Life on the job

It has been a couple of weeks since my last update, and I have come to realise that I only feel like writing this when I have something to moan about. There is not a lot going on to piss me off right now. I have integrated seamlessly into live in hostel life. Quite frankly I could do this forever. On this basis I have decided to extend my stay in California until my visa expires on 8^th January. I am however quite wary of outstaying my visa, as two weeks ago the armed immigration police turned up at reception at 6.30am asking about a french girl that was working here. Her visa had expired but by pure chance she had left for the Grand Canyon for two days at 6am that morning. Had she not gone that day then she would have spent the weekend in prison waiting for a court date. Luckily we were able to send word and she sneaked in the side entrance, picked up her shit and got the hell out of the country (won't ever be allowed back in).

I have found myself growing increasingly comfortable with this lifestyle. Management have moved me from the sweatbox jungle to the more homely den, which is reserved for the longer-term crowd. At four beds it is much less hectic than the seven berth jungle. We have a flat screen tv, cable tv, dvd player, and as of last night a playstation 3 with Fifa 2012. There is a really good crew here at the moment and the english lads James and Tom have just come back for christmas, shame we will all be locked away playing computer games for most of it... I feel quite privileged to be in the den, it usually takes a while to earn the trust of management that you are responsible (I know) but I got in quick. I don't know if it something that I said but around 60% of the staff left within a few days of each other a couple of weeks back, so after two weeks on the job I suddenly found myself senior staff – sort of a hostel sage for the young apprentices, an old head who the newbies can turn to when they need toilet cleaning advice.

Since my last entry I have started to make money running some of the evening activities like bar crawls, poker nights, beer pong and also running the hostel bar (which is basically just buying booze from the supermarket and selling it at a mark-up). Essentially I am getting drunk for free whilst turning a tidy little profit. Bunsen burner, nice little earner. As a bar man I thrive but i'm hit and miss on the bar crawl front. I tend to get pretty drunk and two out of the last three times I have taken the group out I have been too smashed to remember to take them to the last bar. The other time I broke myself on the mechanical bull and had to retire injured before we went to the last bar. Chris Finch, bloody good rep. One thing that I am finding a little annoying is telling the same story over and over again. There is a high turnover of guests and I must have had the same conversation one hundred times. What makes it even more annoying is that we overhear each other telling the same stories that we have also told each other, so it is just a merry go round of the same stories over and over again. It has pretty much been the same all year, but I suppose it is a pretty minor complaint on the scale of things.

Unfortunately an additional month in America means one less month in South America and missing out on having christmas with Kipper and his extended family in Peru. Bit of a gutter but I am actually almost living at zero cost here and I am having a fucking blast. Christmas here is going to be awesome if thanksgiving is anything to go by. I don't really know what the deal is with thanksgiving, something about an indian, a pilgrim and a reacharound, but as with all holidays the meaning of it isn't really the point. The managers prepared an amazing meal for fifty odd people and I ran the bar, scooping a cool $200 in the process. I would have made more had it not been for the cruel hand of fate. I forget how it even began but things escalated quickly. We ate at around 6pm and by 8.30pm I found myself topless with a bottle of cheap red wine in my hand and the whole hostel chanting my name. Someone said that they would not drink it for $100 and I flippantly mentioned that I would down it in one for $50. Obviously I did not expect anything to come of this but ten minutes later I find myself unscrewing the bottle stood in front of a $74 whip. Needless to say I got within two inches of finishing the bottle before wine started dribbling out of my nostrils and choking me. As I did not finish it in one I got no money, but on the plus side I was pier pressured into to downing the other two inches of wine. I was forced to sober up at around 1am when one of the guests came to reception and said that there was a problem in his room. When I got there I found some string bean kid starfished face down into the carpet in a pile of his own sick. What was even more humiliating for him was the fact that his nutsack was hanging out and he had pissed in a locker. After taking a few photographs I began to feel a bit bad for this kid, he looked in a bit of a bad way (and apparently it was me who had encouraged him to down the rest of his bottle of vodka). The receptionist, who has something of a short tolerance for guests, was immediately on the phone for an ambulance (“they can clear it up”). I managed to persuade the receptionist to cancel the paramedics as I realised that it would literally cost him $1500 for treatment, which his insurance would not cover. My good samaritan attitude was soon rewarded when I got to put him to bed and clear up his sick with a dustpan, stopping every yard or so to wretch.

