San Diego

This Sunday we had a very exciting day trip, we went to San Diego! It takes about an hour and a half to drive there, and is essentially a straight line to the south. We'd come prepared for all weathers, but it was quite a nice day to adventure, around 24c and partially cloudy all day, so we didn't get too hot (or burnt). 

The first stop was La Jolla Cove (pronounced la hoya). There were parking spaces along the coast road, but it was busy even for 10am. We got a space quickly, but we were lucky, we didn't see another free one all day! As soon as we stepped out of the car we could hear (and smell) the sealions. They were very noisy and right on the beach by the town. There were loads of them laying on the rocks and many had babies! 

Sealion pups!

Along the shore there were also some birds which I think were a type of pelican as they had very long beaks. We walked along the coastline for a while, seeing more and more of the wildlife until we got to a little structure going into the sea. We walked along this pier and saw a seal out on the rock. I tried to get a picture, but he was the same colour as the rock and was hard to spot in the photograph. 

There's a seal here I swear

We only had three hours of parking, so we stopped for a smoothie before we headed back to the car. As soon as we got in, another car was pulled alongside us, ready to take the spot the minute we vacated. 

After the beach, our next stop was Balboa Park. This is a huge park which houses San Diego's major museums and the San Diego Zoo. We didn't have time to visit any of these (the museums close at 4pm and the zoo is a whole day event), but the park itself is huge and has a lot of pretty gardens and amazing architecture which is all free to look at. 

The anthropology museum

There were some beautiful spots, my favourite being the Spanish art village which was so colourful, all the paving stones were painted bright colours and there were art pieces and sculptures hanging everywhere. 

We also caught some of the organ recital which takes place each Sunday afternoon. Apparently it is the world's largest outdoor instrument, and it was immense. We stayed long enough to hear a suite transposed from a string quartet arrangement and a suite written by an organist from Notre Dame. 

The natural history museum is on our list for next time, as is the anthropology museum, but as I said, they close quite early and are paid entry so we wanted to make sure we made the most of our visit! I was already pretty tired after the early start, so we hopped on the free tram back to the car park and headed home for the day.

If you want to see all of our photos of the day, then you can see them in this online album here.

Final thoughts on San Diego: very nice place, we will definitely be back to visit a lot in the future as it's so accessible. It's also quite a big city, the drive from the beach to the park (roughly one end of the city to the middle) took us about 20-30 minutes on the highway, so there's a lot to explore!

In other news, we now have a dining room table! We thought it had been cancelled as that's what the notification we received online said. They'd already started issuing the refund when it turned up at the door, so we might have got it for free! And that now completes our furniture for the apartment.

On Thursday evening we went back to the people we had bought the car from as they're moving this weekend and had loads of kitchen stuff they were getting rid of and another armchair. Our cupboards our now very full of spices, baking equipment and random foodstuffs they weren't going to eat before they went. I am going to be very busy baking cakes!

Until next time,

Love from Emily and Mitchell