Catching up. Part 4.

This SHOULD be the last of the catch up entries. I hope so anyway! I dislike the fact that I am having to condense everything down to one paragraph per event.

So, I finished off on 18th January. So what else has been happening?

• 21st January it rained and rained and rained. Luckily by the evening it had stopped as we had plans in the form of a 40th birthday party for a friend which we had met at one of the Brit meets. The party was at their house, they had a Mexican caterer in for the food. The party was a lot of fun and we got to talk to people we knew already together with a lot of people we had never met before.
• 22nd January we decided to head to the zoo, whilst we have the passes hubby had actually not been since we had them. He really wanted to see the Koalas. We got to the zoo and discovered that the Koalas are currently not on display as they are in the process of building them a new home which will take up to 6 months to build. San Diego zoo has the largest amount of Koalas outside of Australia. Whilst we didnt get to see the Koalas we did see quite a lot of animals- as usual it was only a few hours there, the zoo is so big that you could probably spread it out over a number of days to see all the animals. We took a ride on the cable car also.

• 25th January I was meant to go meet my friend from Scotland. This did not happen as there was a slight issue with the toilet overflowing with water upon flushing. A day of cleaning the bathroom and rest of the bathroom followed.
• On the evening of the 25th hubby and I met with a couple we know through his work for dinner, we ended up at a place in Mission Valley called Luna Grill which is a Mediterranean Cafe. Read that as Greek and Turkish food. I had a Lamb kabob (yes that is how it is spelt out here) whilst hubby had a chicken one. It is rare to find places which sell lamb for some reason out here. Saying that I have seen very few sheep! It was a good evening.
• I had my first driving lesson on 26th January, given that I hadnt been behind the wheel (other than 20 minutes round an industrial estate down the road from here) for 13 years when I failed a test I was expecting to have a nice easy warm up and recalling lesson. As it happened I did most manoevuers and drove on a lot of roads with all different speed limits! I have a lot to learn but overcoming the initial fear and realising my knowledge was better than I thought it was is a good start! I dont suspect I will be writing anymore about the learning process or about my driving test as and when it happens (unless I pass and then I will talk about it!).
• Saturday we headed down to Mission Beach and parked up then walked to Pacific Beach. We had made loose plans with friends that if we saw them we would go for beer and burgers. As we reached the pier we found them. Good timing or what? We went and had lunch at Pacific Beach Ale House and were sat up on the roof terrace. Perfect sunshine, good beer and good conversation. It was just a shame that the food was not 100% it seems they had a few computer issues which caused havoc to their system. Hubby and I wandered round PB (Pacific Beach) a bit more then walked back. Worked out after that we had walked 5 miles! Wow. It didnt feel that much.
• Sunday we decided to head out to Seaworld- we had not been since 2009 and quite a few bits had changed, first of all the horses which are linked to the company who own Budweiser were not there, there was nothing in relation to Budweiser at all in fact and in the place where the Budweiser part had been there was some other animals and some items for sale. They are currently in the process of rebuilding the home for the dolphins so we didn't get to see them (we missed the show by 10 minutes!) and a new rollercoaster. We actually ended up getting annual passes because it only takes two visits to get value for money.

• Monday I got lots of great stuff in the mail from the UK. I still love receiving mail especially DECENT chocolate

• Last but definitely not least we went round to some friends for dinner on 31st, there was quite a lot of us there- 11 in total, we had lasagna followed by cheesecake, the food was good, the conversation was good and I somehow managed to drink a whole bottle of wine ooops!

So... thats me up to date at least to til the end of January! Back to normal (for me) entries soon :)

Catching up. Part 2.

I still have so much more to write about. So more bullet points! I know I wont get the whole of the time between 22nd December and now in this entry either!

• 22nd December I met up with the two ladies who moved over here around the same time as us. We met at Champagne for a coffee (well hot chocolate for me!) and cake and swapped presents. Well actually they were just decorations for the tree- we all had decided to try and find each other tacky Christmas decorations for the tree and we had to hang them on the tree.
• The rest of 22nd was spent in preparation for my family arriving- housework and cooking a delicious slow cooked chili with jacket (baked) potatoes. My mum, dad and brother arrived around half 8 and the evening was spent eating said meal, chatting and a few drinks.
• Mum and I headed out on 23rd to Costco, Walmart, Cupcake shop, Michaels, Ralphs, Trader Joes and Bishers Butchers to pick up all the bits for Christmas whilst my brother dad and hubby headed out to look at a mall and go to a few other places. We had a relaxing evening with Pizza. My brother and I also put together a Gingerbread house- which promptly fell apart.

• Christmas eve we headed out to Coronado, had a wander around the parts we had been to before but also discovered a completely different part which was near the ferry landing, I have posted pictures before of Coronado but here are a few of the bits which we found which we hadnt seen before.

