Lion and Tigers and Bears...Oh My!

San Diego... A quick stop... And to be honest... I think Callum and I were glad of this. More about that later....But let me first tell you of the sheer terror I housed inside of myself as I climbed inside an American Automobile for the first time in my life. All I kept thinking was 'this is far too easy - why have they let me rent a car so easily?!' The keys were on the dashboard waiting for us and after we plugged in our hostel's name into the G.P.S, we were off...

This is a family site, so I won't swear...but Darn and Blast that was a scary first half hour on the wrong side of the road! The G.P.S was yelling 'turn right...turn right...TURN RIGHT... I couldn't turn right, the road was blocked off! 'Recalculating' was another favourite saying of the lovely lady behind the colourful screen. However, after numerous telephone calls to the seemingly lovely manager of our next hostel, a few more wrong turns, we were there. 7 miles in 1 hour, as my maths is what it is - I'm going to say that was GREAT!

Having parked up and ventured inside, we met our landlady - not to get personal, but Darn and Blast she scared me a little... The 'hostel', as advertised on the internet, was not a hostel...we were basically just staying in this woman's house for the fee of $50 dollars a night. She didn't even see fit to giving us a key. By the time we'd brought our stuff in and had the grand tour, we were shattered, grabbed a few beers from the quaint market next door and held ourselves up in our room.

The reason for this self imprisonment was two fold. Number One - Landlady had cornered me for the best part of an hour telling me her life history (nothing like the lovely Igor from Hollywood). Nobody else could speak and I'm pretty sure she was ever so slightly demonic! Number two - Landlady had shown us the 'communal area' (her living room) "Use it as it were your own, honey." Callum sat down to relax, watch a bit of TV, chill... Landlady didn't like him doing this, and took the remote clean off him...tres hospitable!

This odd behaviour being the reason we were now held up in our own room. We read and drank the few beers we bought from next door - and then it started.

First came George Michael, then Stevie Wonder, then Cher, a bit of All Saints, Blue and Celiene Dion... Landlady was wailing out every hit of each star. This singing/torture...went on for over 4 hours. Some made us laugh, some made us laugh until we cried, and some just made us plain cry. We considered scarpering, but she was right by the front door, and my case is as inconspicous as piece of Hot Chocolate Fudge cake in a Weight Watchers meeting.

So there we sat...waiting for her to stop. The wait went on and on and on some more until eventually we fell asleep. Lord knows what time she carried on til?!

Morning came and we were up early to get away from her asap! Still, she lurked and cornered us again... bless her, her heart, I'm sure, was in the right place. We told her we were off to the zoo - she gave us 27 other places better to go... we assured her we'd check them out. Asking her to lock our room, we eventually made it out of her clasp.

Now, this is where Landlady can be forgotten... San Diego Zoo - what a place!! We spent 5 hours snapping the animals on our cameras. From the Gorillas to the Giraffes, the Baboons to the Buffalo, the Crocodiles to the Koala Bears, it was fantastic. I really enjoyed our time spent there, Callum even more so I think!

Night two - yes...we went back! Now knowing what was best, we quickly nipped back in to Landlady's house to pick up a few bits and quickly made our excuses. However, after we'd eaten we went back for the whole evening.

Back in our room, we read, thanking our lucky stars that she wasn't belting out a Bassey Ballard - inconvientley the light remained on as we fell into our slumber... 1.30am came, and so did a violent bashing on our door, "Turn your light off... turn your light off... come on, wake up....turn your light off!"

Fair play - I can imagine my mum wanting my light switched off at night, but she would ask me calmly, not belt my door down. Lights swtiched off, asleep we fell; but not well... I had visions of her just walking into our room and rifiling through our stuff. Waking early, we packed and darted out of San Diego quicker than the Panther at the Zoo could ever dream to run.

5 hours later, we've made it to Las Vegas - somewhat happy to be out of the clutches of Landlady... in those fitful sleeps I swear I dreamt of being at Jensen's a few weeks early... it's a shame that's not reality!

Jen