Our most southerly US city .... San Diego

San Diego (Carly): Fri 02/02/2007 3:34 PM

Well hello again!

Thought I'd drop a few more lines about our week in San Diego.

We stayed in a beautiful penthouse apartment. It was very American with an ice dispenser on the front of the fridge and an elevator straight from the garage to the apartment! We had relaxing mornings sleeping late (well us kids did!) and cosy family evenings in!

We visited Balboa Park (not named after Rocky) where we saw the largest outdoor organ in the world. An English lady was playing in and the carols got us in the Christmas spirit! There was some sort of dog club there, hundreds of people with silly little sausage dogs all dressed up in little outfits. we'd never seen anything so ridiculous, especially the few owners who were wearing costumes to match their dogs! There was also a replica of the Old Globe Theatre but instead of Shakespear they had a performance of "How the Grinch stole Christmas"......hmmm!

Dad took us to some outlet stores so Adam got even more clothes! I found a lovely pair of boots too. We did a lot of whale watching from Loma Point but unfortunately didn't see any whales. Dad and the boys had fun poking around in rock pools though. There was an old lighthouse at Loma Point with a museum inside. It was much more interesting than it sounds and we learnt lots about the lonely life of a light house keeper.

We spent a day in Sea World where we enjoyed dolphin and killer whale shows. The sea otters were very cute too. There were a few water rides, Mum bought a plastic Mac, Adam and I sneaked to the back and Dad got soaked! After a motion simulated helicopter ride we saw some huge polar bears and beautiful white beluga whales.

We spent our last day in La Jolla a pretty town north of the city. Again no whales but we did see a colony of harbour seals with their pups on the beach. That night we drove into Old Town, the place where San Diego started. It has been turned into a national park and the original buildings have been replicated. It was like stepping back into the Wild West!

Hope everyone is well!

Love Carly xxx

San Diego (Adam): Fri 02/02/2007 11:12 PM

Hey everyone,

Me again already, it's raining here so we decided to come back early from our day's sightseeing (in Washington).

After LA we drove down the coast of California to San Diego. On the way we stopped off at a few places where Dad used to live when he was a kid. Must have been a tough childhood living in California right by the beach I think.

We stayed in a huge apartment in San Diego right by Mission Beach. First day there we took it easy and drove to Balboa Park which boasts the world's largest outdoor organ. Why the hell they built it outside is beyond me, organs only normally sound gd because they are in old echoing churches. There was also a meeting of the San Diego Dachshund Club going on which was hilarious to see. Imagine all these people turning up with sausage dogs decked out in Santa outfits! Americans can be so fun. The dogs were all wearing Christmas jumpers and red and white hats.

We spent an afternoon shopping in an Indian (sorry Native American) reservation. Those wily Indians have worked out that because they govern themselves inside their reservations they are free to open casinos in states where gambling is otherwise illegal. This way they make tons of money and can build big outlet centres to make even more, it's genius! And i heard a rumour they are only allowed to govern themselves in the hope that it would be a total disaster and they'd be forced to integrate into American society...

We spent a day getting in touch with nature. We looked for but sadly did not see whales that swim by Point Loma. After giving up on the whales we began searching for crabs and other such animals that dwell in the tide pools near Point Loma. They are very strict about conservation in California which is a good thing but at the same time they all drive the biggest trucks imaginable which kinda has the opposite effect. Seriously they have signs that say "Removal of marine wildlife, rocks or sand from State Parks is a Federal Offense.

We visited the Wyatt Earp Museum and learnt a little about the group of cowboys hired by Wells Fargo bank to police the town of Tombstone. There was also an interesting display about America's first nudist colony but i won't bore you with the details.

We spent a day at Seaworld and saw Shamu the world-famous killer whale. Shamu and friends put on a good show jumping out of the water and splashing the audience (only those stupid enough to sit on the seats that say 'soak zone' on them anyway). This time it was Dad's turn to get soaked on the log flume coz he took the front row. We also saw polar bears, beluga whales, walruses, seals, sea otters and dolphins. The sea otters were enormous and they swim around on their backs holding fish in their little paws and nibbling them. There were three huge manatees from Florida that had been hit by boats and were being kept at Seaworld to recover. They have no natural predators but many are injured by propellers.

On the last day in San Diego we drove to a part of town called La Jolla and saw a colony of Harbour seals lazing around on the beach. There were about a hundred of them, every now and then a few would drag themselves down to the water and have a swim and then crawl back up the beach to lie down again, hard life, until you get eaten by a shark. That evening we went to Old Town where the original Spanish settlers formed San Diego. It is a very pleasant group of one-story wooden buildings like in the old west and there are a lot of Mexican restaurants there.

Anyway that was San Diego, a very nice city to visit. From there we went on to San Diego for Christmas. I'll tell you all about it next time coz i have a feeling it's gonna be a long email.

Take care

Adam