As I am saving a bit of money by staying in California I have invested in a return flight to Salt Lake City, Utah. I am off to stay with the girl I mentioned in the previous blog, who is putting me up for a week and taking me snowboarding.. Pretty awesome considering I only met her and her brother on one very drunken afternoon. I am hoping that the brother does not punch me in the face, as he works on the private jet of the owner of what is considered to be the USA's best ski resort, and apparently I will be getting free ski passes and equipment hire, saweeet. My only minor concern is that clothing wise I am set to get a bit cold. I only have one pair of jeans and a hoody. The rest of my bag is t-shirts and shorts. I haven't even got a coat and it is looking pretty warm over there at the moment. I'm not really sure what to expect to be honest, I don't know a lot about that part of the country, but I am looking forward to getting away from cleaning toilets for a little while.

So yeah, as you can probably tell I am feeling pretty smug about things right now and have very little to moan about. Expect an increase in activity after I break an arm snowboarding and have to pay £20k in hospital fees as my insurance does not include winter sports. Boom

Box Social

Yesterday morning whilst I was housekeeping and I put my hand in some filthy bastards jizz. That is about as low as I can imagine sinking. I instantly spewed so hard that I almost shat myself. That was my Tuesday, basically. Well, it got a bit creepier, but I'll save that. In-terms of the jizz hand, I won't go into unnecessary detail, that would not be like me at all; each bunk bed has a little shelf which we have to clean when people move out. I blindly swept the top bunk shelf with my hand as they are almost always empty. This one was not. Triffic. Animals.

So what has been going on? Not much I suppose. The last week has just been a series of incidents. I am pretty much living the same routine as I would at home. I spend most of my time at work developing new shortcuts to allow me to clean twice as badly in half the time. I am now reaping the dividends and spend more time pursuing other favourite pastimes such as leaning. A wise man (who saw me as something of a prodigy) once told me 'that if it is time to lean then it is time to clean'. It has taken me longer than originally anticipated but I have finally managed to disprove his theory. Since I have started working I have felt myself become considerably less social. Instead of getting drunk every night I am four metres up reading, writing or watching films. Whilst the netbook has proven very handy for my writing it has also given me a ready made excuse not to socialise. Don't get me wrong, I have friends here, but they are the other members of staff as opposed to guests. I now see guests as I would have previously seen clients. Work.

I have no plans to move on so I am not really bothering to assess if the guests are worth getting to know (i.e to travel on with). I have mates here already and I can't really be fucked forging continuous short term friendships. Sounds miserable and, whilst not strictly applicable, it is basically like being back in the UK on the lifestyle front. It is strangely welcomed to be honest. I am getting a lot of work done and I am living for free pretty much. I can still sunbathe up on the roof in mid November and I sleep on the mother of all captain's bunk beds. When I want to be sociable there are always people around and when I don't it is easy enough to get some peace. I am lacking in sleep and nutrition but I could genuinely get used to this. One guy who had his last day of work here yesterday came for a week and ended up staying for two years.

You certainly get to meet some characters working here. I can be unsociable to an extent but I am also required to be friendly to all guests when off duty. I cannot just duck people so I am having several unwelcomed conversations a day. It is not that I am being selective when being offered an olive branch, I just don't want to encourage further hallway chatter with the annoying ones who are constantly chirping around the place trying to befriend people. I honestly spend most of these conversations trying to remember what their name is, then the rest trying to edge subtly away from them until I'm far enough down the corridor that they have to shout goodbye.

There are some people that are worth meeting though. I hear some pretty amazing stories from the people passing through. I met an American guy earlier in the week who is thirty four and arrived on a motorbike. We got chatting about the bike as I had toyed with the idea, and he told me that he is recently divorced and that tomorrow he was leaving the states via Mexico with the intention of never returning to America. He probably sounds like a spectacularly bitter individual, but he is actually an incredibly cool guy who just happens to be a bit spectacularly bitter.

On Friday after work I went for lunch with the boys. That day felt a bit more like travelling. I got chatting to a lad and girl after asking the lad about his “soccer” shirt. I started chatting with them thinking that they were a couple from Utah, but after a while they told me that they were actually brother and sister – so this was my queue to start drinking. Seven hours later (circa 9pm) I am on the roof of the hostel with them (not supposed to take guests up there – not that they were even guests of the hostel) and the last thing that I remember is the guy turning to me looking disgusted and saying “Dude, have you got your hand on my sisters ass?”. My memory after that is completely blank. We had started drinking double jaegermeisters (which would be quadruple in english measurements) at 4pm and the joint broke me. I woke up the next morning at 9am and I did not have a fucking clue where I was. I was fully clothed and my face was half a meter from the ceiling, pretty freaky. I couldn't piece together the evening and when I got up for work and hour later random guests were laughing at me and asking how I was this morning. I started to get a bad feeling. I did not even recognise any of these people. Some German girl came up to me and told me that she really enjoyed my beatboxing last night. The manager of the place then came up to me and laughed in my face. They have not really seen me that drunk and as I am not going out that much they probably assume that it is hugely out of character. Apparently I was under the impression that it was 3am when it was actually 10pm and people were all pretty much sober. Ho tidy. Everyone who was working was still leathered so we started getting on the vodka again. By the end of the shift everyone was absolutely wasted. This brings me on to saturday night...

