You Stay Classy San Diego

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Yo yo,

Now that we’ve got the relative luxury of a PC that can upload the photos, I thought I’d do a few blogs at once and bring you all up to speed.

We arrived on 1st July in Sunny San Diego and booked into our hostel. We were quite excited to begin with as our room was very nice and over looked a buzzing area of the city.

The only hitch was that we were booked into another HI hostel, which means alcohol Prohibition was back on!! The building was really nice and such a good location, so it was a shame really.

The ‘vibe’ in a HI hostels is a little bit like being on a foreign exchange. Without the alcohol or atmosphere, everyone seems to sit around playing chess (seriously!) asking each other mindlessly 'international' style questions like:

‘What’s your favourite word in English?’
What’s your favourite French word?

Watching the football with this lot was booooooring!

During our first visit to the kitchen, we got talking to a guy wearing ‘Vietnam Veteran’ chic and speaking in the most bizarre affected accent. Turns out he’s the most popular guy in the place…we decide that we need to book into another hostel!!

We went out that night to meet up with my brother’s flatmate, Lee who was on holiday in the states. Myself and Clio got stuck into some pretty huge ‘Goldfish bowl’ beers and were pretty merry by the time we met up with him. It was really good to see a familiar face and we had a really good night.

The next few days were spent counting down to our escape from our hostel , and taking in a few sights. I actually visited San Diego a few years ago with my family so I picked out places that I thought Clio would like, such as Coronado Beach where they filmed ‘Some like it Hot’. The budget was a bit restrictive so we gave the Zoo a miss (Clio wasn't impressed) and we'll have to wait to LA to watch some Baseball...but it's still on the agenda.

We also went for a day out in Tijuana, which was a real eye opener. It’s ridiculously easy to cross the border to Mexico, you could be carrying a dead body or a bag of guns…it’s much harder to get back in (we did though thankfully!). The town is very poor and you can imagine that 2, six foot tall white people stood out a mile. Like a homing beacon for beggars, all the way up the main street.

We got stopped by the Mexican Craig Charles (check out the pic) and had a bit of food in his restaurant before beating a hasty retreat back to good old USA!

We moved out of the first hostel and into the much more socialable and normal, USA hostel down the street just in time for 4th July. Independence Day a massive deal and everyone gets the day off work to celebrate it. There’s fireworks and loads of drinking on the streets and across all the beaches in San Diego.

We made the most of the free margaritas that the hostel was laying on and had a great night. The last thing I remember was watching a Reggae band in a nearby bar, telling a woman that America’s got a brilliant President now…she told me she didn’t vote for him and doesn’t agree with his policies. I make a mental note to never talk about politics in the states again!

The next day is obviously a write off, but we have the luxury of a TV, so we watch of all things, 'Independence day'...it's actually better than I remember. We also sort out accommodation for the next part of the journey, we've decided to check out the O.C before we head to LA

Adios til next time

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