Sunday - Oceanside

Went down to the harbour for lunch today. Had a very ordinary seafood salad at Robin's Nest Cafe. It looked good but the shrimps and crab were very watery and, therefore, tasteless. Frozen, not fresh. Oh well.
Wandered around the marina and along the beach for a bit after lunch. Cool music outside a coffee shop - latiny jazzy sort of stuff. Nice guitar work. Saw some little squirrels along the rocks that line the marina walkway. They live in the rocks apparently. Their tails don't sit up along their backs like squirrels' tails are supposed to so I thought they were giant rats at first. But I was told they are squirrels so there you go.
Feel a bit blah after lunch so have come back to the motel.

Taxi driver today asked me if my accent was real or fake.

Thank you Sharon :)

Spent today with Sharon, smacss on flickr. She took me to Balboa Park in San Diego. What a place! I don't know how many acres the park covers but it's lots! There are something like 14 different museums plus craft shops, cafes and restaurants, plus a zoo. We only had a look at a couple of the museums - an art gallery, the photographic museum and the natural history museum. They all had great stuff. The photography museum had a display of some guy's 365 project. That was cool. There were a few photographs on display which led us both to say, "I could have taken that." :) Some fascinating stuff in the art gallery - the Russian display was particularly interesting. Most of the pieces were on wood and were all religious icon type of thing. Sharon has been to Russia so it was really good to hear her views on travel there. Guided tour is definitely the way to go!
Balboa Park was built in 1915 (I think) for an expo. I thought the architecture was really interesting. Most buildings are plain rendered concrete, but sort of sandstone coloured, and with Spanish style arches and walkways. Each building had some sort of intricate decoration around the doorways or over little towers, etc. I thought a couple of these decorated bits looked quite eastern in their influence - Cambodian or Indian mostly. Up close, they were definitely western in subject matter. Just an impression I got. Made me wish I'd taken the real camera.
We also wandered through the botanical house. Orchids aplenty!! Even saw a few tree ferns :)
Took too many plant pics and not enough of the architecture early on and then the baby camera's battery went flat. Note to self: buy several spare batteries for baby camera as they don't last long at all! That was the only disappointment of the day.
Sharon took the coast road back to Oceanside and so I got a quick look at Carlsbad and the other towns between San Diego and Oceanside.
Pics will be up on flickr later (when battery is charged and I can get them off the camera and into computer!).

I really enjoyed today Sharon, thank you :-D

That was a dumb idea.

Stayed up till 2.30am last night and watched the Saints game on the internet. Slept till about 1 this afternoon so didn't make it to Carlsbad, or anywhere else.
I think I'm still on Melbourne time as I don't seem to be properly awake till about 4pm, which is 9am at home.

What I've noticed so far....

Taxis turn up within 5 minutes of being called. If only that happened at home...
Ciggies and alcohol are much cheaper, even taking the exchange rate into account. Sweet :)
Water drains down the plug hole the other way.
Light switches are upside down - I keep turning lights on instead of off, and vice versa.
Power plugs/outlets at the wall have no on/off switch. That means there's power running all the time. Wastage.
Traffic! Never seen so many cars in my life - and they're all on the WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD!!!!
TV - over 60 channels to choose from but less variety than the 5 channels (plus their digital spin offs) at home. All American stuff too. No British shows or Aussie shows or European shows that I've discovered so far. Each channel I've seen, so far, seems to repeat the same thing over and over.
I can't hear any birds in the morning.
Very few white people work in the service industries - the motel, bars, restaurants, etc.
People are very friendly.
I'm beginning to think that the friendliness of service workers is a thing learned by rote, however. "Have a nice day" "How's your drink?" "Do you need anything else?" etc etc etc. It's all to do with......

TIPS. At home we tip if the food/drinks/service/etc deserve it. It's not a given. If the service is shit then there's no tip. If the food's ordinary, there's no tip. Etc.
Not so here. The tip is actually a part of the person's income. It appears they rely on tips.
That's outrageous.
I've been getting my bills for stuff and they all have calculations at the bottom: 15% equals x, 18% equals y, 20% equals z. So you know how much to tip.

Why are these people not paid sufficient wages in the first place????

I have left tips though, and more than the minimum - except at Ruby's Diner. They didn't deserve it. My biggest tips have been to the taxi drivers because they're so quick to respond. They should all move to Melbourne :)

