We are suffering from some pretty major jet lag here, so here's a (hopefully coherent) part I.

On Sunday February 27, Angus, Melissa and Jeff and I loaded up the bags and made the dash to Heathrow. It was a grey and dismal day in London with snow flurries making their way to the ground in loose shifts, taking turns settling on the windshield in suicidal waves.

The flight to LAX was uneventful-as usual I was the only one that didn't sleep as I simply can't sleep on airplanes. Luckily, Virgin Airlines have video on demand and a whole library of films, so I was continuously amused the entire ride. An amused Helen is a quiet Helen. But it was a long flight, made longer by the fact that we were in the very last two rows of the plane, and when we got to Los Angeles we were bone tired. The sun was setting (luckily we arrived just as the rains ended) although it wasn't as warm as we hoped it would be.

We collected our bags and our rental car (a strange Kia 4 Wheel Drive number. It was both cool (high up on the road) and not cool (a Kia). Quite a dichotomy, really.) and decided to drive as far as we could stay awake. We decided to head south and got on the roads to San Diego. As we left the airport I saw a huge towering American flag reflected in the glass pillars that mark the exit of LAX, and I wondered...does this mean I am home?

Or does it mean I just left it?

Angus drove for a while, until we determined we needed to stop for some caffeine and I had to stop for air-it seems car sickness is now no longer relegated to European roads, I have taken it global now. The Chevron's bushes saw me chucking my guts up, and when we started driving again I got behind the driver's seat and threw the speed limits to the wind. I had forgotten how hilly and nice the Californian countryside is-while I don't think California is a place that I would necessarily want to live in, I do think it's nice to visit. When we got as far as we thought we could make it without finding ourselves asleep behind the wheel, we stopped and found a hotel.

We had made it to Pacific Beach, just north of San Diego.

In the darkness of the evening we checked in, showered, and decided we had to try to stay awake a while longer. We walked around the streets of Pacific Beach. We hopped in to Taco Bell for a quick meal-their first visit to the Bell of the Taco and the impression was generally positive. When we got back to the hotel we crashed and were out within minutes of settling into the beds.

The next day dawned sunny but chilly. We walked around the beach and dipped our toes into the freezing water. To be honest, things weren't always easy-that saying "Two's company, three's a crowd" isn't always true. The real saying is "Three's company, four's a crowd, especially if you aren't really part of the family". I was not deliberately excluded, and I absolutely wasn't going to complain and I completely understood, but it did feel a bit lonely sometimes. It was our first holiday together, after all. Adjustments were needed all around.

We walked along part of a pier whose entrance was decked with a windchime shop, and I wanted to just stop there and make every bell ring, every ceramic sun sing. The sunlight was so welcoming, and the relief I felt at just being able to open my mouth and talk and not feel stupid for my flat vowels and for calling it a "gas station" was amazing.

But it wasn't home. And yet it was. And it wasn't.

We went shopping the rest of the day, visiting Old Navy, Sephora (Demeter's two fragrances "Rain" and "Laundromat" came home with me. No sign of "Paperback", but in the meantime I perversely love smelling like freshly laundered clothes), Skechers, a drugstore, and a few others. We went all out-after all, the pound is nearly 2:1 to the American dollar, so it was a sea of 50% off for us. My Visa card is still cooling off in the fridge.

That night we sat outside our hotel room and watched the sunset. People went jogging by on a beach path outside our room, and I noticed with a start-every last one of them was thin and athletic. They all looked like the UT Alumni I used to suffer from-chicks with bouncy scrunchied ponytails that wore baseball caps and had French manicures, the ones who drank Corona with a slice of lime and got on my very last nerve in college. The men all looked like the junior BMW model drivers, the ones who had golf shirts from Jamaica and had a beer opened on their keychain and secret tattoos on their butts.

I realized that, although I was currently only sampling the "I have a demon, watch me run" set, in general I hadn't yet seen an overweight person in San Diego. Is it not allowed or something? Do they check your weight when you drive up in a moving van, and if you tip the scales above a size 8 do you get allocated a seperate living area, one where the Double Stuffs come in the full-fat variety and where all of the dessert cakes get dumped off?

And my fellow Americans-what's up with all of this "low-carb no-carb" business I saw everywhere? What do people have against the spud? Did it do something bad while I was away? Has the potato gone all underground and evil since I moved countries, has it been silently killing people with a potassium-based cancer that tastes fantastic with a dab of ketchup? Is Atkins the only way to defeat this nemesis?

The nights were hard-jet-lag had us in its grip and the mornings dawned at about 4 am. It was strange sharing a room with all of us-one double bed of Angus and I and one double bed of Melissa and Jeff, but I thought it extremely cute that they both sleep like the dead and that Melissa talks all night, alternating between Swedish and English. The evenings were pleasant enough but I was ravaged by Kafka dreams of the Rooster and of my boss every night, dreams of humiliation and stress in a public arena. I would wake up filled with stress and dread about my work, and throughout the entire vacation I didn't once feel remotely good about work.

