We drove from Oakland to San Diego in a day and arrived late at night at Ted's. Ted was our second HelpX host and we were going to work with him helping with odd jobs around his house like painting fences and putting up guttering.

We were so lucky, Ted gave us a self-contained studio for the first few days. His house was in a great area, North Park, and it meant that we could explore San Diego on public transport rather than hiring a car. While we were there ComicCon was on Downtown. This is the biggest Comic/Movie/Sci Fi/Geek fest in the world. Ted was hosting 5 other people through AirBnB for the conference so we moved onto the very comfy sofa bed for a few days while the paying guest took up their posts.

We explored downtown to find an array of people in costume and tons of people milling around as over spill from the conference. One of our new housemates showed he was a true geek by talking non-stop about NASA after seeing Buzz Aldrin speak at Comicon. The following day he emerged from his room sporting an amazing costume from the adult cartoon "Rick and Morty" which takes the piss out of Back to the Future (nope we hadn't heard of it either). He was a great guy and really cleaver and sweet. He worked at a 3-D printing company and made an amazing lazer gun exactly like Morty's from the cartoon. Our faveourite quote from him and of the whole weekend was "it won't be the first time that I showed someone up with my 3-D printed gun". Oh yes, these geeks were having a good time!

Anyway, back to Ted's. He took us to Ocean Beach and gave us a surfing lesson which was fantastic. We both managed to stand up this time woohooo! He also took us to a fantastic tequila bar where they have superb $6 tacos. Brett asked what soft drinks they had and they said "tequila or water - your choice?" Brilliant. He also introduced us to an amazing Burrito place, took us to a really cool skate park, told us loads of cool things to see and do, picked up and dropped us off at the airport to collect our rental cars and generally was amazing.

Ted is genuinely one of the nicest guys you could ever wish to meet. He was so welcoming and kind and we hope that we can repay the favour and put him and his girlfriend up one day when we settle. We really hope to stay in touch.

Thank you Ted for our fantastic stay and for introducing us to Gary Karp. Sadly, it was time to move on. Road-trip across the Souuthwest awaited.

PLG.