Time has come to go down to San Diego, meaning that I had to take the subway to Union Station for catching the Pacific Surfliner down close to the Mexican boarder. Having earned a reputation as a place where nobody walks, famously car-orientated Los Angeles may seem like an unlikely place for a walking tour. And yes, L.A. does have a subway, although the municipal padres waited until the 1990s, by which time it was almost prohibitively expensive to build one. Believe it or not, the city actually had a subway in the ‘20s. After I survived the (1hour!) subway drive I still had some time to walk around L.A downtown, city hall and back to Union Station…
Unfortunately the Union Station had a close call with real destruction after damage caused by the 1994 Northridge earthquake made extensive renovations necessary. Angelenos faced a tough choice, tear it down to build a modern, quake-resistant structure or spend many millions more restoring and seismically retrofitting the existing building. Seven years and $300 mio dollars later, this architectural masterpiece has been returned to its 1920s grandeur.
The train drive down to San Diego was enjoyable and comfortable, so much better than all the bus rides so far. When passing stops like San Clemente, built on hillsides overlooking the pacific ocean, I spied its sunny palm-fringed beach with it’s surfers. After passing Oceanside and Carlsbad I finally arrived at cute little train station Santa Fee.
It took me ages until I got to the 1st hostel where Marina was staying, without a street map and no idea where it was…. When finally founding each other we went out eating at the Newport Ave. nam nam nam.
Next day to get to the Banana Bungalow Hostel we decided to walk all the way from Ocean Beach to Pacific Beach, silly as we are! But lucky as we are a guy with his golf cart took us along to skip the hilly part of the walk. Awesome!!! At the Hostel it was time to chill and relax after this 2hours power walk.
At night we had self made tacos and then went out for the pub crawl in Gaslamp downtown. Party time with two guys from Melbourne and uncountable XL Margaritas glasses. Crazy night, I can tell.., especially the Irish boys really know how to celebrate the night.
Wednesday it was time to go surfing!!! San Diego's waves are just awesome awesome awesome!!!!! Wonder why my muscles didn’t get that sore.. At night we again went out with the boys from Melbourne to a club where they held Goldfish races! Oh my gosh, what a night.
The day when I had to head back to L.A. Marina and I visited San Diego's historic old town and then took the Coastline to make a stopover at Carlsbad, having nice white Ghirardelli hot chocolate and a XL almond muffin at the Elysa coffee, enjoying the brunch at the beach. Before jumping back on the Surfliner I stopped at Oceanside to walk at the beach following the sun go down.
Another beach bike cruise and walk along Hermosa beach it was time to say goodbye to Los Angeles and Southern California's misty weather.
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