San Jose is a million-person city just south of San Francisco. I drove there on Saturday from Merced, and had a bit of a nose around. It`s a standard American city, employing such wonderful techniques as naming streets with numbers of letters ("I`m on the corner of ninth and G"). It`s nothing special. I went to the famous West San Carlos street to look at the antique shops, and was amazed at the prices some people will charge - and pay - for such junk. My favourite part of the town was Caesar Chavez plaza, a nice square in the very centre with fountains and which is overshadowed by the Knight Ridder building. Yes, Ridder, not Rider, but everyone calls it the latter.
Of course I wondered around the University of San Jose, and then read for a while in a riverside park.
There being no cheap place to stay in SJ, I drove to Santa Cruz on the coast, where I stayed in a delightful little cottage hostel just 2 blocks from the beach. It has an 11pm curfew, not just quiet time, but a proper lock-out. Thus when I was out at the pub I had to come home at 10:45 on a Saturday night, rather a let-down.
The main strip in Santa Cruz is Pacific Ave, where all the weirdos come. And there are a lot of weirdos, even for California: lots of down-and-outs, druggies, and young krusties. I was offered pot and, amazingly, Xanax (an antidepressant) as I walked down the road. I had been recommended a curry house for dinner, but after looking at their menu, making my enquiries, and asking where were all the meat dishes, I learned it was a vegan place. Bah. That`s what happens when a hippie makes a recommendation for dinner.
After I ate I went to one of the pubs listed in the hostel welcome page, where a discount is offered. I asked the barman whether he would honour my coupon, and handed him my twenty. A moment later it was returned to me with the explanation that my beer was courtesy of the dude by the juke box. He had overheard I was a traveler and very kindly bought me some beers and we chatted. I`d only ever seen such a concept in the movies before so was very impressed by his generosity.