Monterey the return…..

I left the hostel and bid my new mates goodbye, and boarded the rapid 10 bus, having spent the previous night stressing as we couldn't find the flipping bus stop! So safely at Union station I go to check my bag in, which I am told they don't do if you have to get on a thruway connecting bus to get to your final destination, so me and all my gear go in search of the restrooms, now for those of you that have witnessed the size of the rucksack will understand that trying to get me plus the turtle shell on my back, the 10kgs rucksack on my front and a pair of skates into a toilet cubicle is no mean feat. I managed but then got massively stuck!! 5 mins later I had escaped with loads of people giving me proper strange looks and moaning I was in their way…….errr…..sorry!

So a bit stressed I found somewhere to sit and wait for the arrival of the train, it pulled in and our very lively station person yelled its arrival, so that was it I waddled up to the platform, got on my train carriage completely missed the luggage rack, got stuck on the stairs going up as it was very narrow, go to my seat and then realised i should have dropped my stuff off downstairs. By this point there is a steady flow of passengers coming up the stairs and I needed to get back down with the massive rucksack. Luckily for me a train person also needed to go back down, so he yelled at everyone to not come up, so i tailgated! Which worked until some dopey woman just carried on going, having already been told by train person not to come up, I pointed out she needed to move very politely as I couldn't go up the stairs backwards, pretty damn obvious really, but she still wouldn't move, so having pointed out that both of us wouldn't fit past each other and that i was carrying 20kg (she had no bags) the polite thing to do would be for her to move ever so slightly so I could get down the stairs and put my bag in the luggage bit. She claimed she didn't want to lose her spot in the queue, this would have made sense, but we were in the reserved seating carriage, so it made absolutely no difference at all as to when she got to her seat…….so having sworn under my breathe quite a bit, I make my way back to my seat, and guess who I'm sitting next to……for goodness sake. It was a silent journey lol.

So after dopey woman left at one of the near by stations, I had two seats to myself. So for the next 8 hrs it was sorting out the mac and iTunes, emptying my iPad and uploading everything i needed, a pretty good use of time really. We arrive at Salinas and catch the connecting bus to Monterey, by the time I am dropped at the hostel its about 8pm, so literally dumped my stuff and it was off to get food. I headed straight for the Fish Hopper just off Cannery Row for an ice cold beer and Cham Chowder in a bread bowl, absolutely delicious! I had been looking forward to this all day.

After a really good sleep, it was free pancakes for breakfast to continue on the healthy eating regime. I then headed off to mum and dads hotel that they stayed at here to borrow some wifi. I managed to have a lovely catch up mum and Fi over the next couple of days and managed to get some of these blogs written - sorry for the massive overload over the last 2 days. So having ran out of battery it was back off to the hostel to find my skates. There is a really lovely cycle path that goes from beach city limits to Lovers point, the scenery is just great and the seals are everywhere, occasionally popping up to say hello.

Monterey is just lovely, its so nice and relaxed. To be honest I haven't really done that much since I've been back I have just been having a chill and nice little walks with my ipod. I am absolutely exhausted at the momentum, and now that I've stopped I'm getting a cold - typical! Ive been using these 3 days to recharge the batteries before I hit San Fran and meet up with friends I made in Santa Monica and on the Kiwi Experience in NZ. I have spent at lot of my time just sitting on the patio in the sun and shade (i went a bit pink the other day lol) doing admin and tearing my hair out over iTunes. I have not been defeated, I am now fully up and running - Dad you'd be proud!!!

Whilst I write this I'm just sitting around waiting to leave, the bus doesn't go till 4:45pm, I should arrive into San Fran at 10:30pm and then have a mile walk to the hostel. Yeah, so I get to be that annoying person who rocks up in the dorm room with all my gear in the dark and probably ends up waking everyone up whilst trying to be as silent as possible. Little miss popular I won't be.

Hope everyone is well, next update from San Fran or Portland…. take it easy!

Lou xxx