San Diego 2006
For those that are interested in my trip, I had a lot of time to kill in the airport so I wrote about all my adventures. Or at least those ones I want you to know about. Its a tale told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing.

All Photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/photomaps/sets/72057594099537616/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/96868652@N00/sets/72057594104587135/

Saturday - April 1st, 2006

Expecting to get a call from my parents saying they would be coming to pick me up to go to the airport, i waited patiently by the phone. After calling them a few times at home and not getting an answer I called my dads cell, to which I found out that they were still in Toronto after missing an over night connection flight. My aunt Grace and her kids gladly took me to the airport, and we all ended up meeting my parents at the airport. My plane left around 2pm and I flew to Chicago for my stop over on my way to San Diego. The Chicago airport was quite large but i found my way over to my gate and waited for 2 hours. I had something to eat at the airport and had a conversation with someone from sacramento, who told me somethings to check out while in San Diego. My flight to San Diego was about 3 hours, tho i can't remember exactly because of the time change as well as daylight savings time. My cousin Elena picked me up at the airport after I gave her a call, and she picked me up in her sporty BMW 325 around 10:30pm. After dropping off my stuff at her apartment we went out for drinks downtown. There we lots of places that were "happening" that night, but we ended up finding a place called "Hennessays" which was a cross from a pub and a dance club. After a drink we went back to her place and i fixed up my bed on the couch, which would be my bed for the next week.

Sunday - April 2nd, 2006

We both slept in. The couch was quite comfortable but I had kicked off all the sheets. Lovely. We started off the day by going to the dog beach, a beach in correnado which was just next to a military base which happened to have a golf course on it. Nice. I now realize why there is such a desire to be in the military here in the US. Farley (Elena's dog) had a great time on the beach, enjoying the company of the other dogs, and his owner. Our bellies started to grumble a little bit so we dropped Farley off back home and went out for brunch at the Mission restaurant, a popular local restaurent chain in San Diego, with many delicions food selections with many different fruits and other goodness wrapped inside them. The wait to be seated as well as the wait to eat was quite long, but the food was well worth the wait. I had some banana/strawberry pancakes, and I can't remember quite what my cousin had, but it was laced with rosemary and was yummy. We went back to her place for a little bit, to take a bit of a nap after our big brunch meal, and then went to Pacific beach (more commonly known as "PB"). It has a number of shops and restaurents, and had a "gimli" like flavor to it. There were a few people trying to surf but the waves werent all that big so I never saw any of them catch a good wave. We ran into Elenas friend Dan at one of the local bars, the "Tavern" I believe it was called. She had recognized his laugh without seeing him directly. We all talked about going to the Padres game on Wednesday. I bought some flipflops while we were there since I had forgotten to pack my sandals. We went back to my cousins place, which I may refer to as home from now on, as she made me feel quite welcome into her home. I'm quite surprised how well we got along, and I don't think I could spend that much time in the same company of some of my other cousins without going completely insane. We were in need of groceries, so we ended up having soup and peanut butter (a different PB) and jelly sandwiches. My cousin liked to dip her sandwich in her soup, I prefered to keep them seperated however did try the interesting mixture. My cousin watch her favorite TV show "The Sopranos", while I tried to hijack one of many wireless networks which were waffling around her internet (at one time I had 5 to choose from). I'd like to thank "NEPA" for providing me with excellent wireless service throughout the week, and the one called "Not Yours" gave me a good laugh. We layed low the rest of the night, and just watched a movie that was on the TV.




