From Santa Barbara to the Whale's Vagina

I'm in trouble. I've been told off by my Gran, and by Yasmin, for being so slow and useless when it comes to this whole blogging thing, BUT I figure it's better to keep you guys guessing and wanting to know more than it is to inundate you with lots of posts. Yes? No? Maybe? Oh well, I know I've been bad and I apologise. 

Picking up where the lovely Yasmin (I'm grovelling, can you tell?) left off, we said goodbye to San Francisco with a smile on our faces and a slight wine induced fuzziness in our heads. I would like to take a quick moment to say thank you to my beautiful family, I got to spend a week with three of my favourite people in the world and I missed them as soon as I left the hotel.

Well, I say this, I missed them until we arrived at our hostel in Santa Barbara four hours late because our bus broke down and we had to wait in a gas station for it to be repaired, and I was met with an email telling me that they'd scored an upgrade on the way home and they flew back to the UK first class. It was at this point I told them they could go suck it and I hoped Ipswich lost their next game- which they did! Such satisfaction!

Anyway, we were only in Santa Barbara for a couple of days due to it being very expensive but we were both very glad we stopped there. It really was a beautiful place and after having to suffer the cold of San Francisco we were so excited to be faced with a beach and a blue sky. 

We spent the only full day we had there wandering up and down the street market they had set up along the beach. We both had to fight the overwhelming temptation to buy lots of pretty things, reminding ourselves we still had to fit and carry them in our bags, but we did buy a few presents which we figured were totally justified. Does this mean we're growing up? I really, really hope not. 

 

We then took a trip to the end of the pier, poked around in some more shops and had a rather delicious seafood lunch. We may have also been cheeky and got ice cream for pudding- I may have been extra cheeky and had bubblegum ice cream. Bubblegum! It was blue and everything. I loved it. I looked about 12 eating it, but hey what else is new?

After an afternoon of sunbathing we headed back to the hostel, had a shower, performed the increasingly boring process of booking our next journey* before heading back out for dinner. After some delicious pizza and a stroll down the beach as the sun set we went back to the hostel and fell asleep watching Cake Boss. Perfection. 

 

Our bus to San Diego was booked for the following afternoon so our Sunday morning pretty much took on the form of another stroll through the street markets, a customary iced coffee at a local cafe and a quick steal of public wifi to contact friends and family. I also got to enjoy the fairly bizarre episode of a lady on roller skates coming up to me, handing me her dog and proceeding inside to get herself some coffee. Luckily me and Henry got over any awkwardness very quickly, formed a strong bond and we've promised to keep in touch. I miss him. 

The rest of the day was spent travelling down to San Diego. Amazingly it was completely stress free and straight forward. Our experience with Greyhound has been anything but relaxing, with almost every journey being plagued by delays, break downs or dodgy buses, but for once we got on the bus when we were supposed to and we got off when we were supposed to and there was a lovely long lines of taxis waiting for us when we arrived. Due to San Diego being busier than we expected we had to book a night in a separate hostel for the first night before checking into another one for the rest of the week on the Monday. We didn't arrive until late so we just went straight to bed and made the most of the free pancake breakfast the next morning before heading to the other hostel. 

Despite the painfully long check in, and the agonising process of watching two men take half an hour to change two beds we settled in to our new room quite quickly. Located in Little Italy, with beautiful views of the bay and a cheeky Starbucks just a block away we became quite happy in our decision to spend a week in Ron Burgundy's stomping ground. 

We spent the rest of the day soaking up the sun on the balcony and discovering the delights of the Italian deli on the corner that served us sandwiches so big they served as lunch and dinner. 

The next day we walked up to Balboa Park. Word of caution for any of you heading to San Diego. Balboa Park is huge, almost ridiculously so. We spent almost a whole day there and barely saw any of it, and we didn't even go to the zoo. It is beautiful though, and well worth a visit. It's full of museums, cafes, pretty pathways and fountain filled rose gardens, as well as some pretty spectacular architecture. 

It also has, and I feel loathe to give away this secret, a restaurant that gave us a meal that we have unanimously decided to call, 'the best meal we've had out here'. I know, I hear you all saying, 'woah now, bold claim', but I feel pretty confident in this one. A tapas platter with warm bread, salami, prosciutto, olives, smoked almonds, cornichons, mustard and an almost orgasmically good fig marmalade. I'm serious, if it were legal and socially acceptable I would have married it on the spot. The picture doesn't do it justice but trust me we sat there with such contented faces for such a long time we started to get funny looks. 

Oh god, look at it! We liked it so much we went back and had it on our last day and I miss it already. 

Anyway, one mustn't get carried away. Pull yourself together Kate. After a day of wandering the lush green of the park we decided a day of doing nothing on the sandy shores of the Pacific was in order so we hopped on the bus and headed to the beach. It was honestly beautiful and we just spent the whole day rotating ourselves so we basted evenly, with possibly a brief detour in Brandy Melville and Urban Outfitters on the way home, which proved we definitely haven't grown up at all. The only people who got presents that day were two cracking girls called Kate and Yasmin. Sssshhhhh, don't tell anyone!

This brings us to Thursday, a day we were both very excited about as it was designated as 'Zoo Day'. Zoo Day was a very important day because a) we haven't done a zoo since DC and b) it's San Diego Zoo y'all, you can't do San Diego and not do the zoo. That's like going to Disneyland and flipping off Mickey. Not cool. 

So with the sun shining and our new purchases proudly adorning our bods we skipped merrily back to the park, buying our tickets along the way so we didn't have to queue with the 'regular people' and headed into the zoo fully prepared to push any small kids that got in our way. 

The rest of our time in San Diego was spent back at the beach- we are like so totally tanned right now- and eating our way through Little Italy. We also spent a couple of evenings down in the Gaslamp Quarter which is a lovely area of downtown San Diego filled with restaurants, bars and beautiful buildings. 

We are currently loving life in LA and cannot believe that we only have four days left of this incredible journey, but we would like to thank San Diego for a lovely week. We felt very at home, had a lot of fun and, as previously mentioned, (in a hideously American way, I apologise) we now have banging tans. 

We will be back soon, I PROMISE, with our adventures in Lala Land. We've only been here two days and it's already been lots of fun so hopefully we'll be saying goodbye to America in style. 

See y'all real soon! 

*Boring in terms of booking buses, finding hostels, paying deposits, blah, blah, blah. Definitely not boring in terms of where we're going. Just wanted to clarify in case you thought we weren't allowed to be jealous anymore, because, let's face it, you really should be.