San Diego, California
A 6 am flight to Long Beach and a 2 hour bus ride to San Diego has us arrive at about 10 am.
We walk to our hostel in the middle of town past a breakfast place with a massive line - which obviously means its great.
We drop our stuff off at Lucky D's hostel and hurry back for some grub. We have more typical American style pancakes/french toast with bacon and eggs and maple syrup. Again, we eat way too much and enjoy the bottomless coffee. At this rate we wont need to eat all day!
It's Sunday in America which means one thing - football! San Francisco are the last Californian team in the playoffs, so we have to go and watch and get excited. They are playing Seattle Seahawks who are firm favorites.
We are staying in the Gaslamp district of San Diego which is full of bars, old and new. So its easy to pick a good place and park up with a few pitchers.
We make friends with Joe and Danniella who are sitting out the front with a fox-looking dog called Malaki - an hyper-vigilant, highly strung puppy who takes all of the 3 hours to get used to us.
Joe (Minnesota country boy) and Danniella (LA bartender) are about 20 hours into their relationship and Joe has already proposed 3 times. An interesting 1 night stand. We have a great time watching the game with them. Danniella is a big 49ers fan and they look good for most of the game. Seattle eventually win and the crowd is sad :(
We say goodbye and head back to the hostel for some free hotdogs and an early night. San Diego explorations will have to wait for tomorrow.
Day 2
It's San Diego exploration day. We are up bright and early and head down for breakfast. We fill up on cereal and coffee and hit the street.
We head up the hill to the main park in San Diego called Balboa Park. Its filled with museums and stuff and the San Diego Zoo.
We walk through and have a look around. We aren't really in the museum mood though, and the zoo is way too expensive. So we head on through and decide to jump on a bus out to Old Town.
Old Town is an historic site that recreates life in the Mexican and early American periods of San Diego. Maybe kinda like Sovereign Hill in Victoria that recreates the gold rush times.
We hang out there and have a coffee and a weird soda and do some reading. We explore the mini town and grab a beer. Its such a nice day. The sun is out, but its not super hot. California keeps turning it on for us.
Another Man Vs Food destination is not far from Old Town. We walk for about 20 minutes and finally find the place. Its closed for renovations. The security guard tells us that there is another Phil's BBQ at the end of one of the Trolley (Tram) lines. We are pretty keen to check it out, so it goes on the list for tomorrow.
There is another Man Vs Food place not far from where we are now, so off we walk. We get there at 3:15. It closed at 3. Sigh!
Ok, we've heard a bit about this sandwich shop called Firehouse Subs. This place didn't let us down at least. The subs were great. Not a whole lot of salad, but that's cool. The soda machine with 120(!) different flavors makes up for that.
A bit happier now we have food in our bellies, we head back to Old Town to get the trolley home.
We get off at the Gaslamp district and wander through it on the way home. We stop for a few drinks at a Mexican place (its happy hour, how can we not?) before heading home for another early night. The walking and the sun has us beat for the day.
Day 3
There are a few other cool areas we need to check out in SD, so we have breakfast and hit the streets. We walk towards the water.
There is a fair bit going on at the docks. Plenty of ships and people. The warship USS Midway is permanently docked here as a museum.
We keep walking until we reach Little Italy. We are well overdue for a decent coffee. Surely somewhere here will be able to service us.
We find a cafe, sit back and enjoy the street. Next time we are here we will have to eat something, but for now, we are trying to get ourselves nice and hungry for the Man Vs Food stop later on.
We hang out and read for a bit and have another coffee before jumping on the trolley and riding it out to Santee, where another iconic Phil's BBQ restaurant is. We are warned to avoid lunch or dinner times, so we rock up at about 3. There isn't a line and we get a seat straight away.
Courts gets the ribs and Jeff gets a pulled pork sandwich. Both are covered in Phil's famous BBQ sauce. Its super tangy and sweet and a little bit spicy. We are ticking a lot of American boxes here. Courtney has a side of macaroni and cheese and Jeff gets some sweet backed beans. All of it was incredible. We walk out incredibly full and happy.
Back on the trolley we go out to Old Town again. From there we get a bus to Mission Beach. This is one of the many nice beaches in San Diego. We are aiming for a sunset at the beach to tick "Sunset at a Californian beach" off the list.
We get there just in time and head out to the end of a Jetty. Well, as far as it will let us go. The end is roped off, and for good reason. Whenever there is a large wave the whole thing is rocking back and forth with it. And this jetty has a bunch of little beach huts on it! Yikes.
We watch the sun go down (aww, how romantic) and head back and duck into a bar to watch the ice hockey (aww, how romantic).
We watch the New York Rangers play the New York Islanders and make a friend at the bar. He is an Islanders fan from Queens in NY. We chat for an hour or so and find out he is here on "business". Basically him and 2 of his mates own a business in NY and are trying to expand into California. There isn't much work here though, and so the 3 month rotations they each have to do here is more like a holiday.
We say goodbye to our new friend and head home on the bus and trolley. As always, some interesting characters on the public transport here. Same as in Oz, I guess.