with a (fortunately) shared starter of calamari that turned out to be big enough
to pass for a main plate for a large man or a small family, and was so fresh
that if we had found the place quicker than we did the sign saying 'gone
fishing' would have still been on the door. The only dampener on the evening
was the noise levels from fellow patrons who were again seated too close for
comfort – I swear in England it would be called lap dancing - and who had the
loud voices and opinionated conversations of drunken people out at a
business dinner. A small price to pay for good food.
We set off quite early the next morning, but before we got on the road we
went Christmas shopping for each other. We had set a fairly tight budget for
the holiday and also wanted to buy each other useful and/or disposable gifts,
to avoid filling up the van - and then our suitcases - with junk. So we went into
K-mart. K-mart sells everything, from clothes to kitchen and home goods, from
videos to food. It is a bit like ASDA, but not as nice and often too crowded to
dare enter, and without customers patting their back pockets all the time. The
fruits of this shopping trip turned out to be a t-shirt bought by Emma and a bat
and ball game where the ball is fluffy and the bats have Velcro hooks bought
by me...not really understanding the term 'useful'. Still it did turn out to be
disposable, when one of the bats broke the first time that we used it.
From Monterey we drove down the coast to Carmel by the Sea. This town,
where Clint Eastwood was once mayor, is lovely and very picturesque - an
impression enhanced by the blue sky and warm weather when we visited. In
order to keep itself 'cute' the town has banned mailboxes – a fine solution to