One of my favourite members of staff is the guy who works the midnight – 6AM shift. He is a world class stoner who does not officially live at the hostel but is consistently asleep on our sofa in the jungle. He is perhaps not the most professional, but he sort of gets the job done. His job involves trying to force a hostel full of drunkards to bed at 3am. He is impossibly abusive to some of the guests, which I could watch all night long. On Saturday night we all went out with the guests. At midnight he had to go back to man the reception (drunk). I came stumbling up the stairs about 1am after drinking really quite a lot that day - and Carlos begged me to man reception for a while so that he could go back to the club and hook up with some girl. I have never worked on reception before and there is no intention for me to be trained (it is a job for longer term staff). Under no circumstances should I have been behind the desk - but on the other hand I was drunk, so naturally I accepted. I have seen what he does and it does not look complex; as far as I could gather he just sits in the counter and asks to see peoples security cards as they come up the stairs (you need a key card to get into the building then up a flight of stairs to the reception area). I had been sat there for around ten minutes before I heard a shout from the bottom of the stairs “help, you gotta stop this guy, he followed us in.” Oh tidy I thinks to myself. I peer over the counter and some guy comes walking past me calmly saying “where is she?”. He was some long haired psycho type but he had a look of pure terror in his eyes. I literally did not have a clue what to do at this point, then he suddenly legs it up the next flight of stairs and begins screaming “where is she?” There is a gallery layout upstairs with rooms around a central staircase and I was worried that he would wake everyone up, and that Carlos was going to get into shit for leaving me behind reception. Without really thinking I run after him, grab him by his hair and literally drag him screaming down two flights of stairs before I throw him on to the street.

It was only the next day that I realised that this was perhaps not cool. Whilst he was clearly some dodgy crackhead I should perhaps have been a little bit more reasonable. He could have been a bit stabby. Then one of the guests told the manager that I was a bit of a hero last night, and suddenly it became cool again. Instead of being told off for being on reception I was treated like a hero for dragging some bloke down the stairs by his hair. Within an hour everyone was watching it on cctv completely unified in their admiration. Be clear on this, sometimes it does pay off to behave like a total dick. Bouncers, I finally get it.

Sleep up here and tell me that you are not afraid of death

Then I move on to the less favourable members of staff. There was one german girl who could not sound less german. She walks round coughing the entire time. I'm not convinced she is ill, she has been coughing consistently for three weeks. I think it must just be the worlds most annoying tick. I cannot work out if I like the new Turkish lad who joined the staff last week. He looks like a cross between David Villa and Whirly. He feels a little more inclined to talk about his ambitions than I am willing to hear. His nickname is CEO as one day he believes that he will be CEO of a large company. In his first conversation he told me that he is not afraid of death, which is quite heavy for a meet and greet. Whenever he speaks to me I get the feeling that he is trying to sell me something. He is greasy and extremely sexually aggressive around women. He creeps up beside me and looks at the screen of my phone and what I am writing, which would be very annoying in solitary, but he also has horrendous body odour. As I am writing this he is sat on the table behind me and I'm pretty sure he is reading the screen. If you are, EVER HEARD OF DEODRANT? He follows me outside every time I go for a smoke and then just stands there. He does not drink but constantly wants to go to nightclubs. I have had some of the worst nights of my life being sober in a nightclub but he seems to love it. He says some pretty weird things, last night he turned to me and said “Simon, I am feeling strong, strong enough to lift three women”. Every time he sees me he shouts “Hi honey I am home”, what the fuck am I supposed to say to that after the twenty fifth time? Despite all of this there is something almost likeable about him. He is a trier if nothing else. Also he cannot speak much english. If he becomes capable of more detailed conversation then I will have to review the situation.

Unfortunately James and Tom (the two english guys in the jungle) leave on sunday. They are good lads and remind me a lot of myself at their age. I found it difficult to click with them when I first moved into the jungle – they made me feel kind of old. They basically spend eighteen hours a day thinking about and pursuing sex, a couple of hours having sex, and then whatever is left over to sleep (probably dreaming about sex). Being eleven years outside of my prime I have some different priorities. To begin with they did not really seem to get why I would want to read and write in my spare time. I am spending about six to eight hours a day writing, which I guess contributes greatly to the whole unsociable thing. Sorry for the continual drug talk family, but you can get a kind of weed here that literally puts me in the zone for writing. I am churning out all kinds of shit that will probably read like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas when I am done. I find myself cringing when I read some of it the next day, but there is some pretty good stuff too. So I am trading off fun and spending money for weed and productivity. After living with James and Tom for a few weeks we all now get each other, they are a cracking pair of lads and the place will not be the same without them.

