Stay Classy San Diego

Our next stop, San Diego, was much further south than San Francisco and supposedly had the best weather...of anywhere....ever. So we were very much looking forward to it after the chilly evenings spent in San Fran. The last US overnighter was pretty uneventful, even with a slightly delayed transfer in Los Angeles at half 5 in the morning. We continued our tradition of finding the nearest ‘Bucks plus wi-fi and supped down the usual medium roast Grande. We were to be staying with another Couchsurfer that day, a woman called Coco who had a loft apartment for us to stay in on our first night in San Diego. Finding her place wasn’t a problem, but getting into the building or getting the right person on the intercom was. Having not received a flat number we had gone through the list and got people on their mobile, people who couldn’t hear us, etc, etc, so James scampered off to find a payphone to call Coco and tell her that we were outside. After about 15 minutes he returned, but with the mission incomplete. He needed change for the phone and the change machine in the library only took dollar bills, of which he had none. I gave him the quarters he needed and he sped off again. Not a minute later the door to the flats opened and out stepped a woman who seemed to fit the description of our host. We both pointed at each other in vague recognition and then got everything inside once James had returned out of breath and red in the face.

Coco’s loft apartment is fantastic. And I’m not just saying that because I know that she will be reading this. Open-plan, with her own art on the walls and such a wide range of object d’art adorning every surface, nook and cranny. Myself and James would be sleeping in a purpose-built-for-couchsurfers area above Coco’s new roommate Mitch, who had just moved in that day. Dan also lived in the apartment and to make the place that little more lively there was Max and Mango, two white (and thankfully small) dogs that were both very eager to meet the two new faces that had just entered the apartment. After a brief chat and introductions our first task as couchsurfers was to build a futon bed that would be in Mitch’s “room” underneath our own. With 4 strapping lads on the case and only a handful of bits to attach it should only have taken 5 minutes at most to compete. But we were still going after half an hour due to issues with washers, mis-aligned drill holes and two very excited dogs trying to help us. Coco had kindly started cooking some food for us all, something that both me and James were keen to tuck into – a home-cooked meal! With the futon 70% complete the men sat down to rest and eat the fantastic spread laid on by our host. Whilst we were eating, said host picked up the screwdriver and finished off the futon in two minutes flat, but we all believed that the hard work had already been done, much like loosening the lid on a jar.

Inside Coco's abode, with the dogs!

As we had no idea what to go and see in San Diego we decided it would be good to visit the visitors information centre down by the water in Downtown. Unfortunately we were already too late, as it closed at 5pm and the watch was showing 5:45pm. We did have a brief tour of the area though and bought some beers for the evening as an aperitif, for we would be heading out later to sample a few bars in the Gaslamp District. After a couple of beers in the apartment Coco, Dan, James and I stepped into a bar around the corner called Star. We had requested somewhere cheap and cheerful due to needing to stretch our hard-earned-dollars. The burly doorman with the ginger beard checked all our ID’s before letting us in and we ordered a round of drinks from the Eastern European waitress – she turned out to be from Belarus, which none of us guessed correctly. The drinks and the conversations flowed and soon it was time to go to the next place. A bar called Whiskey Girl nearby was the usual choice, so we entered the bar and got a few more drinks in. It was nice to be able to have an evening just doing as the locals do after so many days and nights spent touring areas and going from place to place in such short spaces of time. To have a few drinks and a dance was a real treat and felt great to blow off a little steam. 

Dan, James, Coco and me