our first full day in san diego- and it was absolutely beautiful. unlike all the other cities we have travelled, san diego is the perfect combination of warm with sea breeze, sunshine and blue skies. none of this humid and sticky business! sharon acted as tour guide, and was kind enough to show us san diego in all it's glory.
we began the day by going to the navy exchange. in these places, those in the navy (aswell as their families) can shop and get discounted tickets to things. this involved the tickets to the cruise we went on- so we collected the tickets from there. nothing to make you feel more vip than driving into the naval base after flashing a card to a security man. being surrounded by young men in uniform wasn't so bad either...
we headed down to the water, missing the first boat by about 3 minutes. we sauntered around and had some lunch and starbucks before hopping on the boat about an hour later. this time we decided we might actually make it to the boat on time, and hopped aboard the 2 hour cruise of the water. the day was absolutely immaculate for it!
we sailed the north side for an hour and then the south side for an hour- seeing an array of different things. as san diego is the second largest naval base, the water was full of giant grey fighter ships. the person guiding the cruise informed us that those atop the flight decks on the boats are highly trained. so highly trained, in fact, that the average survival time for an untrained person up there is 92 seconds. wow. docked in the bay was also the boat used in the pirates of the carribean movies- a lot smaller than one would image! we sailed along to the beastie boys california girls and it was just an incredibly delightful way to spend two hours!
two parrots at seaport decided my earrings looked great and managed to pull them out and take them...
hopping off the boat, we sauntered down to seaport shopping village. here you could see that tijuana mexico was only a matter of kilometers away, with hasta de la muerta jewellery and sugar skulls sold on the footpaths. safe to say, i'm in frida kahlo heaven!! we sauntered through the shops on the port for a number of hours- stopping for delicious cookies (peanut butter mmmm). we met some real characters, including michael, a man with beautiful american indian jewellery. he was hoping to travel to darwin to come to some of the markets and sell his stuff. we gently encouraged him that darwin might not be the place, and perhaps to go for melbourne or sydney. before we knew it, it was 9pm and we decided it was probably time to head back, as the shops were closing around us.
the day grew to night, we retuned home for dinner and some cuddles with the dogs before retreating for bed. a nice relaxing day, with a good dose of beautiful blue water and vitamin d
