Picture this: a blue house on the corner of two roads - on the other corner: the vast expanse of the Pacific ocean, its deep blue surface rippled by waves dotted with surfers. In the spare bedroom on the ground floor of that blue house, that is where I've been couchsurfing the past week. It was paradise. Everyday the sun came out around noon - it first has to burn away the mist - and then it was lovely, about 20 degrees, with the wind preventing the sun getting too hot. They talk about May gray and June gloom here, but what a climate...

I've been dividing my time between exploring the cliffs along the coast, riding a rainbow coloured bicycle around Coronado Island, going to the ‘best zoo in the world' and to the huge Balboa Park next door, with the cutest Spanish art village. I've also joined a ‘cookout' (aka BBQ) with my host playing Mumford & Sons on his guitar, sat on the back of a motor cycle for the first time in my life, ate some delicious fish tacos, went to acupuncture (they have this community acupuncture which makes it really cheap - only about 15 euro for 45 minutes) and cooked some dinners for my hosts. I especially loved the cliffs along that part of the coast, the Sunset Cliffs - I find these rock formations so incredibly beautiful, the waves crashing fiercely on them in regular fashion - I can watch this coming and going for hours (which I did, watching the sun slowly drop into the water). Bliss...

The area where I stayed is called Ocean Beach - very chill, a bit of a hippie community really, I was even asked if I had weed when sitting on a cliff watching the sunset :-). I was hosted by Chris and Tara, who were amazing - it was no problem for me to stay for even a whole week! They are a married couple of about 25 years old and both in the navy, so I learned a lot about that kind of life - which is the interesting thing about couchsurfing I think, you encounter so many interesting people with so many different stories. Like Dan and Misty, two Canadian fellow couchsurfers who also crashed at Chris & Tara's place for three nights, telling me about life on Baffin Island (seriously cold up there), getting tattoos in Mexico (which Misty did), and enticing me to go sky diving... I had such a great time in OB (as they call it) - and I haven't even seen San Diego downtown nor the Old Town, nor crossed the border to Mexico which is only a few miles away. So I'll have to come back :-).