the sandles, the surfboard and The Shirt
I Left Most of My Wallet in San Diego part one.
I ended up spending one more day in beautiful San Diego than I was supposed to, but it wasn't nearly as enough time as I wanted to. I never got to go to Mexico, but I suppose that gives me a reason to go back to beautiful San Diego.
San Diego should always be prefaced by the word "beautiful," because it gives some scope to the place. I left the triple-digit valley heat behind to find myself nestled in the 72-degree mid-day San Diego sun--beautiful; the America-meets-Mexico look of things set against the backdrop of sandy beaches and the Pacific Ocean--beautiful; every person no matter size, shape or color had this kinda sparkling glow, and they all biked and jogged and pranced about with their similarly glow-y dogs in such a manner that you wondered why anyone would ever consider wanting to live somewhere else in the United States--beautiful. Later on in the trip, I realized that the outside temperature was just as nice, if not nicer, than the interior of my home with the air conditioner on, but I don't have to pay to sit out doors, though, San Diego is so expensive, I'm surprised they haven't figured out a way to do so yet. But as far as cities go, as with most things, you get what you pay for.
I picked up my rental car at the airport and got stuck on the slowest line for a rental car ever. It took a good half-hour to get the car, because there was only one person behind the main counter and about seven buzzing around the gold club member counter. Bad Hertz. I was very happy to get a spanking new gas/electric hybrid Toyota Prius as my rental, however, even if it took me 10 minutes to figure out how to start the damn thing. It doesn't have a proper key, just a clicker thing that you stick in a slot and a power button. It also has a touch screen LCD monitor that controls things like climate and stereo functions and also displays your gas mileage up to the very second! It also turned my attention away from more boring tasks like driving. Honestly, I don't know how I didn't get into an accident seeing as I really didn't know where I was going and spent most of my time watching the monitor instead of the road. But, fuck! I was pushing 100 miles per gallon there! And I averaged over 46 for the entire trip! And, it only cost me $4 to fill the thing up when I had to return it. I kept hearing that these cars were kinda nutless when it came to speed and power, and yeah, it wasn't a Corvette, but it moved well enough--I got it well over 70mph--so I was happy.
I met up with a friend, P, an ex-coworker, at his home in Pacific Beach, where I would be staying the next couple days, and we almost immediately biked out for drinks. It felt weird being on a bicycle, but it's really true that you never forget how to ride one of those things. I did forget how tough it was to ride one of them uphill, though. We ended up at a bar called La Haina, which was basically on the beach, and watched the activity of the boardwalk and the Pacific Ocean with beers in hand while sitting on the patio.
The parade of fine featured people was endless. Every woman had a dog and every dude had a skateboard or surfboard. I was clearly the ugliest person in the San Diego area, but hoped that this novelty would work well with the local women. It didn't--I'll get to that later--but it was a nice thought. I watched people surf for the first time, even though I've been in California for four years, and even spotted a pod of dolphins.
We drank our beers and I enjoyed the relative darkness caused by the damp marine layer. Since my friend had bought the first round, I got up to get the second. He said he wanted whiskey coke, and beer was quickly abandoned for the rest of the evening.
Right before nightfall, La Haina called last call, and we hopped back on the bikes to maneuver past more beautiful boardwalk denizens to the next watering hole, the dubiously named Thruster's. Turned out that some local surf shop was running a promotion there that night. They brought along some really crappy live music, a prize wheel and a raffle for a custom-made surfboard. P, now rediscovering his SoCal roots, had turned back to surfing, and since we were waiting for his girlfriend to meet us there after work, we decided to stick around for a while and order some more drinks from the friendly and beautiful punk rock girl bartender.
We were well-medicated when his girlfriend (L) showed up. Eventually, beautiful punk rock girl bartender finished her shift to make way for angry bartender dude, who was very not friendly, or maybe we were just beligerent. We also decided to buy some raffle tickets. I bought six for five bucks, P bought six for five bucks, and L, who always had good luck in such things, bought one.
She must have too, because we all walked away winners. P won his surfboard (the winning ticket came from his batch), L won a pair of pink sandles and I walked away with the shirt pictured to the left. The Shirt, as it has become known, is perhaps for me the most unfitting piece of apparel ever made. It's a tank top for one, a surfing-themed one at that (I don't even know how to swim and the idea of paddling out into the ocean on what amounts to a fiberglass popsicle stick scares me more than I can say), and if you can't make out what's going on, it depicts Jesus Christ catching waves and reads "Jesus Died So We Can Ride," which I believe was taken from the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians, but I could be wrong. Of course, I love The Shirt immensely, and I'm wearing it right now with pride. I think this was only the second time I've ever won anything. I might have to frame it or something.
I ended up spending one more day in beautiful San Diego than I was supposed to, but it wasn't nearly as enough time as I wanted to. I never got to go to Mexico, but I suppose that gives me a reason to go back to beautiful San Diego.