Something's gotta' change before my job kills me.

The next day was also sunny but cold, and we decided to hop the trolley to Tijuana-even though I spent nearly 8 years in Texas I had never once been over the border, so it was bordertown for us. We were shocked to find that Mexico is achieved simply by walking across what felt like a parking garage, and once we walked out of it we were in Mexico. As we swung out of said garage a very tall and skinny white guy looked at us with zoned out pupils.

"Go to the right." he said, looking spookily into my eyes. "It's a revolution to the right, man. A revolution." He strolled on back to the US of A, and the kids looked at me. I grinned.

"What say we go left?" I asked them, and they grinned back.

Tijuana was about what I expected-lots of people selling things and lots of police sirens screaming around the place. The endless calls to peruse shops or be photographed with hennaed donkeys got on our nerves quickly, so we found a tiny restaurant to have a Mexican meal in (and it was fucking fantastic!), bought a blanket and a tablecloth, and headed back. We debated buying some Cialis to use back home (fun for the grown-ups) but decided we likely wouldn't know what we were getting. I stopped at a tiny stall and bought a Kokopelli, a vision I hadn't seen since my grubby archaeology digs in university, and doesn't every house need a Kokopelli?

We crossed back over into the US, and spent the evening enjoying the TV. This show you have over there, Amazing Race? Oh yeah. I loved it. I would so be into that were I living over there (even though I don't even know who Rob and Amber are and yet we all wound up hating them too, and please-if you do watch it, can someone keep me informed about the really cool gay guys that we want to win?).

We laughed and talked and got ready for the flight the next day, the Hawaiian Airlines flight to Hawaii and to the main part of the holiday. My father would not be there-he had a change in priorities and a change in schedule, so I would not be seeing him. There was a lot coming, and so far I found that I had so many chiffon layers of quiet inside of me that I wasn't sure what would come out of the wrapping in the tropical sun.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 12:37 PM | Comments (20) | Add Comment
Post contains 1568 words, total size 9 kb.

1 Helen, glad to see that on the whole this was a good trip fairy abs x

Posted by: fairyabs at March 12, 2005 02:00 PM (0D20l)

2 Ah, yes. The beautiful people. From experience I can tell you that there are just as many chubbers on the coast as anywhere else. They just don't go down to the beach to show off like the pretty folk do. Tijuana...got some serious memories from there. It's a bit different when it's a bunch of Navy boys heading down instead of a family. ;-)

Posted by: Jim at March 12, 2005 03:10 PM (MDLz3)

3 Hi, Helen, love the new vacation picture of you at the top of the page. And good choice about the kokkopelli, I seem to recall it is a fertility symbol.

Posted by: RP at March 12, 2005 04:43 PM (LlPKh)

4 Hey nice to meet another amercan in London. there are a lot of us here! My hubby and I have been planning a trip He wants to go to Cali so bad, he's never been. I will keep reading..

Posted by: mrsmogul at March 12, 2005 06:36 PM (HGHvj)

5 Ah, yes. The potato is the Root of all Evil. I'm sure it will catch up to you soon enough. Welcome back, sweetie.

Posted by: Jennifer at March 12, 2005 07:07 PM (MbhV6)

6 Welcome back

Posted by: Dee at March 12, 2005 08:48 PM (MPE5T)

7 oh yes, the low carb thing has gone COMPLETELY insane. i knew the whole country had finally gone loopy when I saw a bag of fried pork rinds advertised as 'diet food.' i shit you not. i blame Bush. -h

Posted by: h at March 12, 2005 09:07 PM (tNhb/)

8 During my three year stay in SoCal, I can count on one hand the number of local overweight people that I saw. Even at an Angels game, people were skinny, tan and gorgeous. The entire place is like Central Casting. It's crazy

Posted by: Jenn at March 12, 2005 09:30 PM (yOqU7)

9 Welcome to America!! There are very few fatties in So Cali. The ones that are there have bells around their neck (by law) so the hard-bodies can hear them coming and run away. Enjoy Hawaii and tell us all about it. Thanks for taking a little vacation time to write us. Great picture of that cutie on the pier...oh wait...that's you..ha.

Posted by: P Mann at March 12, 2005 10:55 PM (f+6vj)

10 Did you manage to find lip venom at Sephora?? AND I almost had KW talked into meeting you out there, but it looks like we'll just see you in NOLA.

Posted by: emily at March 13, 2005 02:29 AM (plXME)

11 dude. i cannot tell you how close you were to me when you stayed in pb. dude! kinda wish i'd gone to the beach. would've been freaky to bump into you. hee! (nah, i'm sure you needed your space - would that freak you out if someone recognized you & yelled out "HELEN"? it kinda does me, sometimes. only they don't call me helen. heh.) hope you found a way to relax in hawaii. and, welcome back.

