theotherlex

I was going to go down to a local cafe and listen to the music they had there. And I did, but by the time I got there they were closed. I got back here, to the hostel, at about 7 ish and was going to upload my photos and then go down. But I had to move from the basement (where the lounge and kitchen etc are (and where I am now)) to the reception area to get the internet up and running. On the way up stairs I dropped my camera, which was in the middle of loading photos. It still turns on, takes photos and displays the photots its taken. But it seems (I can't tell) that the disconnecting it from the computer while it was loading (even though the computer was asleep at the time) has damaged the information on the memory card. This is very unlikely and doesn't really make sense, so I'm recharging the batteries (again) and will try again in the morning. After recharging the batteries for a little bit, more photos came off the memory card and are on the computer. So I just have to hope that dropping it hasn't affected the functioning battery life.

I love San Francisco. I got in at about 7.30 am after an 11 hour bus ride. The bus ride included a change in LA with a 45 minute wait, and a meal break at 3.30 am in a Burger King some place I can't remember the name of. I couldn't sleep too well because I didn't have a window seat, and had forgotten that I had my little blow up pillow and I couldn't get my seat to go back. So I ate an apple pie at the burger king. It was much better than McDonalds' apple pies. And I slept enough.

( Yesterday in San Diego )

( Last day in San Diego )

( Today in San Francisco )

I went to the Zoo today. Now I'm eating a nectarine and an apple chopped up into soy yoghurt, because the vanilla flavoured yoghurt yesterday was too sweet and there was nothing plainer at the supermarket. And we're back to the oddly non-sequitur nature that I think characterised the posts last time.

The Zoo was great. I love Zoos. It was very funny watching everyone coo over how cute the koalas are. They endangered through loss of habitat. But it was my understanding that some of the loss of habitat was them eating themselves out of their trees. Also, a Kiwi bird and polar bears and hippos and monkeys and giraffes. Not the Rothschild's giraffes that we have Melbourne Zoo, but other ones.

I didn't get on any of the buses and listen to them tell you about the animals while you get driven around and lean out of the windows. I just walked, and it was a pleasant day for it. I even made my own lunch to take with me, which turned out very well. It was basically what I had for dinner last night, but without the tomato. (So, a ham and laughing cow cheese sandwich. Yay for laughing cow cheese.) Most of the Zoo seems to have been built from donations. Most exhibits and info signs and seats have "this [whatever it is] was made possible by [whoever]." The only thing I really have to say is that "Aborigine" is NOT a language. The koalas are all named something that means something "in Aborigine".

I bought a great t-shirt. Black, with silvery gorilla face markings on it. I will wear it in San Francisco on Saturday.

Balboa park, where the Zoo is, also has a whole heap of other things. An organ recital pavilion and Japanese gardens and a natural history museum and two or three art museums. I'm going back tomorrow to see the Georgia O'Keefe exhibition. I would have gone today, but I was very tired about five hours at the Zoo and it was closing in an hour and an a half, and I thought that I should allow two hours for exhibitions. This is after having about half and hour in the Louve with James and less than an house in the Klee exhibition in Düsseldorf.

So that's tomorrow, after I've checked out. I have to go and pack up my stuff. Or, depending on what my roommates are doing, go to bed and set my alarm early enough to get up and pack before I have to check out. I get to stay at the hostel until I actually leave, though, which means my stuff will stay here and I can come back to eat before I go to the bus station. Greyhound overnight to San Francisco!

Am in San Diego, at Hostel Cat, which is not as well located at the USA Hostel, but probably quieter, and not at all badly located. I went for a walk and bought a pineapple and creamy-cheesy stuff dessert from the 7Eleven. It came with a utensil almost singularly unsuitable for the purpose. But it was all right to eat, and did actually contain fruit. So that's okay.

I managed to get up reasonably early this morning, after getting the alarm on my new phone to work. I also worked out how to turn off the light in the dorm without turning off the fan, which was an achievement. Still, the others there were all very late bed-goers. It was annoying. Also annoying, someone stole one of my bananas - the one that didn't have my name and check out date sticker on it. I ate the remaining banana on my pancake. It was quite nice.

The Hollywood Greyhound station is quite close to the hostel, but the only bus from there to Riverside, which is where I was going, travels via Las Vegas. So I made my way by metro train and bus to the Downtown Greyhound station, in an even more seedy area than the Hollywood one, to catch the Riverside bus from there. The freeway was very interesting in its familiarity. Nothing is really green in California. The greenest bits of LA are the fake median strips.

Megan, who I know through Harry Potter fandom on livejournal, picked me up from the Greyhound there and we drove into Riverside proper. Through the campus and around a bit, as well, which was interesting. And a shop for incense and things for renaissance faires. We had lunch in a great sandwich place in a little mall-like place with lots of carparking. Then she drove me down to San Diego, which was most awesome of her.

I like San Diego. I've really only walked around a bit since I got here, but it had a seaside breeze, which is very pleasant. And, much more so than LA and Hollywood, seems to be a real place. There's a tall ship here the Star of India and a museum on an old fighting boat. And then there's also the Zoo and an exhibition of artefacts from Pompeii at the Natural History Museum.

I've decided to catch the Greyhound overnight to San Francisco, which means that I'll get to spend most of Friday here instead of most of Friday on a bus. And I save one night's accommodation. Then I'll have been here a week. Woah. I have to make sure that I book New Orleans accommodation tomorrow, and the train to Chicago. Then I'll be all planned out til about the end of August.

Now that I've finally gotten the internet connection here working well enough to actually post this, I will post and go to bed.