San Diego should always be prefaced by the word "beautiful," because it gives some scope to the place. I left the triple-digit valley heat behind to find myself nestled in the 72-degree mid-day San Diego sun--beautiful; the America-meets-Mexico look of things set against the backdrop of sandy beaches and the Pacific Ocean--beautiful; every person no matter size, shape or color had this kinda sparkling glow, and they all biked and jogged and pranced about with their similarly glow-y dogs in such a manner that you wondered why anyone would ever consider wanting to live somewhere else in the United States--beautiful. Later on in the trip, I realized that the outside temperature was just as nice, if not nicer, than the interior of my home with the air conditioner on, but I don't have to pay to sit out doors, though, San Diego is so expensive, I'm surprised they haven't figured out a way to do so yet. But as far as cities go, as with most things, you get what you pay for.
I picked up my rental car at the airport and got stuck on the slowest line for a rental car ever. It took a good half-hour to get the car, because there was only one person behind the main counter and about seven buzzing around the gold club member counter. Bad Hertz. I was very happy to get a spanking new gas/electric hybrid Toyota Prius as my rental, however, even if it took me 10 minutes to figure out how to start the damn thing. It doesn't have a proper key, just a clicker thing that you stick in a slot and a power button. It also has a touch screen LCD monitor that controls things like climate and stereo functions and also displays your gas mileage up to the very second! It also turned my attention away from more boring tasks like driving. Honestly, I don't know how I didn't get into an accident seeing as I really didn't know where I was going and spent most of my time watching the monitor instead of the road. But, fuck! I was pushing 100 miles per gallon there! And I averaged over 46 for the entire trip! And, it only cost me $4 to fill the thing up when I had to return it. I kept hearing that these cars were kinda nutless when it came to speed and power, and yeah, it wasn't a Corvette, but it moved well enough--I got it well over 70mph--so I was happy.
I met up with a friend, P, an ex-coworker, at his home in Pacific Beach, where I would be staying the next couple days, and we almost immediately biked out for drinks. It felt weird being on a bicycle, but it's really true that you never forget how to ride one of those things. I did forget how tough it was to ride one of them uphill, though. We ended up at a bar called La Haina, which was basically on the beach, and watched the activity of the boardwalk and the Pacific Ocean with beers in hand while sitting on the patio.
The parade of fine featured people was endless. Every woman had a dog and every dude had a skateboard or surfboard. I was clearly the ugliest person in the San Diego area, but hoped that this novelty would work well with the local women. It didn't--I'll get to that later--but it was a nice thought. I watched people surf for the first time, even though I've been in California for four years, and even spotted a pod of dolphins.
We drank our beers and I enjoyed the relative darkness caused by the damp marine layer. Since my friend had bought the first round, I got up to get the second. He said he wanted whiskey coke, and beer was quickly abandoned for the rest of the evening.
Right before nightfall, La Haina called last call, and we hopped back on the bikes to maneuver past more beautiful boardwalk denizens to the next watering hole, the dubiously named Thruster's. Turned out that some local surf shop was running a promotion there that night. They brought along some really crappy live music, a prize wheel and a raffle for a custom-made surfboard. P, now rediscovering his SoCal roots, had turned back to surfing, and since we were waiting for his girlfriend to meet us there after work, we decided to stick around for a while and order some more drinks from the friendly and beautiful punk rock girl bartender.
We were well-medicated when his girlfriend (L) showed up. Eventually, beautiful punk rock girl bartender finished her shift to make way for angry bartender dude, who was very not friendly, or maybe we were just beligerent. We also decided to buy some raffle tickets. I bought six for five bucks, P bought six for five bucks, and L, who always had good luck in such things, bought one.
She must have too, because we all walked away winners. P won his surfboard (the winning ticket came from his batch), L won a pair of pink sandles and I walked away with the shirt pictured to the left. The Shirt, as it has become known, is perhaps for me the most unfitting piece of apparel ever made. It's a tank top for one, a surfing-themed one at that (I don't even know how to swim and the idea of paddling out into the ocean on what amounts to a fiberglass popsicle stick scares me more than I can say), and if you can't make out what's going on, it depicts Jesus Christ catching waves and reads "Jesus Died So We Can Ride," which I believe was taken from the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians, but I could be wrong. Of course, I love The Shirt immensely, and I'm wearing it right now with pride. I think this was only the second time I've ever won anything. I might have to frame it or something.Figuring that Thruster's had given us all we could possibly hope for, we decided to drunkenly bicycle away to yet another bar where I was greeted by some crazy dude who told me that I was about to enter the mothership or something like that. He then came downstairs and started talking to us about how some cab driver had stolen $370 from him and how he was going to find this thief and get retribution. We cheered him on, of course, because he was really pissed, and drunk, and we were winners...anddrunk, too.
1 comment:
Welcome home J, sounds as though you had a blast!
I wanna go to San Diego!
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