San Diego

We made the pilgrimmage out to the Hotel Del Coronado, where "Some Like It Hot" was filmed.  This is in the La Jolla area of San Diego, and again, it's very quiet, very beautiful and extremely hot.  The hotel itself is great - full of 1920's charm - a bright white wooden building, its towers and turrets shining in the bright Californian sunshine.  But don’t let that mislead you.  

We had also been informed that the hotel is HAUNTED by the spirit of Kate Morgan.  She had checked in, complaining of stomach aches, but refusing to go to the doctor until her brother arrived.  When days passed and he still hadn't turned up, she killed herself.   Or at least, that's what they THOUGHT.  The police investigation discovered that "her brother" was in fact her husband and that the two of them were grifters.  He had dumped her upon getting her pregnant and detectives speculated that he had killed her.  Since that day, her spirit has wandered the hotel, still waiting for justice...

Spooky eh?  Apparently her bed in the hotel CANNOT BE MADE.  The maid was on tv, saying how every morning it looks like it's been slept in, even when there's no-one in the room.  The cynical part of me says that this is very good for business.  But I would not like to sleep in that bed.

So we enjoyed the Hotel Del, as it is known, and spent a very pleasant afternoon looking around, wakling along the beach and having big fruity cocktails.  The next day we made our way to Balboa Park, which is a beautiful area full of museums and art galleries.  We took in only one exhibition of 1960's posters before I informed Caro that our budget didn’t actually allow for culture, so we just enjoyed the scenery instead and the grand Spanish-colonial buildings instead, all surrounded by neatly-planted colourful gardens.  If you sniff this paragraph, you can actually smell the fragrance of them.  

While there, possibly inspired by Miss Cleo, Caro took the opportunity to have her Tarot read by a woman sitting under an umbrella in the sun.  Caro's first card was The Priestess, which impressed the lady a great deal, "HOOOO!!  You GO girl!!" she enthused.  This, it turns out, is the personification of Caro The Goddess.  The rest of the cards I forget but it all seemed pretty positive and Caro took it to mean that our upcoming collaboration on the book of our travels would be successful.  If you have bought a copy, now you know it is entirely due to Supernatural Influences.

But it wasn’t all fun and relaxation in San Diego.  I spent a great deal of time on the phone, trying to get some customer service from the US Postal Service which is a little like trying to get satisfaction from a man with no genitals.  They had lost a parcel that Janette sent to Caro from New Zealand.  Meanwhile, I lost my temper listening to Caroline being reasonable on the phone while they messed her about.

Consequently, I took over and Caro noted with some amusement how I become increasingly English when pissed off.  Also, I have a tendency to go into my Work-Speak mode and start demanding that People Progress This Issue With Some Urgency Or I Shall Have To Escalate The Matter.  It worked eventually, but I now start to realise why to the English, the Americans seem inordinately loud, rude and demanding.  It seems to be the only way you can get any bloody thing done.  I found I was becoming more American in my approach, as in the few weeks I had been in the USA, I had already had fights with the Post, The Immigration Service, two hotels and several restaurants, all of whom would have been quite happy for me to be screwed, so long as they didn't have to go to the trouble of actually ANSWERING SIMPLE QUESTIONS.

In the case of Caro, the very first post office she called had actually had the parcel all the time!!  How we laughed about that THREE DAYS LATER.

But I don't want you to think I'm down on America or the Americans.  As with any country, most of the people are cool but it's the arseholes who stand out.  Like, most people would think the English are a bunch of drunken, football-obsessed idiots whereas in fact this is only true of 98% of us.  

The real truth is that there are arseholes everywhere.  In America, New Zealand, Australia -there are people who are citizens of The Federal Republic of Wanker.  The good news is that there is also a Country of The Groovy, of which the National Anthem is "Groove Is In the Heart".  I would like all of you to know that you are fully-naturalised citizens.  And that Caro is Your Queen.

Despite the hours I spent complaining to various postal workers, San Diego was a nice lazy break in between California and the madness that was to be Las Vegas.  But before we left California altogether, we had one last stop to make.