple of aircraft carriers chilling in the bay.
We headed out to see Sarah at her new flat in North Park, we’d return later for some beverages but first we enjoyed the sunset at Sunset Cliffs, near Pacific Beach, as military helicopters buzzed past. Back in North Park we played some pool at the Pink Elephant as I reacquainted myself with Tigers of the beer kind. The Irish bar in the gaslamp quarter provided excellent Mexican spirits but preceded disappointment when we couldn’t get into any of the pumpin dance clubs. Our last gasp effort was to check out what seemed like a rich man’s playground from across the street, and proved to be as we got to the front door.
Casa de Balboa
Balboa Park by night We followed a pom in a pink shirt through a side door and found ourselves at the after party of a biomedical convention, millionaires only. The pirate fell in love with Jake after his joke about the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie being ARRRR rated. 42 dollars for 2 beers and 2 tequilas let us know we were at a wealthy affair, and after Peter the millionaire referred me to a billionaire (!) I was sure we’d struck it lucky. Jake chatted up their trophy wives and tried to walk through glass doors as I gathered business cards and got my hands dryed and cologne sprayed by a butler in the mens room. We should crash rich parties more often!
Reno took us out to a war memorial with an amazing view and La Jolla beach with a great view of a different kind. The aussie on the check-in made us even more happy with Virgin America as we ventured to see whether the east side is better.
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