Good Morning -
Wow - no more white hotel towel backgrounds - that's way too bright and washes the tile out. If I was at home, I'd consider redoing it. Although, if I was at home, I'd have my wooden table as backdrop, so it would be a moot issue.
(Side note - the 24 hours of Internet from the fancy hotel that we paid for (not so fancy that they don't have free wifi) is getting ready to expire and since we're moving to our less fancy, non conference hotel today, I don't want to buy another 24 hours for $5, so this is going to be fast and too the point. Let's see how that goes.)
Okay - so what do we have on our Virgen? For my 3-hour solo adventure yesterday, I wanted to go see if I could find the beach. Not the bay with it's calm waters and inaccessible coastline full of boats of all sizes and intents like we have outside the hotel, but the beach, with sand, and swimmers, and big waves, and a surfer or two.
According to the map, it looked like the closest beach from here was north - either Mission Beach or the next one up, Pacific Beach. Right outside the hotel, there are tracks for the city trolley and it seems to be a good system (more like a light rail than a San Fran, ring the bell trolley), so I thought that there might be public transportation up to one of the beaches. A short Internet search away on the MTS page showed that I could take the trolley further into downtown and then get on a bus that would take me to Pacific Beach. It looked like an hour adventure, which gave me 2 hours transit time and an hour to scout out the beach and report back to my partner.
The train ride was quick and clean, just how I like my public transportation. I had bought a round trip ticket for it at a machine at the stop, but never had to give up my ticket (this would be the case for all train rides yesterday, making me think that they monitor and control it by randomly checking for tickets and issuing exorbitant fines for those who don't have one as the means to get people to buy a ticket that they are (most likely) never going to have to show or use).
I only rode it a few stops, then it was a block walk and a wait for the bus. The website had told me the #50 was my ride, but at the stop I noticed the#30 specifically said it went to the beach. It showed up first, so I asked the driver who explained that he did go to Pacific Beach. Satisfied that I was on the right bus, I gave him $5 for an unlimited public transportation day pass and found a seat a few rows back.
My fellow riders seemed to be the usual lot - students, professionals, people headed to the social security office (one of the stops on this route), and a few people who live on the streets. One such gentleman was passed out in the seat behind me and the odor akin to a thousand wet diapers wafting off of him was profound.
Luckily the bus windows open wide, so I pushed my as far as it would go and let the nice coastal breezes come in. That encouraged other passengers to do so, and soon his odor was less profound. I have nothing but compassion for someone whose reality is such that a regular bathroom and change of clothes is not a choice (lots of people get passed out drunk all the time and pee themselves in the process - it's just that they have a home, a bathroom, a bed to sleep it off in, and a change of clothes), and am glad that I was able to open the window.
Unlike the other two days here, the clouds hadn't burned off in the morning, so it was a grey and overcast beach adventure, which was great. I walked along the water's edge, picking my way between the giant blobs of washed up kelpy stuff. There were some surfers and swimmers, but it wasn't too crowded. The surfers all wore wetsuits, validating the sense that the water is still pretty cold.
After a bit, it was time to get back on the bus and head back downtown. I had seen at one of the bigger stops in Old Town that the #8 stated that it was also going to the beach, so I rode that one back to see if it had a better route. It did, not going as far into town, but stopping at the bigger stop where I could catch the train, which meant a little longer train ride, which was great.
By the time I got back, my partner was done, so we headed off to an Indian food lunch buffet where I had one too many somosas, and then took the train and bus back to the beach. The clouds had burned off by this point and we had a great time walking along the shore (neither of us had dressed to get in the water because it looked like it was still going to be cloudy and cold).
That didn't stop us from getting in as far as we could and enjoying the cold waves splashing up on us (side note - I realized yesterday that clothes are all about intent. Both of us could have taken off our tops and gone in the water, she in her sports bra, and I in my purple santiny bra and would have been as covered or more than most of the other women on the beach. Because, though, our tops would have been bras and not bikini tops (same shape, different intended use), we would have gotten looks and some social reprimand. Same goes for my chones. Interesting).
We walked the length of the beach, picked our way across a big swatch of the kelpy stuff (which the flies love, love, love and I think some people eat...), across some rocks, and settled on the bottom step of a staircase leading down from the street to the beach (there were some cliffs and the beach was set below the streets and houses) to watch the surfers.
I wondered each time I saw one do something what the vocabulary word for their action was (it's clearly a culture, and so, by definition, has its own vocabulary) - what's the word for a spot of water that is full of kelpy weeds that you have to paddle over to get to the waves? What about the word for when you're paddling out and a wave hits you square in the face?
We hung out for some time, and eventually made our way back to the bus to the train to the hotel, where we dropped our sandy stuff and headed out to find a salad (we were both still really full from the Indian buffet, so much so that we each declared a temporary moratorium on buffets) for dinner. We had success at an Italian place in the Gaslamp district, and then it was home and to bed.
Today - the zoo, new hotel, and fireworks.
Here's magic to all.
No comments:
Post a Comment