O...M...G...

Thank you to Aimee for pointing out that I haven't blogged for a while.  Oh my God, it's been weeks actually.  I feel like I've seriously let down my eight followers.

Well, where to start?  I left you all I guess about half way through my stay in downtown San Diego.  I spent the rest of my time there hanging out with Leisa from Melbourne and Eddy and Wout from Holland.  We had such a great time together, I feel like I truly made a friend in Leisa.  I was supposed to stay in San Diego for a couple of days longer than she was but she convinced me and the boys to come with her to LA where she was meeting a friend from Melbourne before they were to head off to South America.  It was easy to say yes to that even though I'd spent time in LA already, it just seemed too soon to be saying goodbye.

In LA I met Leisa's friend Sang and we spent a couple of days eating and drinking pretty much, the best things to do with friends, and difficult things to do on your own.  Leisa and I also achieved what is possibly the pinnacle of tourist-boganism...we got rats tails.  Now I don't think purveyors of these fine adornments would appreciate that terminology but let me explain what it is and I challenge anyone to come up with a better name.  So what is actually known as a hair wrap is a small section of your hair usually at the base of the neck, slightly to one side, with different colours of embroidery thread wrapped and knotted around so it's stripy/patterned with a couple of beads on the end.

After turning down my new friends invitation to join them in Columbia (I almost said yes until the subject of yellow fever/malaria.diphtheria came up - I haven't had any shots or tablets) I was on my way up the coast again.

My next stop was Santa Barbara.  What a gorgeous town, what a shithole hostel.  Santa Barbara is a bit of a posh sort of town, but also a college town, so it's a fantastic mix of great shopping, great restaurants, cool bars and the beach.  All of the buildings down town are in the Spanish Colonial style from when the town was first settled.  I think every new building since then has been built to match.  The style white or cream rendered (I guess...?) with red roof tiles in the shape of an arc, you see it a lot in California and it is right at home, here it's on a large scale.  It really adds to the towns charm and difference because it's so homogeneous the big chain stores, although they're there, don't stand out as much, making the area itself less homogeneous when compared to everywhere else.  You need to walk right past the McDonald's to realise it's there.

Now let me tell you about the hostel.  I'm sure there a millions of hostel-horror-stories far more horrific than this (in fact I've heard one that is far worse) but this is my blog.  It's the only hostel in town, in a town of many many hotels, but no cheap hotels.  To begin with, when I started my trip I was paying $22-$25 a night for a bed, but now it's more like $28 - $30 (summer is here and college has finished, makes sense) this joint was $42 a night!!!  To sleep in a room with 12 beds (6 bunks) crammed into it.  When I was given my sheets they were more than a little bit damp, and I was looked on with much disdain when I requested another set.  The staff we generally surly and had just got jobs there for the summer so had no advice on how to spend your time in Santa Barbara.  The internet was only available in the common room which was closed most of the day.  I woke up at 2am and everyone was in bed but the light was on.  The shared women's bathroom was really old and poorly maintained (clean enough though)  with shower curtains across the toilet stalls instead of doors.  I hated it.

So I thought if was going to be paying too much for shit accommodation, I might as well be paying way to much for good accommodation and booked myself in to a hotel on the waterfront for the rest of my stay.

Oh the joy of a double bed that's been properly made and a bench for all your toiletries, and a TV, and a pool, and a hot tub.  Yes, hotels are the way to go.  Actually, I really like a lot of what you get from hostels which you don't from hotels, namely the social side of it and the use of a kitchen, but it sure is nice to break up the sleepless night and lack of privacy once in a while.

After Santa Barbara I was onward to San Luis Obispo, another college town, with the bars and the restaurants and the shops.  I only spent a couple of nights here but it was a great town.  Here and Santa Barbara are the sorts of places I could see myself living.  It's really safe here, only a small town and about 15minutes drive inland from the closest beach.  This hostel was also shut trough the day, but I was assured that if I arrived before 4pm I could just leave my case on the front porch and that'd be fine, if I was really worried I could leave them at the back door.  I actually got there quite late in the evening so only spent a day and a half there.  I went on a big hike up a mountain and explored the town.

The next place on my agenda was Monterey.  Let me tell you, the Greyhound buses and Amtrak Surfliner train are pretty good at getting you along the coast until you want to go further than Santa Barbara by bus or San Luis Obispo by train.  Once you get this far it becomes a real fuck around.  The easiest way was to go by train to Salinas and then get a connecting bus to Monterey, which doesn't sound hard until you realise it's a 2-2 & 1/2 hour drive that is going to take you 4 hours, and there's only one train a day and it's not until 4pm, which means you'll arrive in Monterey, nowhere near the hostel, just shy of 8pm.

Luckily for me I had met two men when I was in San Diego one night who were celebrating a good business trip at a bar where I was celebrating a $4 margarita.  These lovely men, Richard and Barry, were kind enough to but me a couple of beers and a lovely sushi dinner (they were very concerned for my travelling alone, both have kids in their twenties) and Richard gave me his email and phone number to get in touch with him when I got to Monterey.  When he heard of my transport woes he offered to pick me up from the train station in Salinas (20 minute drive, 55 minute bus ride) and he took me out to dinner at a gorgeous restaurant he owns in Carmel with his daughter and her boyfriend.

Monterey was nice but there was only so much to do there, I was coming down with a cold and trying to keep it at bay with panadol, vitamins and lots of water.  All I had energy for on the first day was exploring Cannery Row, nothing like the book now, all the building are still there but it's all super cheesy touristy crap now, but with pictures of Steinbeck everywhere. I had met a couple of young girls from England in San Luis Obispo and they showed up at the hostel on my second night.  We went on a whale watching trip together and saw heaps of humpback whales, some German girls we'd spoken to in San Luis Obispo had also seen a blue whale and a killer whale.  I was really cool, they were everywhere around us feeding on krill and sometimes jumping right out of the water.  It was bitterly cold though, so many people were wearing jackets and hoodies with Monterey printed or embroidered on them, like they'd bought them the day before.  The best thing I saw in Monterey was the aquarium.  It made me feel guilty for not having been to the Melbourne one.  It was mainly a show case of local marine life (with some more exotic stuff in a separate section)  The most amazing part was a 2 storey tank of a kelp forest (just like in Monterey Bay)  I can't actually put in to words how well done the display was, all the exhibits came from just outside the aquarium.  They have sea otters, such fun creatures (I actually saw some playing in the wild just off the beach).  There were seals all around in Monterey also.

I wanted to make my next stop Santa Cruz, everyone has said it's worth seeing.  Unfortunately I left it too late to get accommodation (now summer's here I have to be more organised).  I think it's only about an hour away from San Francisco so I might rent a care and spend a day there.

It was another pain in the arse to get from Monterey to San Francisco, in the end one of the English girls found a bus that takes you from Monterey to the SF airport (like the Gull for Geelong people).  was much cheaper that the train or Greyhound at $45 and went only via the San Jose airport, so much quicker.  And it went hourly.  Then it was a quick BART ride (light rail) downtown.

I have been in San Francisco for a couple of days but I think I will leave the telling for my next post/.  Tomorrow I'm off on a 4 night camping trip to Yosemite and I want to wash my hair in the morning, so I must to bed.