The incredible San Diego Zoo
We took the train along the coastline, past miles of unbroken beaches with endless surfers and sun worshippers. We met up with my friend Blair, who I had met when we were both studying at the London School of Economics a few years previously. She and her flatmate Hana-Lee lived in a disgustingly nice apartment overlooking the entertainment centre of downtown - on Saturday night they took us around some of the bars in the Gaslamp quarter. After cucumber vodkas and raspberry margaritas, we ended up in a great live music bar called Jimmy Love's. A crazy dancing thin woman with dark hair and black lipstick belted out instantly recognisable hits from the eighties. We danced like idiots.
Hostel California (a cliched title, yes, but read on...)
We stayed at a hostel somewhat inland from Ocean Beach, which was filled with a quite staggering collection of odd people (and I've stayed in quite a few hostels), most of whom had been allocated to my dorm room. The Man Who Knew Everything was an affable and extremely talkative American semi-retiree, who seemed able to start a conversation on any subject imaginable. He told Beth about hidden away beaches we could visit, decided Ben needed advice about boiling a kettle, and gave me tips on where I could meet US college girls as I travelled through Mexico... He also tipped me off about The Phantom Shitter. One morning, after I had just showered in the middle cubicle of the men's bathroom, he told me that he had found out (through his intelligence network among the hostel staff) one of the hostel guests had been 'relieving himself' in the middle cubicle of the showers. And not just once - the second time the culprit had smeared it over the walls and over the showerhead. 'Best to avoid the middle shower, son.' 'Cheers,' I tried to smile.
We never found out who it was, but Ben suspected it was The Complaining Man, a wiry white haired moustached man who complained from the moment he arrived in the hostel to the moment he left. I first met him as he came into the dorm room furiously muttering to himself - he waged a bitter and unsuccessful campaign against the hostel, who seemed to have messed up his booking; after a few days he had to leave, to everyone's relief. But worst of all was The Snoring Man, a tall, scraggily bearded unkept man, who over the course of Saturday night, turned out to be the worst snorer of all time. His exhales were volcanically loud, his inhales a nauseous phlegm suckling stuttering drawl. All my dorm stayed awake furious at him, but I missed the whole show. I got into bed around 3am and immediately passed out. I woke up confused and hungover on Sunday to hear my floor laughing and crying simultaneously about how bad someone had been snoring; I spent ten very embarrassed minutes thinking they were talking about me...
Pacific Beach
BBQ on the beach at sunset
We stayed in Ocean Beach (San Diego has lots of beaches) because the guidebooks recommend it as a laidback, funky, edgy area, less stressful than the more mainstream Pacific and Mission Beach. This may not make me a good backpacker, but I really just prefered Pacific Beach, and we spent most of our time there. Ocean Beach was certainly edgy, but seemed to have a large number of inhabitants who's attitude was 'Unpleasant arseholes like me give this area its special character, so smile while I be rude to you'. Perhaps I'm just a snob, but in Pacific Beach you don't get approached about tours to Mexico, you don't get a huge, muscle bound drunken man following you around asking why you didn't like Germany (don't ask me why), you don't get a utterly drunk weasel-like guy in a bar, with a failed goatee beard, who stands in the way of every girl that goes past smiling at her with a 'we both know you want me' smile and has to be thrown out by the huge English bouncer. On Pacific Beach you just get the stress of hundreds of beautiful tanned people wandering past you. Apparently San Diego won a competition for 'best looking people in the USA'. Walking along the beach, the only thing surprising to me about that was that someone felt a competition was necessary. I don't want to stereotype - clearly not everyone had a perfect tan or knew their cosmetic surgeon by his first name - but there were a large number of San Diegoeans that were just conversation stoppingly good looking. We had a great time on the beach, sunbathing, people watching, I got a three hour intensive surfing lesson (and was pretty rubbish), and on the last night the three of us cooked a great BBQ as the sun set.