Bus, Breakfast, Dash, Zoo

Trip Start Oct 14, 2006
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Trip End Oct 21, 2006


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Flag of United States  , California,
Sunday, October 15, 2006

So....the previous night I frantically tried to figure out where we needed to pick up what bus...the "free wifi" was non-existant as I tried to hold a weak piggyback connection on some neighbor's network. But we were able to get up and follow my handwritten directions to the bus stop that would take us on our very first public bus ride. Getting to the correct bus stop was our first priority, and I was terrified that I wouldn't get it right. Luckily, it was early on a Sunday morning, so the walk was cool and refreshing. Once on the bus, I asked the driver to signal when we came close ro our stop. She grunted her assent. My heart was racing as I watched my map as the street names rolled by, noting how to ask the driver to stop by pulling the cord...and then my street flew by. Luckily, I saw it. Kelly and I hopped out at the next stop and walked to Hash House a Go Go for breakfast.

Kelly had read about this place and was dying to try it. I thought it looked interesting myself, so we ordered an enormous breakfast and marvelled in the sheer size of our plates. It was good, if absurdly huge. Kelly took the bill and asked the waiter if a travelers check would be okay, since they were joint checks in both of our names. He agreed. We left full and happy, but as we talked about the experience on our way to the next bus stop we would need, in Hillcrest, we realized that what we had paid for our breakfast could not have been nearly as much as the breakfast cost. The bill must have had more printed on the back. We debated going back, but I decided that we needed to stay on our schedule. We both felt really bad about it.

Walking through Hillcrest was fun, though it was so early on a Sunday morning that none of the vintage stores were open. We saw a Starbucks and a Jamba Juice. Hillcrest also has a neon arch. We caught the bus and headed on to the zoo.

San Diego's zoo is really, really great as zoos go. The sea lion show was fun. I was also taken by the spectacular array of plants along the paths. The polar bear exhibit made a big impression on me, as did the cute little penguins. We took the aerial tram from the back of the park to the front. Kelly hated that, but she hung in there like a trooper. As we were leaving I discovered that I had lost my bus pass (it was a 5 day pass) somewhere in the park. That was a big downer. But we regrouped, pulled together the cash we would need to get me on the bus back to the hotel, and caught our bus back into the Gaslamp area downtown. There, we tried to buy a new transit daypass for the following day, but quickly realized that we had wasted the money for a daypass that was good only for the current day. What a mess! We returned to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We had dinner at the downstairs Italian restaurant, Vincenzo Restaurante. It was okay. The cannoli we snagged from the cafe was better.
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