20 September
On the Road Again
0300 Have
the Hawthorn/Cats final spooling on radio. What an amazing game. Just need the
Dockers to win tomorrow then it’s the Grand Final next week (which they will
surely screen on the ship with so many Aussies aboard?).
Interestingly,
we both caught ourselves glancing at the driver of a car waiting at an
intersection to see if they were poised to move forward. Seeing that she was
looking sideways and not watching the lights, we stepped forward, only to
realise a moment later that she wasn’t the driver. Her husband sitting next to
her was the driver. Similarly, last year in Europe I found myself going to get
in the driver’s seat of taxis.
I whiled
away half an hour watching a craps game yesterday. I started with some idea of
the basic concept that the tosser (or whatever they call him) has to keep
rolling until he either craps out or reproduces the number he first rolled. But
I was taken aback by the way the single player managed heaps of chips all over
the table, which seemed to stay there or get moved or earn or lose him money
for what seemed like minutes at a time before the table cleared. The chips were
of different colours and values and he was constantly changing larger chips for
smaller ones. He had 5 staff busily managing the chips and passing him the
dice. After some time, he threw a cloth over his chips and walked away. All
quite baffling and nothing at all like the relatively simple roulette.
We checked
out and took a taxi back to the greyhound station. Our bus/coach was a grubby
old thing without Greyhound markings. No wifi, no power plug, narrow seats.
Eeeew. The other one was an express service but, oddly, takes the same time as
the non-express buses.
The trip
took 8 hours and disappointed us that we did not catch a glimpse of Disneyland when
we passed through Anaheim. It was just starting to get gloomy and there was a
mist or smog all around LA.
We have seen
a lot of places that are linked to TV shows and movies. Today we went through Orange County (The OC),
in LA we had South Park and Beverley Hills (90210) and there have been plenty
of others.
We reached
San Diego at 8pm and hopped in a waiting taxi with a Somali driver who
struggled to close the boot (trunk) and didn’t know where the address was. But
he managed to get us there for less than $6 and we got ourselves checked in and
issued with fresh sheets and towels. We have a small basic bedroom in a hostel
with shared bathroom, and it costs more than our very nice $46 a night room in
Vegas. Will do though – and there is plenty to do in San Diego over the next 2
days. Dockers game from 3-6 tomorrow morning.
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