How can someone not like San Diego?

It’s amazing how fast someone’s focus can swift from something supposedly important to something seriously, genuinely important, and then back to something hardly important… After having taken three flights from Thessaloniki to Cincinnati and an overnight bus from Cincinnati to Chicago, I was anything but happy realizing that my Chicago-Salt Lake City flight would be delayed, delayed enough to make me lose my Salt Lake City-San Diego flight. I got on the plane grumpy, thinking about the four hours I would need to spend at Salt Lake City’s airport, waiting for Delta’s next flight to San Diego, four hours that looked like an eternity, having already spent more than 40 hours on the road. I put my mp3 on, and at some point I must have fallen asleep. I woke up when I felt a strong shake. Funnily enough, the song on my mp3 that very moment (which was playing all the time I was asleep), was Manu Chao’s “Mala Vida” (Bad Life), and that very moment he was saying “próxima estación: esperanza” (next stop: hope). I don’t mean to dramatize the situation, so all I’ll say is that things were not good up there… People were hiding their faces with their hands or squeezing their chairs’ arms, while the plane was going like a wild horse that was refusing to be tamed by this cowboy who was hopelessly trying to stay on top of it. Just like that, my grumpiness about losing my next flight to San Diego… vanished. All I wanted was to land, land, and who cared if it would take me another 45 hours to reach my final destination?... The weather was horrible, the visibility was close to non-existent, and as we were landing we were only able to see the airport’s lights when the plane reached the last meters before touching the runway. Needless to say that everyone was very-very as in VERY relieved, and everyone had a good word to say to the pilot as we were leaving the plane, with our hands still sweaty… If that wasn’t enough, my Salt Lake City-San Diego flight was delayed as well, this time because we had to spend almost an hour and a half IN the plane, while people working at the airport were pouring water on the plane’s wings to make the ice disappear. The problem was that it was snowing so heavily that the snow covered back the wings in no time. By that time, I was too exhausted to worry, or feel anything in general. I calculated the hours when we finally arrived at San Diego. 51 hours had passed, since the moment my first plane had taken off. Never again… Never again I say… I am never again “sentencing” myself to such an endless trip… It makes an interesting story to tell one day to my grandchildren (my gr-what?!), but I can live without spending 50+ hours again, traveling non-stop.
After a quick bus ride and a 15 minutes’ walk, I finally made it to my San Diego hostel, well after midnight. Tried to get online, but the adaptor I bought for this very reason, proved no good. I felt so stupid that I hit my head with the laptop’s big plug. Just like that I was my old self again, having forgotten the promise I gave myself on the plane from Salt Lake City to San Diego to not get pissed about little things, promise I gave myself in moments that my palms were all sweaty, feeling the plane struggling to stay in one piece…
After all that endless traveling, I only managed to sleep for a lousy three hours. At five in the morning my eyes opened, and no matter how hard I tried to fall asleep again, it was impossible. It was 3pm in Greece, my organism was refusing to be switched off. Right now it is 7pm in San Diego, and I am heroically fighting to keep my eyes open and wait until 11pm or, even better, midnight, to fall asleep. If I go to sleep earlier, I will only prolong the jetlag’s effect…
San Diego… I spent lots of hours walking today, and the first word that comes in my mind to describe this city is “pleasant”. Seriously, how can someone not like San Diego? It’s mid/late December, it’s freezing cold in most of the US at the moment, and still, here, I spent the morning walking under a glorious blue sky, wearing a short sleeved t-shirt. So, the weather is great, but that’s not all. The city itself feels… joyful, and that’s a feeling I got starting from the airport. Little touches make this city look “happy”. At the airport there are “flower” signs jumping off direction signs, lightening up the whole atmosphere. In the city centre the “bases” of the trees are colourful (I am too tired to explain what I mean with “bases”), and along the coast there are benches with playful designs and pieces of art that make the whole atmosphere even more… “light” and “life loving”. Then, after hours of walking, you get hungry, you have a “baconator” (new at Wendy’s) and you enjoy free coke re-fills(!!!), which is unthinkable in my country, Greece. Almost forgot! Spanish is heard everywhere, and I mean everywhere, maybe even more than English, which I like a lot. I don’t know… I like this city, but no matter how much I liked it I can’t close my eyes to something really disturbing… This is the first time in my life I saw SO many homeless people. Harmless, I’d say, I didn’t feel threatened walking in between them after dark holding one of my two photo cameras, but still, the sight is… disheartening. We have homeless people in Thessaloniki as well, but what I saw here is really beyond description… It makes me sad… Brings a black cloud above my had and makes my heart feel heavier. And it’s not because I am some big humanitarian… It’s simply because of the huge number of homeless people you see around here…
At about half an hour my hostel organizes a… get together, something like a small party to drink a beer or three and get to know other people staying here. Later on, people will go out, to the Gaslamp Quarter. It IS Friday night, after all. Tomorrow afternoon my hostel organizes an excursion to Tijuana, Mexico, basically for drinks and lots of laughs. What of all these I personally will do? Beats me… Depends on which half of me will prevail… The joyful half that pushes me to open up, occasionally, and allow myself to have a good time, or the anti-social, the extremely reserved half, which keeps me away from anything fun, even when fun can be found ALL AROUND me…