21 September Ho(s)tel California

21 September Ho(s)tel California

4am Go Dockers! Into the Grand Final next week.

The hostel provides brekky, including DIY waffles. Tonight they lay on free beer for an hour and tomorrow its free hot dogs.

We headed down to the supermarket for the makings of lunch. Their trolleys have inbuilt sensors that will lock the wheels if you take them out of the carpark! How wild is that? And they sell ham with slivers of cheese built into it, for the perennially lazy. On the way back, we noticed that, when you press the button to summon the pedestrian crossing light, a voice tells you which street you are crossing.

We are heading to the zoo this morning and, bearing in mind what happened in LA, we chose the smaller hot dog buns which will fit into trouser pockets without arousing curiosity or prurience.

Belated observations about Vegas – firstly it stinks in places. We kept getting quite strong whiffs of sulphur – not as strong as Rotorua in NZ but enough to dissuade you from sitting down anywhere near. Secondly, whichever hotel you go into, the reception, restrooms, restaurants and embedded fast food outlets are all surrounded by gaming tables and one-armed bandits. They mean to make it as hard as possible to do anything but gamble. And the smell of smoke is overpowering. Yep . . . Vegas stinks.

J has quickly got right back into the hostel scene – we are strategically placed next to the shower room and there were a few hunks wandering the corridors in their jocks this morning, which did not escape her attention. I think she aspires to re-enacting her triumphant experience in Rio, sharing a dorm with three (count them . . three) Brazilian waiters. No shortage of Hispanics around here.

This morning we walked up through Balboa Park to the zoo. The flight path into San Diego comes in from the East right over the top of the park, at which point the clearance must be no more than 50 metres – 2 plane lengths maybe. Plane after plane came in right over our heads, almost gliding and dropping very fast as soon as they were over the crest. Seconds later we could hear their engines go into reverse after they had landed.  This park is huge and full of museums of various types which are housed in Spanish inspired buildings. Very pretty.

 Flag at half mast for the latest US massacre.

 

J writes:  It cost us $39 each to get into the zoo which is supposed to be one of the best in the world.  We got there about 11am and headed straight to the zoo bus which took us around the park for 45 minutes giving an overview of what they do and seeing many of the animals.  An easy way to see the zoo, get a general feel of the layout and some interesting information.  We then headed up one of the paths to see the Polar Bears.  They have 3 of them in a quite lovely sized habitat.  They believe the female may be pregnant.  We wandered for a while then Chris had had too much excitement and he headed to the entry/exit area to wait for me.  I raced around aviaries and cages seeing a big variety of animals, some I had never heard of let alone seen.  When I got back to the entrance an hour or so later a staff member approached me and said that she had spoken to my husband and that he had left about 5 minutes ago to head downtown. HUH!  It was only 2pm and I scampered out of the zoo and raced along through the park hoping to catch up with him.  Which I eventually did when he got to a point in the park where he did not know which way to go and stopped briefly.  I then had to lie down on the grass until my back stopped hurting.

 Tiger

 Baby giraffe.  Cute

 Finally a bear.  Grizzly

Vegetarian Polar bear.  They were eating carrots and lettice

 2 Gorillas

Barbirusa (pig-deer) :  Never seen or heard of this animal from Indonesia before

 Jaguar

 Dingo .... right?

 hmmmm... never heard of this but the dingo did come from New Guinea

 Chinese leopard

 Bactrian camel

 

We then headed towards the waterfront through a rather deserted city. We found the maritime museum which has the ‘oldest active sailing ship in the world the Star of India.  There are a couple of submarines and various ships/ferries etc.  Further along we passed the Cruise Terminal where we have to be in 2 days’ time in order to be bussed across the border into Mexico and board Celebrity Solstice. Then there is the towering USS Midway.  We were going to go aboard but decided to sit on the grass and have a drink first to rest our weary bodies.  Then realised it was 4pm and the ship closed at 5pm which may not give us enough time to explore it properly.  So we shall head back there tomorrow.

 

We wended our weary way back to the hostel and had nanna naps. Skyped with Steph and Alyssa, went out for a $5 teriyaki footlong Sub. How can they do it? Well, they were advertising for Managers -$10/hour 55 hours a week!! That makes $32,500 a year including overtime. It is a 24 hour operation so that might be nights and weekends too. Town is full of LA Dodgers fans who have swamped the local Padres supporters. The pubs are full of people celebrating and watching the UFC cage fighting.