Monday - April 3rd, 2006

Monday was the first day I was on my lonesome in the morning and afternoon. After sleeping in a bit and catching some good old american propaganda news, I took a stroll downtown into the Gaslamp Quarter/District, named for the Gaslamps which used to light up San Diego and still can be seen every few blocks if you keep a watchful eye in the sky. Elenas place is only 3 blocks from Petco Park (home of the San Diego Padres), and very close if not bordering the Gaslamp area, an apartment very close to downtown just like mine back in Winnipeg. I walked around and took a few pictures to capture the beauty of San Diego, and all the different architecture which had influences from many different cultures. I got back to her apartment shortly before 5pm, making sure I was home before she was to assure that she would be able to get back in her apartment, since I had her keys and dongle to activate the elevator. She got back around 7pm, and shortly after she arrived home we went to a wine store across the street and had a tasting of several different wines. She purchased two of her favorite wines after which we went back to her place to drop them off at her place. We then went downtown in search of sushi. The sushi place she had raved about since I first got there wouldnt serve us since it was close to 9pm, something I've never seen in Winnipeg. They were supposed to serve or allow seating til around 9:30pm so we were both kind of pissed. We found another sushi restaurant a few blocks away which. I had some eel nigiri, which was a first for me, as well as gojira and crazy monkey rolls. After sushi we went home and called it a night.




Tuesday - April 4th, 2006

I was up early this day, having trouble sleeping because of my lingering cold. My cousin called me around 10am telling me about Old Town San Diego, and how I could get there by simply taking the trolley, which was about half a block from her apartment. I hopped on the trolley around noon and went to Old Town, which had a collection of different places one might expect to find 150 years ago, with a modern museam flavor to it. I walked around and took a few pictures and read a little about the history of San Diego and California. I got back home around 4pm, again wanting to get home before my cousin was done work.




Wednesday - April 5th, 2006

Spent most of the day inside since it was raining a bit in the morning. I looked over my thesis and started a new presentation for my thesis defence, since most of my previous presentations presenting my work have a little too much comedy in it. Caught up on some news and just chilled at my cousins place for most of the day, taking the odd nap here and there. Once my cousin got home, we went downtown to join Dan for a few beers and nachos before going to the baseball game. We got to the Padres game just when the first inning was ending, who were playing against the SF Giants. It was cold as hell, but I was a tough canadian in my t-shirt and roughed it out, as it was still warmer than it was in Winnipeg. I cheered for the Padres, so of course they lost. At one point I went to use the washroom, and was not gone for more than 4 minutes, but in that time I missed a homerun from the Padres. The three of us walked back to my cousins place, however Dan left shortly after we arrived. We threw on Alien vs Predator on video-on-demand, however both fell asleep less than half way through the movie.




Thursday - April 6th, 2006

I spent most of the morning writing emails, and catching up on my daily news on the internet. I called my great-aunt Helen around noon to see when my grandma, aunt, and uncle were expecting to arrive in San Diego. The three of them had previously been visiting Las Vegas and touring around Nevada and California. It was just a coincidence that we both happened to be in San Diego at the same time. I found out that they were arriving at my great aunts place around 7pm that day, so I planned on visiting them while I had the chance, since lately with school and lack of car I've been unable to get out to see my grandma. Before visiting them I was informed about a transit bus that would take me from downtown to pacific beach if i wanted to go there to shop or go to the beach. I checked it out as well as did some window browsing in a very interesting outdoor shopping mall, which is very nice and refreshing on nice days, but Im sure would be awful during days where its crummy out. From what I was told it doesnt rain much in San Diego, so this is likely why they had decided to design it in such a way. I wish i had taken my camera to take pictures of it because it had some interesting architecture. I went for tasty indian buffet at a place downtown called Monsoon. I got back shortly before 5pm, snacked on some food and watched Sideways via video-on-demand. It was good for a few laughs, and I learned a little bit more about wine and relationships. I went with my cousin around 8pm to visit the other side of my family (Elena is a Johnson, the other 3 are Greenhams). I introduced Elena to my Greenham counterparts, and we sat and talked about this and that until just before 10pm. It was set in stone that tomorrow we would go to the San Diego Wild Animal Park, which was quite a ways north of San Diego. When we got home we tried watching Alien Vs Predator again on V.O.D. however we both ended up falling asleep on our respective couches before the movie was over.




