Sunday, July 27, 2008

24th July - San Diego, Tijuana Mexico - San Diego

Got up earlier today and caught the blue line trolley to the International Border, then walked into Mexico. Got a bit lost when we got there so caught a taxi to Revolucion Street for $5. Tijuana is known to be a bit dicey so wanted to take no chances. Mexico is so different t anywhere I've been. Dry, dusty, hot and very poor. The sellers along the street are very aggressive trying to sell you things. If you stopped and bought one, you would immediately be surrounded in old women and children begging you to buy their wares.

At first because of what we had been told, we were very wary, but soon relaxed a bit and took out our cameras. Kept our wits about us though. Met some lovely people - Mexicans are generally happy people, and nice, with some rip off artists. We walked around for a few hours and bought a few things. I got some leather belts very cheap. Mike bought some leather
boots - very nice ones at that too. In the end we got sick of being haggled so headed back over the border. Bought some Kahlua (big bottle for $12 at the border duty free. Nice stuff! Mike got some Tequila. We've already drunk half the kahlua (sharing it with Steven in SFO). We need to drink it up as it's too heavy to take home with us!

Back to the trolley bus, passport stamped and back to the hostel. Packed up some of Mike's gear - trying to fit his boots in his luggage. We then headed to the pub around the corner and had a game of 10 pin bowls. I hate the game but still managed to get three strikes. Mike plays league in NZ and so was out of my league.

We then met Linda Binns from the SWC and took her to the kiwi pub on 6th and E st. Lots of kiwi stuff around the pub - including rugby jerseys, surfing memorablia and the toilets were named the Long Drop. It was ladies night so all wine was half price, so we bought a bottle of Matua Valley Pinot Noir for and shared that. After drinking the wine - Linda had to
leave us, so Mike and I walked around the Gaslamp area and down to the Exhibition area looking for somewhere to eat. There is a comic convention on in San Diego - with 120,000 attendees, which meant that place is packed so we finally found a spot at Subway where we shared a $5 footlong sub. People were wandering around dressed up as their favourite comic characters. Reminded me a bit about 'Furries'.

Got back to hostel about 10pm, wrote all my memory cards to CD and HDD, booked airport shuttle and tried to sleep. No go. I think I got maybe 2 hours sleep as I had someone sleeping above me in a bunk that tossed and turned which shook the bed all night. Shuttle picking us up at 4.45am! Gulp.

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