•  On the way back from Coronado we headed to the San Diego Chargers Stadium, known as the Qualcomm stadium. This is were the American football team play. The reason for the visit was my brother needed to get some bits for his friend who supports them. My brother however is a Detroit fan and Detroit had beaten them just a couple of days before. Oops! 

•  The evening of the 24th my mum and I were baking sausage rolls (using the pork mince we had picked up from the butchers), Cheese and onion rolls, Cheese straws and cookies.
• Christmas day we had a lovely breakfast and then packed up the car with the BBQ and foods to cook. We first had a wander along Mission beach, then walked back up Mission Bay before having a BBQ right next to the beach.

• On the way home from Mission Beach we headed to La Jolla where we saw Seals, Sealions, squirrels and hummingbirds.

•  As Christmas day fell on a Sunday everyone had the Monday off in lieu- in the UK this would have been a bank holiday anyway. Most people were out at the sales, we however decied to head to Ramona and Julian.
• The following day was our mall day, we went out to Fashion Valley Mall and to Mission Valley, I cant recall whether I purchased anything though!
• My brother and dad went to Flying Leathernecks Aviation Museum whilst my mum and I went to Costco on 28th- or should I say we tried to go to the Costco that the sat nav was telling us to go to but this didnt exist so it was then looking for another one instead! Once we were finished we picked up my brother and dad and headed to North County Mall.
• 29th we headed to the Plaza Camino Real Mall then drove through Oceanside, Carlsbad, Encinitas, Solana and Del Mar. That evening we all went for a meal (including hubby of course) to On the Border, the food was pretty good! We saw our first black widow spider outside! EEK!
• We headed to Balboa Park on the 30th, my mum and I went round the zoo whilst my brother and dad had a wander round the park! It was so busy in there though that by about 3 we headed out, we had seen all of the more endangered animals during that time.

• New Years eve we all headed down to Downtown. We managed to find parking at $1 an hour which was much cheaper than the car parking we normally use- I believe that one is about $10 or $15 a day, we had a wander around the Gaslamp district, headed to Horton Plaza Mall, and walked down to Seaport village where they were setting up for the evening where some guys were jumping across from the North to South parts of the harbour, or it may have been the other way! It was getting a bit chilly- whilst it is warm during the day we find that the evenings are cooler so we headed back to the apartment and chilled for the evening with nice food and some alcohol!

OK, I think I will end here as I have concluded December, another entry will follow soon!

Live animals. Dead fish.

San Diego is full of animals. Despite it being a city.
The weekend before last we were walking back to the hire car from the British food shop where we had been to a meet. Low and behold on a porch there was a skunk. We were not in the middle of nowhere. In fact we were in the area of University Heights a place where there is homes and shops. I was going to take a picture as I was shocked to see one but it started to turn around. I certainly didnt want to be sprayed.

Then in the past week I have had sightings of Coyotes twice from the balcony on my apartment. I know I don't live smack bang in the downtown area, in fact I am in a very suburban area. I still hadn't expected to see Coyotes and at first thought they were foxes! I live literally two minutes from a freeway! I kind of shocked someone when I got my words mixed up and said I had seen a cougar. Hey, I can't help having blonde moments. The blondeness goes beyond the roots.

So they are the wild animals I have seen. Oh and some rabbits but there are rabbits everywhere so no need to talk about them.

Also in San Diego there is a zoo and a Wild Animal Park. I have yet to visit the Wild Animal Park but will as we now have annual membership cards. I went to the zoo with M back in 2009, the zoo is enormous. We had thought we had seen the whole of the zoo as we had taken the bus around it and taken the cable car from one end to the other and we had walked a lot. How wrong I was.

Last week I went to the zoo with a friend. We saw a lot of animals that I had not seen previously and in three and half hours we still didnt get round the whole of the zoo. Thankfully we can go back anytime!

I am not going to flood this blog entry with a million zoo pictures. I will just put a few of my favourites.

It rained all day on Saturday. Sunday however M and I headed out for the day. We set off for Salton City to see the Salton sea.

Salton City and in fact Salton sea are right in the middle of the desert. There was an accident which caused a lake to be made in 1906, this lake was known as Salton Sea. For many years the area became a tourist area and fish were introduced. It was seen to be a miracle. People were buying homes. The water going into the water was mainly agricultural run off. Botulism poisoning killed off the fish and some birds.

Most people fled the town, their homes left empty. There are many areas near to the Salton Sea. We visited Salton Sea Beach. This was an error, we should have visited Bombay Beach, maybe another time when en route to another destination.

The beach is not made of sand, it is made of fish bone. It was still surreal at this place. Here are some photos we took whilst there:

The sign for Salton Sea Beach- the sign used to be for the marina.

The beach

The beach with some derelict buildings

Fishbone sand

dead fish

Restrooms- no running water.

Another derelict building

If you are interested to see more about Bombay Beach on the Salton Sea, search for "The Accidental Sea" on Youtube. The place is meant to look post apocalyptic. We will get there eventually.