Their exit will leave a void in the jungle and the creepy aspect from the first paragraph can be seamlessly resumed here. There has been this guy staying at the hostel for the last few days who creeps me out. Description wise – for anyone who is familiar with Richard 'Joner Engine Room' Jones - then picture Joner but at around five feet tall with a cropped eastern european haircut and an earring. Anyone unfamiliar with Joner then imagine a thinner version of 1991 FA Cup Paul Gascoigne with aids. I have no issue with gay people but I find it very difficult to deal with when they hit on me, which seems to be happening with regularity here (as I said, California is very liberal). I'm not really accustomed to dealing with this. The most civil way to handle it is to try and subtly indicate that I am not that way inclined. This can be straightforward if the opportunity arises to mention the word “girlfriend” in a sentence. It is not always that easy. I find myself self-conscious that I am throwing the word “girlfriend” into a conversation when it is glaringly out of context or premature at best. I don't want to appear to be some backward bumpkin who is scared that every bumder is going to try and bumd me. I suppose more accurately is that I do not want the girls that I am out with to think that I am not cool with gay people. I am cool with it, but at the same time I do not want to be hit on. Conundrum; I usually just end up spitting in their face and wedgying their hotpants. Anyway, I digress, although whilst on the subject of hotpants. The guy who creeps me out in the hostel looks like his entire suitcase will be full of striped vests, hotpants and dildo's, and the way he looks at me and sidles up wherever I am makes my stomach turn. Yesterday he asked me what it is like to work at the hostel, as he is thinking of trying it out. My heart sank, the prospect of him living in the jungle is not one that I would relish. This is not being homophobic – if a girl was behaving in this way who I was in no way attracted to then I would be saying the same. My tactics were the same as if it were a girl who I did not want to work and live with, I just told him how bad the job is (which was a lie, I genuinely love it). So I told him straight – I spend most of my day knuckle deep in shit and this morning I put my hand in some blokes jizz. He starts on Sunday.

Humiliation Constipation Titillation

oops

I'll start with a quick picture of the now closed fire escape that I set on fire. It is a post that is crucial to the structure and no longer secures the two cross beams - so it is too dangerous to use. Whoops.

 

Everything gets lost in the jungle. Clothes, dignity and souls. My paranoia led me to the conclusion that someone has been stealing from me. I was sure that twenty bucks had disappeared from my bed (aka my wallet, wardrobe, personal space and living quarters), then my sleeping mask went missing (my bed is so high that it is handily aligned with the fluorescent neon strip lighting on the roof) and then my entire washbag disappeared.

The first question that I asked myself was “who steals a washbag?” My second, third and forth questions revolved exclusively around the hunt for a new toothbrush. I started work at ten so I set my alarm for 9.45. It took me twelve minutes to realise that the washbag was nowhere to be seen, leaving me just three minutes to try and source replacement toiletries before my shift began. It tasted like someone had crept into my bed during the night and shat into my mouth, and the poo was now nestled comfortably in my windpipe. For the next four hours I had to make do with a six pack of chewing gum and my rage with jungle life crept higher as I was forced to acknowledge that my breath smelt worse than the toilet that I was cleaning.

After my shift I sort of took a shower and then walked two blocks to the pharmacy to spend $30 replacing the items in my washbag, in addition to an actual washbag itself. When I got back and gleefully washed the anus from my mouth I discovered my washbag was actually on the bathroom shelf. My rage for the motherfucker who had stolen my little burberry washbag had led me on a rampage around the local pharmacy and just when I felt like I was teetering on the brink of a breakdown I realised that I was merely just once again a victim of my short term memory.

This type of paranoia is probably largely due to weed cookies, but I always seem to err on the side of suspicion in preference to the obvious alternative that I am just a disorganised cunt. It also says something about the society that I live in that leads to a constant fear of people stealing my shit. I remember my first night in south east asia when I arrived in Singapore. I used three padlocks to secure every single zip on the bag, and then I used a 1.5m steel cable to lock the motherfucker to the bed – meaning that someone would have to steal an entire bunk bed to remove my bag (or merely cut the pretty flimsy fabric around the locks). A few days later in Thailand I had to put my rucksack on the roof of the van type things, and I was genuinely concerned that some craic team of thai trapeze thieves were going to swing down and nab it. Thankfully I no longer think like that, but my suspicions still remain prominent in my thought process. When I lose something, which is often, my initial thoughts are spent compiling a mental list of suspects before ruling them out or marking them down for further investigation. A few moments later I will usually realise that I can't even remember what it is that I was looking for in the first place. Then an hour or so later I will go and look for the same item and the process will begin over again. Needless to say no one is stealing from me here; I am just the victim of an environment that offers a ready supply of paranoia within a highly dysfunctional living space.

