Life as it comes: San Diego

Last weekend Mom, Dad and I took a direct flight to San Diego for a Chargers game.

We left early Friday morning arriving at lunch hour. We hired a car for the weekend and headed straight downtown with my Dad driving and me navigating (with the help of the GPS); Mom was happy to sit in the back!

That afternoon we walked around the seafront mall, I managed to get my Chargers shirt, as well as all my regular touristy items. We then saw a harbour tour bus that was just getting ready to leave, and after some bribing to get a good deal, we headed onto the tourbus/tourboat. It was a bit breezy and overcast that afternoon and of course I left my jacket in the car, but luckily they had nice warm blankets for us to put on our shoulders! It was a two hour tour of the city, lots of information about the Navy, as well as a harbour tour looking at some of the navy ships, there stations, the dolphins and the very stinky sealions! The tour bus was also the harbour boat which was very cool! I had no idea that the Navy was mainly based out of San Diego and all the ships they maintain and manage, the huge navy station, and even the dolphins and seals they train to do deep sea recoveries and locating watermines, among a few things. All very interesting if you ask me, and not really surprising either! We were in the USA remember!!

Our hotel room was on the 10th floor and we overlooked the water. The military museum was to the north, as was the Star of India (the second oldest sail boat that still sails). To the south was the dock for the cruise ships and even further south was the Navy aircraft carrier musuem. We saw two cruise ships while we were there, and on our last day, The Explorer, SAS - Semester at Sea, was docking. This ship takes University students around the world while the study for the semester. They had been gone for over 3 1/2 months and there were tons of family and friends waiting to pick them up. Pretty neat to watch as they docked, both families and students had signs that had made for there significant others. We were also lucky enough to not only see one set, but two different sets of fireworks! One Friday night and another Sunday night. One set was from Navy aircraft carrier, and the other was further in the bay. And we watched it all for free from the comfy seats of our balcony!

Friday evening we decided to stay close to the hotel and went across the street to a restaurant on the waterfront, and of course had seafood! It was an early night for us, as we knew we had a busy weekend in front of us, so we called it a night after a couple drinks back at the hotel room!