Stay Classy

The time had come to return to California and pay a visit to Ron Burgundy’s stomping ground, San Diego, a whale’s vagina. This would be my final destination with Trek America (who were returning to LA after) and my final US city before I braved the drug cartels and mariachi bands and headed south of the border to Mehico.

A routine lunch stop on the way found me progressing from yogurt to luke warm soup. My first above room temperature meal since that fateful $6, 4am steak at ‘Bill’s’ in Vegas. Sandwiches with their tough crusty edges were still a no go for me but I was confident that finally i’d be an active participant in that evening’s campfire meal.

Walking back to the minibus and we chanced upon a small tarantula strutting it’s stuff across the gas station forecourt. It was small by tarantula standards but I’m fairly sure that if you found one in your bath back in Blighty you’d make it all the way to the ‘and finally’ slot on BBC Points West. We thought it prudent to leave it be. It looked fairly content patrolling the gas station perimeter.

Being warm and sunny outside, and San Diego being a coastal city, our first port of call was Mission Beach for some late afternoon frolicking in the waves. I made sure this time to not venture out beyond waist depth, the joys of nearly drowning still fresh in the memory banks.

Once wave time was over, the majority of the group arranged themselves artfully on the sand to catch the remaining rays of the day..

Now I’m an intelligent guy most of the time. But unfortunately I have never been able to get my head around sunbathing. I must be missing something here because to me, it seems like a complete waste of time. I understand that the ‘point’ in sunbathing is to get a tan, but I want to know why you can’t get a tan by doing interesting stuff in the sun at the same time. e.g. going for a walk, playing in the sea, eating ice creams etc. Perhaps it is impossible, i’ve been fortunate enough to have so far enjoyed a 4 month summer and am still a pasty white boy from Yorkley. I’m not all that bothered.

My problem is that I never know what to do with myself when i’m with others who are professional sunbathers. They always seem to arrange themselves immaculately beneath the mass of hydrogen holding our solar system in place. Lotioned to perfection, they spread their beach towels out in perfect rectangles, not a grain of sand  is out of place. They are at one, with the sun.

At first I may try and join them, hoping i’ll be able to channel some of their energy and the sun will speak to me. It never does, I tried this the other week in Tulum, Mexico. What it did instead was burn me in random patches on my body, like I was a forgotten piece of bread in the toaster. This was despite my efforts at plastering myself with factor 30 beforehand. My beach towel, far from being crisp and sand free looked like Neil Buchanan had come along and done an art attack with it and my legs were feasted upon by sand flies. I don’t sit well with sunbathing.

Fair enough if you’re a girl and waves don’t interest you. I understand you like to spend a lot of time preening yourselves and feeling beautiful. Whilst I don’t understand it myself, sunbathing is fine if you’re female.

Men who sunbathe. Perhaps i’m the outspoken minority here but in my mind, men who sunbathe are losing serious man points at a rate of knots. Men who have sunbathing down to an art, i.e. those who make sure each part of exposed flesh gets the perfect amount of time in the sun and those who roll up their shorts as far as they’ll go so that nothing gets neglected automatically relinquish masculinity in exchange for bronze skin.

I’d hate to get hung up about sunbathing so whilst the others were working on their tans, myself and fellow pasty white boy Andrew occupied ourselves with ice cream purchases. One good thing about the States is that at most food outlets (the faster the better) you can be fairly assured of getting a lot of bang for your buck. Portions tend to be fairly substantial. This beachside ice cream vendor was no exception. Ordering a cone each and expecting something about the size of a 99 we were instead given something about four times the size. These ice cream cones had some serious mass to them and the size made us appear like we were straight out of the cast of The Borrowers.

The downside to constantly big portions is that the final few mouthfuls are always a major effeort and therefore not as enjoyable as the rest of the meal. Like all endurance activities though, this is something that you get better at with practice. Looking at the physiques of those Americans with years of experience at this particular discipline, you could tell they had indeed done a lot of practice.

Ice creams > Sunbathing

Halloween is something of a big deal in the USA. For a country that loves the material of the late Jesus Christ they also love decorating their houses from late September onwards with cobwebs, pumpkins and all manner of unspeakable evil.

We were still a couple of days away from the 31st but preparations had reached fever pitch. Many people had gone away for the weekend to campsites like the one we were staying at in San Diego. It was late afternoon and we were just hanging around our pitch. I was basking in the glory of just having beaten Gowtham in a penalty shootout (England vs Denmark, it was a tense finish but Joe Hart came good). The mother from the pitch next to ours comes over. Early forties, going for that Dolly Parton look.

“Hey, would you guys mind ever so much if you could come on over, tell us if our decorations are aw-right?” She asked in a quaint southern drawl. Turning the corner from our ‘Camp Trek America’ we suddenly unexpectedly find ourselves in Transylvania. This family had gone all out to decorate their tent and camping area for the holiday weekend.

From the tree hung a giant cobweb complete with numerous plastic spiders. Leaning against it was a coffin with an arm poking out and expertly carved pumpkins were just about everywhere you looked. Somewhere hidden there was also a CD player on a loop playing various Halloween sound effects, creaking doors, evil laughs etc to complete the ambience.

“Do you think we’ve done enough with the graveyard?” Dolly asked, referring to the dozen or so painted cardboard tombstones scattered around the plot outside their tents. It was dedication to the Halloween cause and possibly the sign of a slightly bored housewife..