Work-wise it's a mixed bag. I favour the evening shift, but it feels kind of degrading cleaning the toilets whilst people all around me are getting ready to go out. The bathrooms are co-ed, so whilst i'm on my knees cleaning away skidders there are hot women milling around prepping themselves. I try to make a joke about the job but there is no hiding the fact that I am scrubbing a bog. But on the plus side there is a good chance to getting chatting to people, and by people I obviously mean birds. This has borne results in the shape of a hot aussie chick, but on the whole I am left feeling a new type of humiliation.

The second facet of co-ed toilet based humiliation is one that I am much more accustomed to. Call me old fashioned but I am somewhat uncomfortable with the prospect of having a dump in the knowledge that there is at least a small chance that a bird will be waiting to use the can after me. To begin with, as in normal life, I found myself going to a bar and buying a pint just so that I can drop the kids off at the pool. Five bucks a day and mild alcoholism is a small price to pay for peace of mind that I am not about to offend a seven or above. After spending a week of cleaning up after these animals I have almost entirely alleviated this hang up: a) if I'm going to clean up their filth then I can at least gain some revenge by making their lives a bit more uncomfortable for five minutes or so; and b) I have found a coping technique. The saving grace is that the hostel pumps music into the bathrooms - so the embarrassment of a big splashdown is mitigated. I have managed to get my poo cycle down to about twenty five seconds, so if I lift the toilet seat back up before exit then I create the illusion that I have only taken a leak. The smell of rotting animal carcass was so obviously left by the person before me.

It is actually quite funny working in the bathrooms. You can see the raw shame on the faces of the guilty as they leave the bog. This is sometimes followed by relief and pure elation if there is no one waiting to go in there after them, or an apologetic smile if their worst fears are confirmed and there is a queue. So overall there are mixed emotions on the shared bathrooms front. I have handled more bodily fluid than I am perhaps comfortable with, but on the other hand fit australian...

Anyway, sorry. In San Diego life is slow paced and enjoyable. We have a contact with a condo which has a tenth storey pool and jacuzzi overlooking the harbour, and I'm now familiar with how to use bathroom products and produce pancake batter. Happy days. The beaches are pretty nice and the weather is sweet (although yesterday was one of circa 5 days a year that it rains). There is an awesome park called Balboa Park, non Rocky related, but awesome all the same. It is modelled on the Central Park approach, and you can spend a day looking around museums, galleries and the zoo (obviously none of which I have done, I just go there to play the bumbling Hugh Grant role with the locals). It is right over the flightpath of San Diego airport where planes land impossibly close to the city. I lay right underneath the path and Wayne's World'ed it for a few hours and got some pretty cool photos.

USA USA USA

One thing that is bugging me, which was never an issue in SE Asia, is the clothes situation. The vast majority of guests in this hostel (and the USA in general) are what are known in the industry as wheel baggers. They are almost exclusively people arriving with suitcases on wheels as opposed to backpackers. Since the start of the recession the Americans are beginning to take notice of the whole hostel thing. This is an upmarket hostel that attracts wheel baggers and the more upmarket traveller (who is just spending two weeks – three months in the US). So whilst i'm walking around in a range of clothes suited for travel everyone else (guests, staff and locals) are walking around in their best clobber. Around fifty percent of my backpack was consumed by an unused and utterly redundant tent. The residual space consists of practical clothing suited for multiple seasons as opposed to nightclubs. Whilst hip clothing has never been a great priority, I am left feeling a bit of a pikey walking around in a pair of multi-functional trousers with removable legs. This also extends to the budget situation. I'm currently trying to live on about $10 a day all in. None of the other members of staff are backpackers and have far bigger budgets. The two english lads have budgets of about £10k for three months. I have less than half of that for nine months. I didn't have room in my rucksack for more than one pair of jeans, they have each brought their own hair straighteners.