Oceanside day 3

Felt pretty fuzzy this morning – jet lag I suppose. So did nothing for the morning except check for emails from home (none!)(though there are some this evening. Phew!) and watch the golf channel. 60 odd channels on the TV and the only thing watchable was golf. Make of that what you will.
Felt better by mid-afternoon so caught a taxi into town ($8). Walked down the pier and had some pretty ordinary chicken at Ruby's Diner. It was like Kentucky Fried before it became KFC. Came with three dipping sauces: BBQ, which was good; honey & mustard, which was sweeter than I'm used to; and ranch, which was pretty yuck.
From there I went to the Sunset Market – street market they have every Thursday here. Pretty much like every other street market I've seen, except bigger. Lots of food and craft stalls. Saw a guy with no arms playing guitar with his feet. That was impressive!
Wandered the market for an hour or so but saw a stall selling Aussie grape juice and that made me go all homesick. So I found a bar, had a martini and caught a taxi back to the motel. Had a bit of a sook but I'm okay now. Bound to happen I suppose.
Found out I can watch the Saints on espn3.com tonight – at 2.30am!!! So the plan is to get some early sleep and wake up to watch the match, then sleep again. Hahaha. Wish me luck.
Also found out today that Oceanside was originally a military town – there's a big marine base nearby apparently. Taxi driver (from Boston!) told me that it's only in the last 15 years or so that the town has been safe for families as it used to be just nightclubs and hard drinking marines and "vice". I'd never have guessed because it seems a really nice, peaceful place – a tourist place. It does, however, explain the navy ships I can see offshore and the constant toing and froing of helicopters throughout the day.
Might go to Carlsbad tomorrow - the next town down the coast. It has a music museum that looks interesting. And Legoland. Might be worth a look.
I'm meeting up with Sharon (smacss on flickr) on Saturday. That should be great.
Later....

Oceanside day 2

Didn't do much this morning except watch the French Open on TV.
Walked into town for lunch. The street outside the motel goes straight to the beach where I had a look at the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Wasn't too impressed with the colour of the sand - a bit grey and dirty looking. Then I walked along The Strand to the pier. Had lunch at the Cabo Grill, a Mexican place. Shrimp (prawn) and crab burrito - not bad at all. Also had my first ever margherita. Tequila at lunchtime!!
Wandered about a bit more but bad sock placement has given me a blister on the ball of my foot. Ouch!
Caught a taxi back to the motel where I've had a bit of a snooze - internal time clock is still a bit out of whack I think.

Currently watching Fox News. Ahahahahahaha!

Everyone so far has been really friendly and helpful - even the 2 different lots of lads asking to buy a cigarette from me were friendly about it. Cigarettes, by the way, are half the price here that they are at home.
Oceanside is a pretty town - lots of palm trees along the streets. Seems easy enough to get around without getting too lost :)
There's a sunset market on Thursday which I think I might go to. Sounds cool.

Oh dear - just saw an ad that tells me that the use of asbestos is still not banned in the USA.
Ooh, the next ad has an Australian voice. 1800packrat - some sort of moving business. I recommend him hahaha.

Oh god, I have to turn this hannity guy off, he's a moron.

Later....

So, here I am

Safely ensconced in a motel in Oceanside, which is closer to San Diego than to LA central. Seems a pretty enough place so I'm not too bothered about it. Plus there's a train line close by so I can easily get to LA if I need to.

All in all it took almost 24 hours to get from home to the motel check-in. A fair bit of that time was spent standing in queues at Melbourne and LA airports.

The flight was drama free but quite uncomfortable. I didn't have an aisle seat and access to the aisle was limited due to Aisle Man sleeping most of the time. Man in front kept leaning his seat right back too, which further limited my space and movement. If I have any funds left at the end of this adventure I might upgrade to a better class to guarantee a bit of space.

LAX is enormous. I walked for miles before getting out of the place.

Taxi driver at LAX didn't know where Oceanside is so I ended up getting a shuttle bus to my motel. Pricey but it got me here. Best Western Oceanside Inn, Oceanside.

Watched a bit of French Open tennis and snoozed a bit once I got to my room. Have since ventured out to a supermarket, Ralphs, to get milk and a few other bits and pieces. They use that awful coffeemate powdered muck here to make white coffee, so I bought some proper milk. Alcohol at Ralphs is cheaper than the duty free price offered on the plane. No duty free shopping at LAX - maybe for departures there is, but nothing for arrivals. Strange.

I keep looking the wrong way to check for traffic when crossing the road. I'll just get used to checking things the wrong way round in time to go to England and have to switch back to doing things the right way round!!!
So much traffic here. Already seen one freeway pile up this morning.

Motel is comfy and has enough space for me. I have a little balcony, where I sit to have a smoke. Couldn't work out why the view didn't look 'foreign' until I realised..... the trees are all Eucalypts. Came all this way to see the same trees as in the backyard at home. Go figure :)

It's got dark here now so I think I'll just veg out for the rest of the night and venture out tomorrow after a decent sleep.
To paraphrase Pink Floyd, "I've got 76 channels of shit on my TV to choose from."

So far have taken no photographs. Hope to get some tomorrow. Might start with the Eucalypts :)

The bath tap is dripping. I can hear it without the TV on. Must get them to look at that as it'll drive me nuts. Saw more wastage today with a bunch of sprinklers being used on roadside grass. Don't know anyone at home who waters grass anymore.

So here I am. So far everything's cool, no dramas. Early night beckons and then I'll start venturing out tomorrow......