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We arrive in San Diego late afternoon and check into our hostel. We actually have a half decent kitchen for the first time in California in this hostel so the first thing we do is head to the supermarket and get some food for the week. Our first impressions of San Diego are good, the place is clean and feels very safe, which is good after the uneasy feeling of LA. After we had our dinner we ventured out to find a decent bar and found one that had $2 pints!
Jodie fancied an early night so I stayed down the pub loving the cheap beer!
Next day we didn't really have anything planned. As were here for a week we are just going to take our time doing things. We went down to the harbour to have a look around and the place is well nice. They have patios along the harbour where you can just sit and watch the view. They have small little islands just off the harbour and then a big island a little bit further out which is a base for the Navy so there are loads of aircraft carriers. Jodie wanted to just sit and read her book and enjoy the view so while she done that I walked down to the massive bridge they have to walk over to the island. After about 45 minutes of walking I still hadn't even reached the bridge and the area was quickly getting worse and worse. There were now barbed wire over all the fences, bars on all windows and bums everywhere. The last straw was when I saw a used babies nappy on the floor, after that I gave up and turned round!
I met back up with Jodie and walked down the harbour to see what was at the other end. They have a lot of parks around the harbour and they have a little village on the front that is full of shops and cafes. We spent the rest of the afternoon here just looking round before we headed back to the hostel for tea. Later that night we headed back down our local and had a few more drinks!
We had heard a lot about the San Diego zoo and how it was one of the worlds best so we are going to spend the day here. When we got there the first thing we noticed was that the zoo was absolutely huge. It was that big that they had a sky lift to get you from one side to the other and an express bus. When we got to the zoo we jumped on the tour bus while it was still quiet. The tour lasted about half an hour and only covered 70% of the zoo. The driver took us round half of the park and told us about certain animals, where they had got them from and pointed out the baby giraffes. We got back off that got on the sky lift. That took us straight over to the Polar Bears and had great views of the Zoo and downtown San Diego. The Polar bears were just sleeping so we got back on the sky lift and headed back for a sea lion show which was quite good.
We spent the rest of the day walking around the huge zoo trying to see as much as we could before we were too tired to continue. They had loads of animals but the best bits were the Koala bears, the polar bears (which we went to see again and had one right next to us in the water), the gorillas and the elephants. We walked around as much as we possibly could, which was for about 5 hours and yet still never saw everything!
We got on the bus and headed back down town. I went to the opticians and got my glasses fixed! So happy I can see again! I now have a huge mop on my head so headed to the barbers afterwards and got it all chopped off. At the barbers at home they have mens magazines like golf and cars to read while you wait, here they have playboy magazines to read while you wait!!
After such a long day walking round in the sun we just sat and done nothing at night.
As we had walked so much the day before at the zoo we were just having a chill out day today. We went to the pharmacy and got our pictures put on a CD then went to the library to upload them. We waited about 50 minutes for a free computer then when we got on one realised that they had some block set up on it and we couldn't do the pictures!
We left the library and went for lunch. Pretty much everywhere in the Gaslamp District is cheap, all the food is really good value and everywhere has happy hours that last most of the day. Jodie still has a huge craving for sushi and spotted a restaurant that was kind of cheap so we went there for a treat, still can't use the damn chopsticks, seriously why do they have to be different, fork and knives work fine! We headed back down to the harbour and sat and read our books for a bit.
That night we had bought tickets for a baseball game. The San Diego Padres were top of their league and were playing the Arizona Diamondbacks (awful name). Our seats were in the second tier and were class, we had a great view. We tried to get on the big screen but never did, Jodie was desperate to get on it and nearly flashed to make sure she did! The game was quite slow but was really good. The Padres won 9-3 and everytime they hit a home run fireworks went off and a fire show started, proper Americanized!
Today is our last day in downtown San Diego before we head to the outskirts and stay with our couch surfer. We have pretty much seen everything in San Diego apart from the old town so we make our way up there. The Old Town is where San Diego started, they have kept all the buildings the same as how they were back in the day and have made them all into small museums. There isn't very much up there and we had seen all of it within a few hours so we just took our time and when we got back to the Gaslamp District just went and had a few drinks.
We weren't really too sure what time we were meant to be at the couch surfers house as all she had said was that she wanted us there as early as we could so she could go out later. We checked out and took an hours train ride to a place called Lemon Grove and then walked for about an hour to her house. When we got there an old man with 1 eye and 1 leg answered the door and clearly had no idea who we were and was not expecting us. He wasn't too keen to let us in and had to phone Bobbie (the woman who was having us) to make sure we weren't just some random people. He finally let us in but we could tell he didn't want us there so we felt proper awkward. Even though Bobbie told us she would be in she had gone out for the day and wasn't coming back till at least 8 at night (we weren't impressed that she asked us to come early!) so instead of just sitting in the house feeling uncomfortable we headed out to the nearest thing to us which was a shopping mall. We spent pretty much the whole day walking round some shops and then sat in a restaurant for a good 2 hours to waste time, it was still a good day though.
When Bobbie did finally get home she was very apologetic and seemed really nice and welcoming. The thing we didn't know about them though was that they were both Rastas and all they done indoors was smoke pot! Bobbie had a medical record for it so she was allowed to smoke it and grow it for up to 4 people (she was allowed to grow 12 plants per person, each with about 3 grands worth of pot grown on it!)
Next day we went back up to the shopping mall for our dinner then headed down to Balboa park which is a massive park full of museums and the San Diego Zoo. The place is really famous but were not too sure why as all it is is a park and it tries to be like Washington DC but doesn't even come close. We walked around most of it just to see it before heading back to the house. When we got there Bobbie invited us out with her friend to Cosmic Bingo (yeah never heard of it either!) This bingo is quite good, they have a DJ, a drag queen shouting out the numbers and if you win instead of shouting Bingo you had to jump up and dance. If 2 people won then they had to do a dance off and the one with the most applause from the rest of the room won the majority of the money. Not only that but we had to dress in a Toga for it as well! Just before we left Bobbie and her friend took a space cake each so here we were playing some kind of crazy bingo, in togas with a stoned Rasta and her friend, probably the most random night we will ever have! Unfortunately none of us won so we couldn't break out the dance moves!
We were pretty much San Diego'd put by our last day so we didn't really do much and just chilled by Bobbies pool for the afternoon and got to know the new couch surfers she had staying with her.
Tomorrow Jodie heads home for a week for Jessica's wedding and I head up to Seattle for a few days. We've got a really early start and are pretty much sat in airports all day (and all night for Jodie!)
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