Darren apparently woke up not long after 1am this morning and couldn't sleep until 7 or so. I guess the time difference has finally caught up with us, after having our first two nights way out of whack!
So by the time we finally recovered and woke up it was 11am. Until I looked at the clock again and realised it was actually 1pm! Oops..
So we very slowly got ourselves awake and ready. We tried making one of the coffees provided in the room but it was a gross filter coffee with 'non dairy creamer' instead of milk. It smelled and tasted disgusting!
So when we were finally ready we walked around to Little Italy to a shop called Caffe Italia for coffee. Surely we'll find some good coffee there!
There were about three people in line in front of us, and just one guy working. (Slowly!)
He took his sweet time making each order before taking the next order, so it seemed like forever (especially with caffeine deprivation) to get the coffee!
Finally my latte and Darren's caramel latte were ready and we headed off.
We walked up the street towards Balboa park, which took maybe 20 minutes, then when we got there we discovered where the homeless of SD live. Not so many or so bad as LA, but there were lots of them.
I can see how Americans would be so easily desensitized to homelessness and mental health issues as it's literally just a part of everyday life, it's insane.
So we walked through the gardens a while, past some pretty trees dropping their leaves (its only the start of summer!), past a fenced off designated leash-free dog park, where heaps of people had brought their pups for a social setting, then we crossed over a huge bridge to where the real park area started.
What a huge park, we had walked already for maybe 15 minutes and hardly even entered the park! It's apparently the biggest urban cultural park in the USA.
After the bridge we walked past a big church and nice gardens and flowerbeds and lots of cool tiled architecture, which was a little reminiscent of Southern Spain. It was very pretty and the sun was out too! A little way into the gardens we came across a huge amphitheater with absolutely massive organ pipes in a structure on the stage, which looked like they were actually connected to an organ that was on stage. There were some volunteers there advertising that nights free concert, for the Summer Organ Festival! So good timing for us, it was starting in just a couple of hours.
We went to a little cafe in the gardens, that was by the Japanese Friendship Gardens, and got a bite to eat as we looked over the nice view of the gardens. (We didn't enter though, because of the admission price.)
After we finished eating we went back to the organ performance and got a seat. We watched the performer, Carol Williams, play some tunes, then she was joined by an amazing violinist, Annelle K. Gregory, for a few songs as well. It was amazing, and the sound of those pipes was pretty epic, although she was scared it was too loud for the 60+ average aged audience!!
After a few songs we decided to head back into town as the sun was starting to set in the beautiful pink sky.
We made our way out of the park (after taking a wrong turn or two, this place is huge!) and walked back into the city.
We made our way down to the other end of town and went to the Stone Brewing Tap Room.
This is a brewery that has some awesome beers that I've had at home before, but at home it's expensive and hard to find so I was excited to check it out. The actual brewery is about a 20 minute drive out of town and hard to get to on public transport so we settled for their downtown tap room.
We ordered a couple of IPA's and got a seat. The first round was nice but not fantastic, but we chose better and better ones as we went along.
We had a chat with the bartender (whose name was Dragan!) who was from Croatia about music (and Australian music) and talked with a couple from Texas who arrived a bit later.
The vibe of the place was pretty quiet (well it was a Monday night) but once we started talking to people it turned into a much friendlier feel.
Their 'Supremely Self Conscious Black Ale' was really nice, but the winner for sure was
the 'Imperial Russian Stout with Kona Coffee, Hazelnut, Chocolate, And
Vanilla'. It was smooth and strong and so so delicious!
By the time we'd finished those, the Texans had said goodbye (and left us a card for if we ever visit Texas) and the bartenders were ready to pack up, so we fixed up our tab and headed back towards the hotel.
We picked a more central street to walk down this time, so it was nicer than the walk down, although it seems 10pm might be the standard curfew for a Monday night, because everything was closed or closing.
We stopped for a slice of pizza then continued back to the hotel.
We had to fix up our card at reception, as we'd received a note that morning saying they couldn't authenticate our travel card for incidentals, so we did that when we got there (it was too busy when we left!) then went up to the room.
We were still a bit peckish though, so we went back down to Little Italy to try find something to eat. Everything here was closed too, but we were directed up to a 7/11 on the corner, where we got some snacks (but couldn't buy beer as it was after 10) then went back to our room for a snack and went to sleep.