San Diego, CA

“Discovered by the Germans in 1904, they named it San Diego, which of course in German means ‘a whale’s vagina.’” — Ron Burgundy, 'Anchorman'.

This blog should really be called "Edd's Holidays". This isn't travelling, it's tourism. In the past I have tried what you might call 'proper travelling': being the only white guy on the bus, checking into hotels where the receptionists don't speak English, ordering food by doing chicken impressions with my arms, etc etc. (In Seattle last month I met a young chap who had just visited North Korea, which is a pretty unbeatable card when it comes to Travellers' Top Trumps). But those days are behind me now. Here I'm just cruising from city to city, meeting people, having fun, taking photos, eating food, drinking beer. In the USA this is all very easy to do.

Having said that, doing it for months at a time entails certain sacrifices, chief among which is staying in hostels rather than hotels. In San Francisco last week I stayed at the Green Tortoise hostel - a big fat dose of nostalgia, because that's where I stayed in 2008 - and they give out unlimited eggs & bagels at breakfast, but the rooms are small and stuffy and in my 8-bunk co-ed dorm room there was one guy bringing my nights to life by hoovering up the air noisily through his nose and expelling it even more noisily elsewhere (I don't mean his mouth). Bathrooms are similarly shared with strangers, and privacy is but a dream. Once, in Chicago in 2008, I was in a bottom bunk where the top bunk contained two people getting jiggy with it; and in New Orleans last year I'm fairly sure I awoke to a vaguely similar situation, but with one guy in the top bunk playing the dialogue as a monologue. Too much information? Is anybody out there still jealous of me?

Continuing in the vein of perhaps excessive honesty, I must confess that most of the people I've mixed with so far have been English. Lots of limey backpackers are doing the same West Coast itinerary as me. It's interesting to meet people from different cultures, but at the same time it's much easier to get on with people from the home countries, in which I include not just Britain and Ireland but also Australia and New Zealand. (Much as I like Americans, somehow it always takes time to get on the same wavelength as them.) Conversations and nights out go much more smoothly when you don't need to stop and explain the precise import of key English phrases such as 'Let's all go out on the lash', 'Don't fancy yours much' and 'I'd give it ten minutes if I were you'.

San Diego is spacious, sleepy, clean, pretty, and intensely hot. I like it hugely but I just can't cope with the climate. I'm sweating like a whore in church and things keep sticking to me as a result. But I can give an honourable mention to the Belching Beaver brewery, in particular their Peanut Butter Milk Stout and Me So Honey (a honey wheat ale). More to follow soon.

Tuna Harbor Park, San Diego

San Diego Chargers

San Diego harbour from further north

The USS Midway was built shortly after WW2 and was the largest ship in the world until 1955.
It saw active service from Vietnam to the first Gulf War.
It's now moored permanently at San Diego as a floating museum.

La Jolla beach

Flight deck on the USS Midway

Edd vs Food #24
Double bacon & cheese burger at Hodad's, 945 Broadway, San Diego.
Not all that great, to be honest, but it certainly looks the part,
The photo doesn't quite capture the sheer size of it. Those wedges are from a pretty big potato.
Knife & fork were not provided and so things got messy.

San Francisco, CA (continued)

Yes, I'm still here. Why would I leave?

In my Portland blog I had a rant about hipsters, and admittedly San Francisco also has its fair share of people who are just a little bit too cool for school. In fact I'm concerned that I may unwittingly be turning into a bit of a hipster myself, on the outside at least. I wear a flat cap and I feel that's justified by my advancing years and by me being from the north of England, but when it's combined with the khaki shorts and sandals and - above all - the facial hair, onlookers could be forgiven for making certain assumptions about me.

