Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
The hostel in San Diego proved to be just fine. The beds were very squeaky and it was in the main touristy area so it wasn't the quietest place in general, but it was clean and safe and they have become our main priorities! The staff at the hostel were much more friendly than in LA and they organise tours and activities and stuff.
The breakfast was free, but you had to cook it yourself so we're now dab hands at making American style pancakes for breakfast. We were clueless the first morning though and so got talking to a guy called Steve from Barnet in North London. Little did he know that we were going to take him under our wing and drag him everywhere with us! He's been travelling across the States by himself, so we convinced ourselves that he'd be glad of the company (not that he ever said as much...but we were glad of a 3rd person too, so everyone was a winner!) That day we (along with our new friend Steve) decided to take the tour to Tijuana in Mexico. The place was exactly how you'd expect it to be. Completely different from San Diego, so much so that you really can't believe you're just across the border and got there on the tram. The border checkpoint for Mexicans trying to drive into the States was reminiscent of the toll booths on the Severn Bridge into Wales, but a billion times busier, and I'm guessing not as friendly. We spent the day wandering and trying to ward off the locals who were intent on either selling us stuff we didn't want or dragging us into pole dancing joints (remember, Steve was with us...along with, by this point, a British girl called Stephanie and her Aussie boyfriend Torben). We had a genuine Mexican lunch, which was frankly quite unpleasant and a few hours later headed back home. The highlight of our little jaunt has to have been something called a zonkey. You see them everywhere. They are donkeys painted to look like zebras. The mind boggles, doesn't it?!
The evening we (me, Em and Steve) went out and had a genuine American dinner in TGIs which was all we could afford in the Gaslamp Quarter but again was frankly quite unpleasant. We then decided to try a couple of bars...in the first we went to there was a live band playing and shameless Americans dancing. Then we went to a genuine Irish bar (!)...where the manager was most displeased that I was only carrying my driving licence as ID as opposed to my passport. What did he think I'd done, forged it?! Anyway, the fact that I'm the ripe old age of 27 really doesn't matter over here. Every day's a school day, eh?
Haven't got much time to update any more for now. If you're in work and avoiding actually doing anything you can find more photos at the Truprint website...I've emailed most of you the link. x
- comments