Day 18. Rugby, Beers and Shrimp

I woke up today and decided something. This isn’t a holiday and I am certainly not allowed to call it that. But it is a break and I should take more advantage of doing things without thinking I need to work every day. I wasn’t going to work today and maybe not tomorrow. I agreed with myself this wasn’t a ‘throwing in the towel moment’ but it was a ‘chill out Mark, go for a few midday beers, have fun’ moment. It was an epiphany. We were going to watch a rugby game Tris found through BritsinLA. This is going down as ‘see a sporting event’. Maybe in my mind I’d imagined something American but I’d looked into prices and it’s actually something the UK is cheaper for.

The journey there was interesting enough. We passed a motorbike on fire! I took the obligatory tourist photos. But I’d checked before I’d snapped that no one was on fire. There was a guy sitting next to the bike clearly thinking ‘my mum is going to kill me’. Then I saw a bumper sticker that intrigued me. Here it is....

 

Are the disabled? Do they have a fetish for disabled people? What is this advertising?

So this is it, burley animals of men chewing ears off each other and breaking bones! It was a kid’s match! How did we know? On reflection I supposed with it being in a school we should have read between the lines. It was fun, and it was hot. We met up with two people holidaying here that Tris knows and quite frankly he was a hero. Mickey and Jowell, I don’t know how well this will come across on paper but a joke that tickled me for a few hours went like this. There was one child on the rugby pitch that particularly stood out. A Samoan/Mexican looking kid that was very large, I believe he was defence. Not in defence he was the defence. Whilst everyone looked about 13 this one looked 20, I think he lit up a cigarette half way through. But the main point was his size, he was large. Mickey said ‘he hasn’t done much since Hook’ I questioned it and he reminded me of the character in Hook- the fat kid (Thud Butt was his name IMDB) who rolled into a ball and took out Pirates. I couldn’t breath. Briiilliant.  

We went back to the place Tris and I were at yesterday in Venice and had lunch. After that we checked out the beech- I took my top off for the first time this break. Classics came out of everyone’s mouths ‘oh Mark have you already put sun cream on? Oh Mark I didn’t know you were an albino’. It was all very clever and mature. I had to give it to them.

We enjoyed the sun go down and relished in what makes the Californian beach what it is; girls in thong bikinis. I hadn’t noticed. Two of our group went into the water, and you’d think the water would be warm, well it isn’t. Think of the Thames around November time, it is surprisingly cold. I assume that’s why Pamela Anderson and The Hoff ran into the water so quick in Baywatch. The quicker in, the quicker out. And in an unfashionable way Micky and his wife were called out of the sea by a life guar. He never even touched the edges. But he called them out and said ‘a rip tide was coming in’. I assume he meant sharks and agreed with myself about how dangerous the sea is.

We went to Bubba Gumps for dinner. Now, this was either created based on the film Forrest Gump or Forrest Gump incorporated it into the film. A question our waiter’s couldn’t answer. But I can tell you there was a lot of shrimp (prawns) on the menu. And I don’t know what nuclear chemicals had been missed with to make the, so unnaturally large and tasty. But they were good. 

A few beers and laughs later we called it a night.

Lesson learnt: Read the fine print and fill in the blanks. If you’ve been invited to something for free it might not be what is advertised.