I do my best to dispel the hipster impression, partly by boycotting all Apple products, and partly by overt mainstream-isms such as walking into a coffee shop and ordering 'black coffee', as opposed to 'grande single shot 4 pumps sugar free peppermint nonfat extra hot no foam light whip stirred white mocha'. Also if I have music on my earphones then I'll turn it up a notch so that people know I'm listening to Guns'n'Roses and not some indie label Bolivian alt-jazz collective. (Or are Guns'n'Roses hip again now? I don't know. I keep seeing T-shirts). My keen interest in craft beer also gives off a whiff of eau de hipster, so if there's baseball on TV in the bar then I can dispel that hipster whiff by joining in with the whoops and fist-pumps whenever the home team scores a touchdown or whatever it's called.

One hipster thing I did do was to take a stroll down to Haight-Ashbury, which was the place to be, back when hippies were hip. It's still a funky street but inevitably it's not what it used to be. Last time, in 2008, there were still lots of independent stores selling random stuff you wouldn't find elsewhere, or at least not in one place. (People of my hometown and generation will know what I mean when I refer to Durham Book Centre). Those shops all seem to have gone now. I can't really complain, because I probably spend as much money on Amazon as anyone else. But it was depressing that I couldn't find a single Sly & The Family Stone T-shirt anywhere in Haight-Ashbury. I'll just have to find one elsewhere. On Amazon, I suppose.

Looking back at downtown from the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge

Coit Tower, seen from the top of Lombard St

View from the top of Coit Tower.
This is the reverse view from the photo above:
Lombard St runs from the bottom middle to near the top left
Golden Gate Bridge just visible in the mist, at the top.

Every Dodge convertible needs a cute fluffy polar bear in the back seat.
Right?

1967 novel at the Beat Museum, which is otherwise mostly devoted to Kerouac & Ginsberg.
This couldn't have been published before the 60s, and it couldn't be published now.
It only goes to show, doesn't it?

San Francisco, CA

There are good mornings, and there are really good mornings, and then there are mornings where you grab a bagel and a coffee and stroll downhill to Pier 39 just in time to catch the Golden Gate Bridge being cleared of mist by a newly-risen California sun. San Francisco is the place that I love most in the whole wide world.

I've waited seven years to come back here and it was worth the wait. This place has everything that I could ever want from a city. (If you don't agree, well, Apple and Facebook and Google all have their HQs in this part of the world and collectively they're a lot smarter than you, whoever you are). The climate is sunny but with cooling breezes. It feels authentically American, and yet when you dodge out of the midday sun you can suddenly find yourself in a peacefully shaded traffic-free alley, with painted stone walls, that makes you feel like you're in Provence or Tuscany. And there's cultural history to spare, which for me personally runs in a long wavy line from Jack Kerouac to Sly & The Family Stone all the way through to Metallica. OK, anyway, you get the point. Me likey San Fran.

I'd love to tell you all about the crazy bohemian journey from Portland to here, a day or two of jumping freight trains and hitching rides on the backs of rusty old pickup trucks driven by baccy-chewing Vietnam vets with shotguns under the dash. But it would be a lie. I flew United and it took 90 minutes. I'm getting soft in my old age.

On Tuesday I went to an Irish bar and watched Sunderland 1 Man City 4 at 11.45am local time. I was sat between two Yanks, plastic Man City fans, who yelled constantly about "shutouts" (clean sheets) and "closing" (scoring). A deflating experience, to say the least. But after the game I reminded myself that a) it was only football, b) it was only the League Cup, c) I still had my health, d) the sun was shining, e) I don't have to go back to work until 2016, f) I'm in San Francisco, and g) my pint of draft New Belgium Snapshot was really nice...And so on. Always look on the bright side of life! Easily done, here.

Obviously...

Standing on the dock of the bay

The Anchor brewery, on Mariposa St.
In my view it's America's 3rd best, after Brooklyn and Sierra Nevada.

Castro district

Edd vs Food #23
'South Of The Border Scramble': scrambled eggs, avocado, chorizo, cherry peppers and cheese.
With hash brown & wheat toast. I'm not sure what the strawberries are doing there though.
At the Taylor Street Coffee Shop.