Posted by: becky at March 13, 2005 03:10 AM (gcNoN)

12 oh, and if you wanted to see the "other" people, you just have to head inland. to an all-you-can-eat buffet. not saying that all hefty people eat there, or that all the people that eat there are hefty. just saying you can usually find a disproportionate number, that's all. when i weighed a lot more, i avoided the beach. but i may just be there this summer. you know, to read.

Posted by: becky at March 13, 2005 03:13 AM (gcNoN)

13 Sounds like a decent vacation so far. I'm not watching "The Amazing Race" this season--it started BT (Before Tivo) so I'm not current this year, but I've always thought it was the best of the "Reality" shows. Nothing arbitrary there. You win, or you don't. Period.

Posted by: Easy at March 13, 2005 02:43 PM (fB61h)

14 The carb thing is amusing, you take a complicated chemical/physiological process, simplify it to the point that anyone can understand it, and suddenly sitting down to a pasta dinner gets the same reaction as sitting down to 4 lbs of chocolate cake. As far as shopping goes, we don't have cheap stuff here, you are just used to paying twice as much as you should for stuff =P Glad you didn't hate it here, and can't wait for part II

Posted by: Dane at March 13, 2005 04:12 PM (ncyv4)

15 I'm torn between Rob and Amber and the gay guys to win. I think the gay guys are hysterical and cute and if it wasn't for Rob and Amber we'd be rooting for them exclusively but Rob and Amber I know from watching Survivor All-Stars. They fell in love during that show, although everyone was taking bets on whether they were fooling each other or not. They weren't, it was real and they are now engaged to marry. He proposed to her on the final show. I respect Rob because people tend to think he's stupid when he's not; he's actually very clever. The other people in the race fear and dislike them because they are aware that Rob is not out to make friends; Rob is out to WIN. He's extremely competitve and won't hesitate to pull tricks in order to get there first. This is how he played the game in Survivor and this is how he's playing it in the Amazing Race. Except for Amber, he will give allegiance to no one. I gotta say, that is the way to go if you want to win these kinds of games. Also, I've always fancied that they have somewhat of a D/s type relationship in that Amber definitely looks to Rob for protection and leadership, even going back to Survivor, and they are both comfortable with that in their relationship. Which is a nice change of pace from some other Amazing Race couples who often fight over control the entire time. As for carbs, yeah, it's pretty stupid. It's calories in, calories out. Period. People lose weight by cutting out carbs because they've cut *calories* out of their diets by doing so. Having all the meat you want and no potatoes sounds great until you face your seventh day of all the bacon you want and suddenly, bacon ain't lookin' so good any more. So you eat less. I know because we went on Atkins back when the book first came out. Then South Beach. Yeah, we did the carb thing. You lose weight because you get sick of the same foods all the time so you naturally cut back the calories. However, people will argue endlessly about this so I've given up trying to stick up for the poor little potato which never did anyone any harm.

Posted by: Amber at March 13, 2005 04:35 PM (zQE5D)

16 Thanks for checking! I think I'm going to have to eBay or something. Ick. But they do let fat girls live in San Diego. I lived there for 7odd years. And at the end of that pier (the not-watery end) is one of the best goddamned breakfast places EVER (if it's still there).

Posted by: Ms. Pants at March 13, 2005 11:50 PM (EqhBq)

17 Welcome home, stranger.

Posted by: Simon at March 14, 2005 05:58 AM (OyeEA)

18 I have wondered, occasionally, if I did run into someone that read my site, would they recognize me? Do I look like me? Or would I get the usual statement: "Hmm. I pictured you as being much taller..." And I swear I wasn't having a go at weight on my blog. It was more like: It's abnormal to only see people of the size 4 variety. Abnormal, Stepford, and frankly, makes me want to eat double my weight in burritos.

Posted by: Helen at March 14, 2005 07:43 AM (Vd6WF)

19 i can't speak for anyone else, but i don't think you were having a go at them. it IS freaky how many thin, THIN people are at that beach. like almost unhealthily thin - like you'd expect to see that versace chick hanging out there (that girl needs some serious help. so sad). of course, those thin girls are really petite, too, so i feel like a freakin' amazon & i'm only 5'9". i get tired of seeing the cookie-cutter blondes & brunettes. i like variety. curves. personality. i think we're of the same mind on this one (but i suck at expressing it right now - still freaking out about my damn notebook that i can't find).

Posted by: becky at March 14, 2005 04:21 PM (/VG77)

20 I grew up in SD and I can stand to lose a few lbs. Hee! I can personally attest that not everyone is super thin. I love the Beach in SD not to swim, but people watch. A great beach to people watch is Ocean Beach.

Posted by: Tif at March 14, 2005 04:26 PM (jCFyL)

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