Now that my farming dream has cruelly slipped through my grasp I can send the tent and sleeping bag home. With the cost of postage factored in both items proved to be another shrewd investment. I have contemplated hitch hiking cross country to get to Miami and camping along the way. The only thing stopping me doing this is a fear of getting kidnapped and bummed by some toothless hill-billy. I shall be passing through the deep south, well within 'Deliverance' territory (squeal piggy). Alternative to the rape option is bringing my flights forward into South America, or stay put and continue to trade off my dignity for a bed. I think I may well stick around. I like it here, I can keep it cheap, the people are interesting and there is a fair bit of minge. The only thing that I'm not sure if I can cope with is the sleeping situation. Not only am I about 4m in the air but if I manage to get in excess of five hours sleep then it is nothing short of a miracle. If you are starting late then you are awoken by those working morning. If you stay in at night then you are awoken by people coming in. My bed is adjoining one of the english lads, who is nailing the french girl who lives here. They are constantly at it and we are basically toe to toe seperated only by a shelf. It's fucking awkward and uncomfortable but I don't want to be a miserable cunt and complain - so i'm kind of stuck with it. Fun.

Plenty'O privacy

Most of the staff have a story to tell. The chief housekeeper is a 48 year old japanese guy who has been here for ten years. He was on the verge of becoming a professional baseball player in japan when he was younger, but traded it in to try and become a rockstar (as he thought it would get him more chicks). He has become more almighty than he could ever have imagined. Whilst housekeeping was perhaps not the dream, it turns out that he is actually a journalist with his own business in Japan. He runs it from here for six months of the year and from back home the rest. I have no idea what motivates a 49 year old japanese man to live and work in a hostel in San Diego for six months of the year, but I suspect it has something to do with the women – great bloke but he's a seedy fuck. Another guy here went and bought me my first ever medical marijuana. It came in a prescription bag with a medical tub of bud and also a little pre rolled blunt and blunt holder.

Californian medication

He was telling me that they have the choice from around forty different types of weed for what we in the UK would call 'skunk'. They can tell you all of the effects of the different types, and you can buy them in the form of cookies, beers and even lollipops. This place is just so liberal it's untrue. I spend much of my time after work sat up on the roof of the hostel, which is massive and sits in the sun all day long. There is a mattress up there which is usually surrounded by used condoms. Two girls made a complaint against the male staff the other day, submitting allegations that they were ostracised after one of them had been taken up to the mattress but had not put out. Counter claims of 'frigid bitch' were made in defence and the case was closed.

The mattress

In summary pooing, budget and wardrobe issues have revealed a couple of minor chinks in an otherwise solid piece of Californian armour.

Stay Classy San Diego

I arrived in San Diego about a week ago, and it has been a pretty eventful time. I surfed with dolphins (not to be mistaken with surfing on dolphins – which is my new dream), I saw a tramp with a pigeon on his head and I landed myself a job. All of this actually happened on one day – it was a good one, partly due to the above but mainly because united got dicked 6 1 at home.

A hobo / flying rat hybrid

The job represents another important step forward in my career plan. As a male housekeeper I have quickly had to learn how to make a bed and hoover. Once I have some sway with the gaffer I am going to formally request a gas mask – the smell in the six bed male dorms is truly something to behold. It is a pretty sweet gig. Most days I start at 10am and finish by 2pm and I get to meet everyone staying at the hostel – although I'm not sure that they will like me that much given the circumstances (hoovering whilst they try to sleep). The hostel is mint – it is in fact rated number one in America. I have been informed that I am an ambassador for the hostel and the brand. I always knew that one day I would be an ambassador, I just didn't expect to achieve this through housekeeping. I think I will excel. My propensity for cleanliness and hygiene is complimented by a natural flair for changing bed linen. When combined with a disciplined work ethic and self control I envisage that my career will continue to go from strength to strength.

Looking forward to falling down these

For my efforts I get free accommodation and breakfast. Effectively for my daily four hour shift I am raking in a cool $6.25 an hour (pro rata). Whilst I am obviously accustomed to the blood, sweat and tears of dormitory life it is taking some getting used to cleaning it up. Even more problematic is trying to remember the names of my team mates. There are about ten of us in total – a jap, two brazilians, a frenchy, a couple of aussies and a few english lads. Yesterday I moved into the staff quarters known as 'the jungle'. It has earned this nickname as it resembles a wooden jungle gym. It is a room about 3m x 3m and sleeps seven people in triple fucking decker format amongst a mass of ladders and mezzanines. There is very limited storage space, no lockers and if I fall out of my top bunk then I am a dead man.

Welcome to the jungle

My Spanish amigo Alfonso, who I met in my hostel in LA has now returned to the city of angels, which is a shame. He spoke very limited english and I speak very limited spanish, so communication was not exactly smooth. Even though communication was difficult I could tell that he was a top top boy. We initially bonded over a mutual hatred of the yellow vested aussie. The bond was sealed through a mutual hatred of the worst aussie yet – some hick from rural victoria who kept banging on about “Tommy fucking Johnson”. I assumed that this was an obscure reference to the little known australian striker from the early 1990's. Alfonso said to me in really broken english that the aussie “looks like the chucky from childs play movie”, which he totally did. When Alfonso arrived in the USA a few weeks before me he could not speak english, but after spending around ten days in my company he has improved significantly. He was quite terrified of leaving the hostel as he could not speak the language, but I managed to persuade him to come to San Diego with me. He stuck to me like glue, but I hope that fact that everything turned out okay on his return journey will give him the confidence to get out a bit more.