The evening meal of hamburgers was a Godsend. Those little antibiotics that I had been taking without fail had been working hard around the clock and I finally gave myself the go ahead to eat proper food once again. Instructing the raspberry yogurt waiting in the wings to stand down I crafted myself a hamburger cooked by Laura and her group. It had been over four days since that Vegas steak and I think my stomach and taste buds had all but given up hope of ever receiving real food again. That burger was an absolute joy to eat let me tell you. Unfortunately as a result of my digestive system being recently redundant I was done for the night after one burger, far too full for seconds. More practice was required until I was back on the 3 course meals again.

The plan for that evening was a night out in the Mission Bay area where there were a few bars and clubs. Sadly for the under 21s of the group, Jacob, Gowtham and Simone this was not something they’d be able to join in with. San Diego is just about the strictest place in the US for ID’ing people and if you’re not a local the only form of identification accepted is your passport. Naturally it didn’t stop them from trying and immediately failing, but being the Danes they had a plan B and switched to Operation ‘Hide a crate of beer in an alley and wander the street soaking up the atmosphere’.

For the adult members of the group it was time to find a bar. The bearded wonder that is Mex recommended a Cantina bar as a good launch point. This is possibly because drinks were 2 for 1. In a country of expensive drinks, that is the jackpot, right there. For those of the group who were on prescribed antibiotics and strong pain medication it was all meaningless. Guess i’ll go order myself another coke.

Actually one really good thing about America is that non alcoholic drinks are nearly always free. They’re not free if you’re already drunk, but if you mention you’re the designated driver (or if you can’t drink but lie about being the designated driver), then the folks behind the bar will keep you supplied with what ever your alcohol free tipple is for the rest of the night. What an absolutely excellent and responsible idea. Landlords of the UK take note. [STOP PRESS: Seems like the government only yesterday announced a Christmas anti drink drive initiative whereby drivers get free soft drinks, result!]

Bar number two had a nightclub out the back. It was being visited by some US Army servicemen when we popped in. This pleased the likes of Anina and Katherine, and I suspect the servicemen getting the attention, immensely. We know that they were servicemen because they had decided to go out clubbing dressed in their full red, white and blue parade ground uniform.

“When you fail with all other attempts of picking up chicks, that’s when you come to a nightclub dressed like that.” Mex told me through gritted teeth, “No one can say anything though, ‘cos they’re marines. They’ll snap you like a twig with their little fingers.”

Douchey marines aside, it was a good penultimate evening to our Trek America tour. Watching the Frenchman and the Korean, Vincent and Rum, get down to a dance off was the pièce de résistance and listening to Swansea boy Andrew’s critique of the music..

“I tell you what mind..I fuckin’ hate R’n’B” wrapped things up nicely.

On leaving the club the group separated a bit. Whilst the others went off in search of further entertainment, myself, the sober one, Mex the responsible one and Elicia, who’d been taking advantage of the two for ones, decided to get some food and call it a night.

America doesn’t have kebab shops. I don’t think I saw a single one during my travels. But San Diego, being literally on the Mexican border, is full of places doing Tacos and Burritos instead. Still full up from the burger I opted for a  Horchata instead. Horchata is a delicious Mexican drink made from rice and flavoured with cinnamon. Here’s a recipe http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/lolas-horchata/Detail.aspx .

The guy behind us in the que was very drunk.

“Man, I want a fish taco” he exclaimed incoherently. “If they have fish tacos i’m guna buy everyone, a fish taco.”

“Do it, fish tacos are the shit man” Mex egged him on. Mex is actually a vegetarian and doesn’t eat fish. But didn’t want to cramp the guy’s style and stand in the way of his ambition. Moment of truth came and turns out they did do fish tacos. The drunk guy looks around at us and the other bemused revellers in the que…The mexican serving asks for his order…

“Gime’ 12 fish tacos amigo” he blurts out. He’s questioned about his order, which comes to over $40 but he asserts himself and the kitchen staff get to work.

We give it a few minutes as Mex sits down to eat the salad he ordered and I drink my Horchata. Elicia gets talking to ’12 fish tacos’ man and mentions that I’m not eating and Mex is a vegetarian and so can’t eat a fish taco either. Fish Taco isn’t too happy when he hears this revelation and begins an emotional rant in the general direction of Mex and myself.

“Hey man, I bought you a fish taco dude, and you’re not even going to eat it. Why didn’t you say? Why man? Why? What am I going to do with all these fish tacos?”

“Not my problem dude.” advises Mex. At this point, being the sober one I decide that things could get ugly and there would be enough fish tacos lying about where people could start getting assaulted with them. I shepherded Mex and Elicia out of the vicinity of the Mexican food shack and into the nearest cab. We never did find out what became of the guy and his food order.

First to arrive back at camp we find the Danes and Simone still up playing the umpteenth round of Danish Triangles. Turns out they abandoned their ‘beer in the alley’ stunt pretty soon after starting and headed back to camp where the cards and dice were waiting for them. They were now pretty merry, eager to carry on the night with further games.

Despite the fun, I was now eager to hit the hay. The sober thing is only fun up to a point and then it begins to get quite tiring. Drawing some comfort from the fact that I at least, would wake up feeling perfectly fine whilst others may not be so lucky I called it a night, drifting off to the sounds of Australians and Europeans getting increasingly unlucky with each turn of the cards or roll of the die.