Friday - April 7th, 2006

I was awoken by a call from my uncle, saying that they were almost ready to leave my great aunts place, and were on their way to pick me up. I quickly showered and picked up my camera as we were on our way to the Wildlife park. The car was packed with 6, but the 45 minute drive to the park seemed quite short with all the beautiful scenery. We arrived at the park around 10am and proceeded to walk around and take pictures of the many animals. We then took the tram ride around the park, which lasted about an hour and showed several of the animals in a more "normal" habitat for them. As one would expect if another creature was patrolling around you every half hour, you'd position yourself far away from them, and sleep or hide. We stayed there til around 2:30pm, enjoying a bite to eat at the end of our wildlife park adventure. They dropped me back off at my cousins place around 3:30pm, so I sent a few emails and caught up on some news. When my cousin came home, we made the decision to go to the club Saturday, and just have a low-key Friday. We went out for Italian food in the gaslamp district and had a few drinks at a local pub. We both felt a little underdressed for the location, but we still had a few drinks and had a good talk while enjoying out beverages. On our way home we stopped at Starbucks and enjoyed a Cafe Latte (her) and a coffee (me). I was feeling quite wired so I ended up staying up til around 2am.





Saturday - April 8th, 2006

One of the most interesting days of the trip, at least of what I can remember of it. We slept in, which was needed since my poor cousin had been working hard all week and had to get up early for her long drive to work. We snacked on some fruit which we had picked up the previous day, and then proceeded to the San Diego Zoo around noon. The Wildlife Park had been very interesting, however it was nice going to the plain old zoo to get closer to the animals, something which was a little harder to do at the park. We stayed there from noon til around 4pm, got a great walk and got to see a ton of animals. I got a number of great pictures and movies, however my battery died around 3:30pm so I missed out photographing a few animals, most notibly the koalas (the 3-4 varieties they had there were all very adorable). My cousin snapped a few on her small Canon which i was unable to photograph.






Right after we left the zoo we went to a supermarket to pick up some fixings for dinner. We had decided to make lasagna together earlier in the week, and tonight was the night. We also bought a few bottles of wine, energy drinks and vodka, since we planned to get a little lit before going out on the town. We started fixing the lasagna around 6pm and started dipping into the wine. We each contributed in the cooking of the lasagna and it turned out quite wonderful with the italian salad on the side. By the time we had started our 3rd bottle of red wine, we sat outside and talked about life and all that fun stuff. There were a couple who were making out in the hot tub below, when they left I wanted to shout something but my cousin being more wise than myself told me not to. We played some cards and enjoyed the rest of the wine as we listened to some oldies coming from the TV. My cousin was a lot better at guessing the songs than I, however I blame the wine. We left for the bar around 10pm, and I made the mistake of having a redbull/vodka before I left, which turned out to be quite strong, however some of you might know how well redbull can mask vodka. We walked for a bit and then took the richshot (sp?) to decos. The driver weaved in and out of traffic, and got us there quite quickly. I paid the man (or so I am told) and we then went into the club. The rest of the night is a bit of a blur, but I do know that I had a night Ill never forget, though some of it I did. Haha. What happens in San Diego stays in San Diego.





Sunday - April 9th, 2006

Spent most of the day recovering from the wild saturday night I had. Not much to report. Had leftover lasagna when i felt i could keep it down. Watched a bit of tv while my cousin did some work.

Monday - April 10th, 2006

Woke up early, packed my stuff, and my cousin dropped me off at the airport before she went to work. I had a small bite to eat and a frappucino from Starbucks, and began writing about my adventures while I waited 3 hours to board my plane. I arrived in Vancouver around 3, and by the time I arrived at my departure gate it was around 4. I found a plug to charge my electronic belongings and again began to waste away time until my 6:30pm departure. My parents picked me up in Winnipeg at around 11:30pm and thus ends my vacation. Back to the real world. Just in time. My Visa was bleeding to death.