My boy Alfonso

Last night it was the main Halloween celebrations in San Diego. Christ they make such a fuss about it over here. People have been going out in costumes since thursday evening. Last night they closed off two streets for a block party. As the new boy I have been utterly shafted and I have had to work three evening shifts in a row (friday, saturday and sunday). The evening shift (8pm – 11.30pm) includes cleaning the toilets, showers and kitchen. So instead of getting involved in the celebrations I have been cleaning skid marks off toilet bowls. As a hostel worker I have to wear fancy dress for shifts. Obviously I didn't want to spend much cash on this and without the inspiration from bobby fancydress breese it was unlikely that I could ever win best in show; so I cobbled together something from the charity shop and for the last couple of nights I have been scrubbing the floor and cleaning the bogs dressed like tom hanks in castaway. This being california there is a very laid back management system. Last night I was encouraged by the manager to drink during my shift so that I would be pissed when I went. By 10pm I had drunk half a bottle of rum with an hour of work still to complete. The responsibilities include making the pancake batter for breakfast – needless to say their were a lot of disappointed customers making their pancakes this morning with a sort of white water type goo. When I went out the streets were packed and people had gone all out to impress, and impress they did.

My new work attire - depicting perfectly my career progression

I have really been enjoying life in San Diego. The hostel is located bang in the centre of downtown where the streets and bars are always teeming with minge. The weather is really good and the city has a great vibe. The rules of employment are pretty liberal. Basically as long as your are not too hungover or stoned to work then anything goes. Staff are allowed to use the roof to smoke joints and one of the guys has made some ridiculously strong cookies. He gave me one to eat a few nights ago and it tore me a new asshole. I had played interhostel football earlier in the day and was recovering from a hangover. I ate the cookie at around 8pm, and by 9.30pm I was pretty much handicapped. The staff also have a private smoking balcony, aka a wooden fire escape. I managed to summon the strength to go for a burn and then got quickly back into bed. Around twenty minutes later I heard a load of commotion, so I peered around the door and there were people making haste towards the fire escape with bowls of water. It turns out that I had stubbed my burn out on a rotting wooden post and because it never rains it had caught on fire, which was a tidy situation for someone who could barely walk after 3 days of employment. I closed the dorm door and slept like a baby.

Beach day with the staff

There are four lads and two girls in my room. I find myself stuck between two social groups. The two english lads are pretty dominant personalities and form the cool kids clique. They go out a lot and are fairly good craic, but I am struggling to really click with them. They are best mates from back home, it is always easier with a wing man in tow. On the other side are the stoner misfits – many of whom have a cool story to tell but are sometimes not the most sociable. I find myself hovering between the two groups. Aside from blurred social hierarchy's and the occasional fire life in San Diego is good, and as I lay in my bed at 5am this morning listening to the soothing grooves of one of the english lads knocking the back door out of some bird from Burnley, I thought to myself that I could get used to this – so I'm going to stick around for a little bit.

And pop

You trippin on me fool

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Joints and Bulldogs

I have been in San Francisco for a few days now, man this place is expensive. It is an amazing place though. My first full day here was an interesting one. I had woken up at 4am due to the jet lag, so I wasn't really too sure what to do with myself. In the end I plumped for the Forrest Gump approach - I just kept walking. I decided that I wanted to try and see if I could remember the ill fated day trip from my university days, so I headed down to Fisherman's Wharf where all of the sea lions hang out all day. It brought back very, very vague memories, but what really astounded me was how much had happened in my life in the ten or so years since I had last been here. I highly doubt that there is a decade in your life where you go through more change than between the ages of twenty and thirty. I certainly would not have believed that so much would happen during this time. At that age I assumed that I would be married with kids at this stage of my life - instead i'm trawling the planet in search of somewhere that I can purchase the aforementioned at a reasonable cost.

