San Diego

On Friday night, we drove over to San Diego for part of the weekend. We underestimated the traffic a little, but eventually (after some confusion about toll roads), we got to the Air B&B we were staying at. People rent out their spare rooms and it is a lot cheaper than staying in a hotel. We stayed with Peter, who suggested a great Mexican place to eat at in nearby Little Italy. (I have no idea why it was called Little Italy as I never saw anything Italian. ) 

Enjoying Margaritas

Strawberry margarita

The bathroom of the restaurant was cool. I know it's weird taking a photos of a bathroom ceiling but it had loads of little birds on it.

Bird ceiling

 After food, we headed to meet Peter and some of his friends at a great brewery tasting room and then on to a bar. There aren't many open late in this area so it was pretty busy. We ended up playing doubles pool with a group of guys. (We were getting better and even came close to maybe winning at one point.) And it was fine until a group of suits turned up. They just wouldn't get out of the way and were really annoying, at one point jumping the line to play pool. But  other than them, it was a great night out.

Waterfront bar, playing pool

 We got up a bit later than planned Saturday morning (thanks to a few drinks and late night) and spent some time playing with Peter's cat before heading out for breakfast.

Pretty eyes.

 We got the trolley into town instead of attempting to find parking. It was the Gay Pride parade and a lot of the roads were closed or would be later for the parade. (If we had known about it before it would have been fun but we had things booked.)

San Diego downtown

 We had breakfast at a San Diego only chain, the Broken Yolk. It was very nice and they even had a man v's food challenge (which we didn't even think about trying!).

a LOT of food.

We walked through town and over to the marina to go to the USS Midway. They have a statue of the front of the picture taken as WWII ended. I think they called it unconditional surrender but that could be wrong.

40's glam (and me!)

The USS Midway was commissioned 2 weeks after the end of WWII but has been in every major combat between then and dessert storm except the Korean war.

USS Midway

We got discount ticket online so took the tour. You got a headset and audio tour. We managed to do some of it but hadn't left enough time to get through it all. You could easily spend all day there.

Anchor chains

Checking out the sailors bunk (minus the sailor!)

I would get completely lost. Never ending corridors. 

The Midway is an aircraft carrier. Each squad has their own ready room, which they decorate themselves and their own insignia.

Ready room

My favorite insignia

We then went up onto the carrier deck to see the planes which were really cool.

Folding plane

Shocked plane

 My favorite one was a helicopter you could have a look around inside. It was used to rescue people for the ocean. Even better, it was the helicopter, flown by Chuck Smiley, used to collect the astronauts from Apollos 8, 10, 11, 12 and 13 after their trips to the moon! And occasionally as Marine One!

Looking out.

Just grinning

 The views across San Diego were really cool. (And the sun came out a little as well, after raining earlier - I am singlehandedly ending California's drought!)

View over San Diego

Back in the hangar we were super lucky and privileged to meet a WWII veteran, who landed on Omaha beach. He was a really sweet guy. As soon as he heard I was English, he launched into a story about after the landing, he was wounded 3 times, so was sent to London to a hospital with some buddies. (Their things would follow later.) There was a pub over the road and they were 18. So of course they went over the road and decided to drink all the beer in London (as he put it).

The next morning they were carried back to the hospital, with extreme hangovers. And he had a tattoo on his arm. He was no memory whatsoever of getting it. And he was been back since. And there is no tattoo parlor anywhere near the hospital. And as they hadn't got their things, they had no money. So he has no clue where he got his free tattoo!

Showing off his tattoo!

After the tour, we had booked a harbor cruise on the advice of some friends. I was a little concerned when we were shown down the dock and asked to wait in front of a questionable "boat".

Our cruise boat?

Then a few more came in. Including this one which a brave/crazy sailor seemed to be trying to pull in.

Heave!

But ours pulled in and we got good seats at the front (and coffee!). The narrator was an ex-Marine so he knew a lot about all the boats. I never realized San Diego was such a military town.
The views over the city were nice. It was a shame the weather wasn't better - we ended up going inside after a while. It was just too cold.

San Diego

Some interesting shaped buildings

Rachel sporting her new patriotic sunglasses.

One thing we wanted to see were the seals.

Sunbathing on the buoy 

Nap time

The last thing we wanted to do was go to Ja Jolla and see the sea lions. However we completely managed to miss the beach they should be on - maybe next time - but found another beach anyway to watch the "sunset" i.e, one light on clouds. We aren't having the best of luck with the weather and sunsets.

La Jolla pier

Surfing

Sunset.

We stopped in La Jolla for some food as we were starving. And found a propped up tree on the way back. Which Rachel had to test.

"Hold me up!"

I got a very large coffee (with extra expresso shot) for the drive home. It was all freeways. I am amazed that more people don't killed themselves or other people. But I finally figured out the rules for the freeway. 

- As long as you aren't going to take out the front or rear end of another car, changing lanes is fine. Closer the better. Wy waste space?

- Checking mirrors and blind spots is ok but not really necessary. 

- Driving close is encouraged. In fact if you can see the whites of their eyes,  perfect!

- It is best to be in the outer lane for as long as possible before realizing you need to take the right exit, whereby making the most of the dramatic lane crossing as possible. 

- There are no fast/slow lanes. Do as you like.

- Beware of the slow/right-hand lane - sometimes it will just disappear off to the right while the rest of the freeway continues elsewhere leaving you very confused. 

- And stay left/right could mean anything from the left/right hand lane to any of the possible 5 lanes you can get in.

It was long drive but I have now done LA traffic, 6+ lanes, in the dark. And not died! I felt accomplished and rather brave! (And very tired!)