After signing off I was about to go to bed, feeling rather out of place in the huge party hostel, when the curfew hit. Therefore, the entire hostel piled out and down the road one block to the beach, taking me with the throng. The party on the beach was awesome; people were gathered around city-provided fire pits, drinking, playing the guitar and singing, swimming in the sea, dropping acid, freaking out because of the latter, fire-breathing and playing with pet rats. I swam, but it was too cold for my taste and the strong waves kept removing the last of my clothes. One buffoon fell into the fire and is now in hospital. I retired at a respectable hour and slept in seawater-dampened clothes.
On Wednesday I joined some Oirish lads to watch the Chelsea/Man-U match in a neighbourhood bar. The atmosphere was electric, the place was full of die-hard European fans of football. Despite the teams being both English I think I was the only Englishman there, and was certainly the person least interested in the game. Nevertheless I thought it was an excellent game, far better than any World Cup final, because the teams did not seemed to be terrified of losing like the are in the World Cup and so played hard. It was great to be drinking before noon and to be tipsy by lunchtime on a weekday.
On the main road here in Ocean Beach is what they called a farmers` market, basically a cross between a summer fete and an open air market. It was very cool, but did confirm several opinions I have about Californians: they are all filthy rich, gorgeous, and utterly crazy. The stalls sold products and services that only a crazy Californian would pay top-dollar for: organic cloverleaf tea, magnetic foot spas designed to restore the pH of one`s blood, llama rides, buskers playing the recorder, hand-made pretzels....
After strolling and snoozing on the sand for a bit, I played drinking games with the Irish lads, who of course cleaned the floor with me, and then we all went back to the beach. The party was great again, but there was a little drama. After I had tried the fire-breathing (where one takes a mouthful of lighter fluid and blows it out onto a flame - I was not bad for a beginner), one of the supposed expert fire-breathers accidentally swallowed some of the fluid, and almost immediately fell down coughing and spewing. He quickly passed out, and I and another guy had to put him in to a position where he would not choke on the vomit rapidly emanating from his crusty mouth. The ambulance were called, and in doing so the police were alerted to our illegal party; the cops arrived far faster, and the shout of "cops!" by me was enough to send most of the party running. (It was illegal because the fire was present after midnight, we had booze and glass on the beach, and half the guys were underage). The cops told all the lightweights who were crashed out on the beach from the booze to beat it; carrying them back to the hostel was clearly difficult. By the time the ambulance arrived there was just myself and the other helper remaining. They put homeless `Huckleberry` onto the gurney and took him away, leaving me to wash the tramp vomit from my rucksack, which had been used as a pillow for him. Finally the cops said something to the effect of "since you two were the only ones good enough to stay, you can clean up this party," and so under police orders he and I had to tidy the trash from the area. Humph.
I went to bed late, wet from scouring.