So, onwards I went. I could see the Golden Gate Bridge in the background so I headed in that direction. I found quite a long pier that had really good views of the bridge and Alcatraz so I followed that. This is where it all started getting a bit messy. I rolled a burn and these two black fella's approached me. Obviously I assumed that they were going to mug me, but it turns out that they were just interested in what I was smoking (people don't roll their own cigarettes here). After chatting with them for a few minutes one of them pulled out a joint, sparked it up and passed it to me. They were two 20 year old lads who go down to this pier every day to fish, crab and get stoned. To begin with I didn't really get anything off the joint so I kept chugging away. It was a real lung tickler, and upon enquiry as to what tobacco was in there I was informed that it was a blunt (for those unaware of what this means - it's pure weed). Ten minutes after smoking things started to get a bit weird. The one guy started talking about the size of the crabs that they caught, which he claimed were the size of a human head. The more he talked about it the more he began to resemble a crab. It was kind of weirding me out and I was feeling a little uneasy. I looked across the bay and realised that I had walked about 6 or 7 miles, and I was fast losing control of my legs. I decided at that moment that I needed to remove myself from the situation, so I told them that I wanted to go and get some breakfast (it was still only 9.30am at this point). To my utter disgust the one named Olly, aka crab face, stated that he was going to join me. Anyone who is familiar with the feeling when you have smoked a little bit too much will probably appreciate this feeling. All you want to do is be somewhere you know on your own. Instead I was 6 miles from my hostel stood toe to toe with some crab face in a city and country completely unfamiliar to myself. As we began to walk I just knew that I was not anywhere near capable of holding a conversation with this guy, so as we walked back around the bay I told him that I needed to make a phonecall, and we went our seperate ways.

For the next two hours I lay on my back on a sort of man made beach trying to pull myself together. The scenery was incredible, but quite frankly that was the last thing on my mind. All I could think about was how exactly I was going to get myself home. I lay and watched people walk by and one thing that struck me was the number of individuals who were basically me. Travellers, tourists, lonely souls wandering aimlessly not really knowing what it is that they were looking for, all fighting the will to consult the map that is nestled in their pocket. Some seemed completely happy and content whilst others appeared lost and mildly concerned. After that joint i think I fell into a new third category: fucking terrified. Thankfully the feeling began to pass, and after a few hours of terror I began to find my feet again. I spent the next few hours walking around the city amusing myself by taking photo's of funny signs. As I look these over again I realise that they are probably not quite as funny as I originally thought, but here is a little selection.

Ho Yays Ho Yays, Powell Place Powell Place

Bong, James Bong

Each step that brought me back closer to the hostel made me feel marginally better, until it got to the point that I had completely forgotten the fear and I decided to have a few beers. Te waitresses here are unbelievably flirty, which literally makes them about twenty times fitter. When I compared this to the bar staff you get in England i came to the conclusion that the difference between a flirtatious fitty and a sour faced wench is almost certainly a tipping system. Sitting in a bar with Americans is a very different experience to the UK. There is invariably a bunch of people on their own sat at the bar. In the UK these people would probably do everything in their power to avoid conversation with each other, but over here they all just begin talking with each other and the bar staff. My conclusion about this is relates to the fact that the bar in a UK pub is a complete fucking free for all. The only thing that people are interested in is getting served and not letting anyone who has joined the queue after them get served first. In America the bar staff take your order and bring your drink to you. The bar is completely clear pretty much. You can run up a tab and they will just remember what you have ordered. Most places have table service so you don't even need to go to the bar. Why the fuck do we not operate this system? It completely removes the hassle of going to the bar, and allows the lone drinkers to congregate in an area where they can socialise with each other. The bar staff are earning their tips and the whole experience is improved for everyone.

By 2pm I had gone from feeling anxious to feeling good, and just as I was beginning to peak I only went and saw four bulldogs within a period of thirty minutes. So I was still feeling pretty blasted, but the bulldogs had put me at ease again. So brave.

This whole city stinks of weed. Everywhere I go someone is offering it around. This morning I opened the curtain and there was a lad sat on our fire escape smoking. I joined him for a couple of quick tokes before heading out to a two big hills with the best views over the city, called twin peaks. To get there I had to go through the gay district, which was denoted by huge rainbow flags adorning the sidewalks. Needless to say once again I found myself getting caught up in the amusing signage:

When I got to the top of the twin peaks it really dawned upon me how big this city is. It is an incredible place and it is also incredibly expensive, which leads me onto yesterday, which was an utter ball ache from start to finish. I went to the reception of my hostel and asked to extend my stay by a few days. Unbeknown to me was that it is the SF half marathon this weekend, and literally every fucking place in the city is booked out. They told me that there was one bed left but it was $80 (2.5 x normal price). I said no way hosay, and spent the rest of the day trying to work out what the hell I was going to do. I looked into renting a car but even that came in at $150 for 2 days. The next option was trying to find somewhere to set up my tent, but this was also a very unattractive option. In the end I just got pissed and stoned and when I got up this morning in a haze the woman at reception told me that someone had cancelled and therefore I could stay. The important lesson here is that things always pan out if you just drink a beer and have a smoke.